Welcome to the forum. Although you can post in any forum, the USA forum is here in case of local regs or laws

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

View the thread, titled "Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!" which is posted in UK Plumbers Forums on UK Plumbers Forums.

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

i've got a length of windscreen washer feed hose from the local car parts place for doing this
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

i take a grinder to some of my tools to get them down to a short length to get into those......difficult spaces !
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

Mentioned this in another post, but thought I would say it here. :- Don't leave your cordless batteries lying loose in your van, as it will set fire to any steel wool it touches!
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

Oh and it will be the electrical current that does the damage to the wire wool. 🙂
Yep! Steel wool touches the battery contacts & the wool turns into an electric fire element! Hard to put fire out! I am careful, yet didn't occur to me, this could happen.
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

i am goin t bust some bum if folks keep junkin me thread on here.

tips only, no banter please.
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

dont no if this ones been said but i use my u gauge tube on boiler drain points, fits perfectly and saves you going to the van, normaly just leave it draining into the sink if there is one
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

ALWAYS keep a full change of clothes and shoes in the van just in case........... (especially where outside work and soil stacks are concerened)


Joss sticks are useful when checking air draw on flues, make less smoke, smell nicer and are a site cheaper than smoke pellets.
 
Last edited:
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

leak detector is great for getting stains out of carpets if you dont have anything else
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

Here's a good tip: Banter can be disguised neatly as a tip with little skill/parts. What you do is you take one piece of 'I Enjoyed The Above Tip Southcoastboile' and wrap it tightly around some 'Good Point Don'tKnowItAll.' All going well you should have yourself one 'Useful Warning There, Best' which is ready to use in a few hours.
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

don't know if this has been posted already but here it goes

when soldering pipes and the pipe keeps falling out of the fitting or vice versa due to gravity, squash the end of the pipe ever so slightly with your grips and this will make the pipe stay in the fitting and won't fall out, don't deform the pipe too much or you will struggle to solder the joint. Comes in handy when soldering in Tee's or anything similar and this way it is easier to keep the pipe level when you are soldering without holding it
 
Last edited:
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

when changing rads the wrapping makes a good dust sheet same with boiler changes the boxes cut up properly make good worktop protection
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

If you wear shirts for work never put your phone or any other valuable equipment in your top pocket and lean over a blocked manhole!
never leaan out of a mansard window to view the blocked gutter with a stanley knife in your top pocket especialy over looking picadilly how its mised everyone ill never know and it only broke the blade
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

Some great tips here, i have a few. 1-Instead of buying those expensive strips to clean pipes in those hard to reach places prior to soldering. Why not get a roll of sanding paper and cut them into strips, its miles cheaper and does a better job.
2- You can get a neater finish on soldering if you apply a gentle heat to the joint and wipe away the excess melted flux that trickles down the pipe
3- You can also use a pencil to mark around the joint prior to soldering and the snots just fall off because it wont bond to the pencil mark
4-If you have a leak on a coupling on a waste pipe never fear, put some glue on the leaking part, put your wet vac on the end of the pipe and you can suck the glue into the leaking coupling.
5- you can put overflow pipes  into your pipe bender and pull 45 degree bends and offsets, u cannot pull 90s tho lol.
6- I never really bung a tank you just stuff the cold feeds up with a plastic bag, tuck it in with a screw driver (not all the way of course) and voilà, it works,  forget bungs lol
7-You can cut lead perfectly with your plastic pipe cutters that you would use on hep.
8-If you pull a 90 degree bend on 22mm pipes and file the burr you can slip hep pipe through it to get a tighter bend without kinking the pipe.
9-This I ONLY do when i forget my hole saw kit at home (which is all the time lool) you can heat up the end of your copper and use it to cut the nice hole in a cold water tank and any snots can be scraped off with a chisel it works a treat, trust me.
10- If you have a blackberry phone use it to store measurements of the most common things and material lists in it memo pad function ( i've set mine to my side button, so one press and hey presto).
11-the 15mm pipe came out of a 22x22x15 tee on a live heating system on one job, all i did was stuffed it with bread through the 15mm hole on the fitting and soldered a pipe to it, then put a ballafix to the end put the wet vac on and sucked the bread out.
12- You can make slip couplings with a socket former and a hacksaw, just knock in a longer socket and cut it with the hacksaw (not slice)
13- If you have a loose wall plug or its spinning a bit pack against it by slipping lil chips of wood beside it.
14- Try very hard not to use compression joints under the floor or in places you cannot later get to.
15- try to pull more bends under the floor and use less fittings which lowers the chances of you getting a leak.
16-drain a cylinder fast by putting the hose on the drain off, drain as usual and taking the top nut out or the immersion and slip a piece of 22mm pipe in there put your wet vac on the pipe using a cloth to cover the gap between the vac hose and the 22mm pipe, so u dont lose suction and your off, less than 10-15mins on a standard cylinder, you must be prepared to empty the vac a few times tho lol
To be honest i could bloody write a book on tricks, you guys got some good ones  but i bet you have more, I just developed a way of doing things that lets me put up a combi and power flush;the system before half day with all neat pipework put in 2 by 6pm daily, its also to long to write down on here lol.
keep writting guys cheers
 
