Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

[kay-jay]

Buy brand new brass and copper fittings from the scrappy. All the contract lads will weigh them in at the end of a job rather than return them to their firms stores dept.

Mine sells end feed at 6quid per kilo. Works out about a third of the price.

Brass fittings 4quid a kilo. Here's what i got for 8quid yesterday.

Absolute bargain.🙂
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[WHPES]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

A local company summarily dismissed two contract plumbers last year for doing exactly that. You have been warned!

 

[kay-jay]

Yep but as long as they continue to do it, it would be cherish of me not to take advantage. After all reuse is better than recycle 🙂

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[acecharly]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

GasSafe Only#

On a tightness test if you ever get a rise in pressure on your gauge during the letby test, check the test point isnt partially blocked with grease allowing the system standing pressure time to slowly make your gauge rise.

This will save a call to the gas transporter and making yourself look like a right turnip....:blush5:

 

[mcniven]

You would always check the ECV anyway by removing anaconda and spraying LDF into it

 

[acecharly]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

True, but i didnt think of that at the time, i think id only been qualified for a few months back then. Its surprising how many people i come accross who in years of fitting had never come accross this. The transco guy said ECV's very rarely pass but like i say i didnt know that back then.

 

[Mike Jackson]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

We had one passing last year to such an extent that the boiler would still fire.

 

[Guest123]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

If you need to make up anything with a high shine chrome finish e.g for a shower backplate or a cover for a pipe going through a tiled wall or even covering a plastic waste pipe to make it look like chrome, then use high shine aluminium foil tape. I buy mine in widths of up to 200mm and it's really handy.

Self adhesive Aluminium foil tape 100mm x 45M [RTAL10045] - £8.76 : Tapes-Direct : Gaffer Tape | Double Sided Tape | Foam Tape | Anti Slip Tape at Tapes-Direct

 

[Guest123]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

We all come across crumbling walls that are just not built to take any weight and due to tiling or existing decoration cannot be altered or plywood added behind the plasterboard.

When retro fitting a towel rad to replace an existing rad, I sometimes add extra support at the base/bottom rung using a 22mm Munsen ring and back plate with a section of 15mm chrome pipe covering the M10 screwed rod. This is fixed to the floor with chrome dome headed mirror screws and adds really good solid extra support than the traditional plastic brackets and screws that come with it.

 

[kay-jay]

On a roll Colin! 🙂

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[Phil]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

When up a ladder clipping 40mm waste pipes I've often found that masonary nails (removed from nail on clips if none handy!) with a couple of brass cup washers make it quicker and safer than juggling a hammer drill, hammer, plugs, etc and risking breaking your neck especially a 3 storey house.

Position the clip over a mortar joint, I know the proper way is screws and that's what I use everywhere else but up a ladder I'm a jellyfish.

 

[Orry Clayton]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

Don't tell the other half you want to take on a young fit female apprentice!

 

[dontknowitall]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

......

 

[nadia69]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

on a leaking tap connector if the pipe is not true going into the plastic ballvalve use a hep2o conical washer of there tap connectors the little black ones works a treat or you can order 20 of them from plumbase

 

[SafeGasInstall]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

On a boiler change job , never turn on the mains without having the hot cuped off

 

[PlumbBobBob]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

speaking from experience stan?

 

[mcniven]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

When opening the upstairs taps at the basin (to help with draining the system) when turning the water back on at the kitchen sink, make sure uv closed upstairs taps 🙁

 

[Dannypipe]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

LOL - seems some people may have had some liberated water this week.

 

[Best]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

When turning water back on in a house, make sure someone hasn't opened some of the taps & not closed them & left a face cloth or a bar of soap on top of the waste hole!

 

[Subby]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

Buy some penetrating oil, really handy for stubborn nuts, old rusted fittings, seized screwed pipe (when heating the joint doesn't work) etc, comes as a spray and looks like WD40, mine cost me £2 (rp-90) and has saved me on numerous occasions.

 

[Subby]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

How to make a 10mm - 8mm reducer (end feed)
Slice off a short piece of 10mm pipe
Ream the burr out of the end
voila

 

[PlumbBobBob]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

you don't need to slice off a bit, just solder the 8mm into the 10mm if joining the two. i suppose if increasing to 15mm then you could do that.

 

[WHPES]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

Avoid losing compression fitting nuts down the pipe by clipping clip on pipe clips temporarily below the nut.

Avoid olives slipping off by squashing them slightly between your fingers before putting on the pipe so that they grip it.

Joss sticks are cheap (and better smelling) means of identifying air draw into flues etc.

 

[Dannypipe]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

If you ever remove a redundant or broken magnaclean filter, keep the powerful magnet.

Strip it so it's just the magnet, and tie it to a length of string. Dunk this in the machine when you're powerflushing. Apparently it speeds up the dumping process considerably (much like the inline mag filters for sale do).

Also on a radiator that is known to be more seriously blocked. Wrap the magnet in a soft cloth (or magnets if you're fortunate to have ripped out more than one). Then run this up and down the radiator. It will agitate the magnetite inside the radiator and allow for better powerflushing.

I can't take credit for these tips. A mate of mine who's a plumber sold me a couple of magnacleans last weekend. We had a quick chat and he offered up these gems. Make good sense.

Now I just need to find someone who has a leaky magnaclean so I can pilfer the magnet!!

 

[Subby]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

Now I just need to find someone who has a leaky magnaclean so I can pilfer the magnet!!

Neodymium magnets are cheap on e bay