Last edited by a moderator:
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

All good John Blade, cheers, although it's not recommended to heat tube and punch a hole in a plastic tank with it as it weakens the wall of the tank.
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

Thanx for that system3, i only really do it when im in a tight spot (forget my holes saws at home) i never had any probs with it before and we are talking years now, but thanx again much appreciated.

you can use wd40 to on old silicone the enzymes in it destroys silicone so theres not really a point in buying silicone removers. thought id add that tip before my message gets deleted lol
 
Last edited by a moderator:
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

I'll def give the WD40 a go on old silicone. Cheers for that.
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

we have found a resident tipster lol.

what about the combi swap?.
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

If your silly or unlucky enough to have to fit a bath with the taps at the back against the wall, please dont use tap conns & fibres, I might get called to fix the leaks 12 months after you've gone. Better to buy taps recessed for a plain nut & olive and a nice bit of copper tube not plastic.
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

use a glove when using wire wool. Anyone got a good tip on how to get the little ****ers out when u havent got tweezers handy!
 
use a glove when using wire wool. Anyone got a good tip on how to get the little ****ers out when u havent got tweezers handy!

I've a mini pair of pliers on a small leatherman key ring which are very handy for splinters!
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

i know storage for lux brushes hAS being mentioned before but another idea that i use for them is a toothbrush holder got mine for£1 from pound shop
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

Why pay a fortune for Fishcer fixings for a wash basin. M8 and M10 Stainless steel coach bolts with 10mm wall plugs does the job as good and far cheaper. A full box of coach bolts and washers costs £6. Tighten with a socket set wrench.
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

u can make ur own flux brush with 10mm pipe and some brussels of a brush stuff them in the end and crimp with a hammer then cut to size
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

i know this seems like common sense, When installing underfloor heating for a builder or if other tradesmen are working on site, once you have laid the pipes down before a screed etc, pressurize the pipe to 5 or more bar so that if any dodgy tradesman puts a nail through it or damages it, the water will pi55 all over him lol and you can deal with the problem instead of them hiding it and you finding out after the jobs completed lol.

If your finding it hard to drive a screw in lubricate it with silicone grease or another form of lubrication before screw driving, this is very useful if you are screw driving by hand.

a very useful tip is to use and air testing gauge, which can be bought at screwfix and a bicycle /car pump to test small sections of pipe very quickly.

If you have a persistent leak or some task proves to be quite challenging take a 20 min break, have a cup of tea or something to eat and come back to it refreshed and ready to take it on, you will be surprised what a difference this actually makes to completing the task properly.

If your not sure about pressurising old pipe work (when converting to a new system) drain it down and do an air pressure test this could save your a55.lol

if you cant slip your hose over a drain off put your hose tip in warm water and try again.

You can fasten a bath to a wall by just getting a short piece of wood 150mm and tucking it under the lip underneath the bath and then screwing the lower part of the wood into the wall so it acts like a clamp, it will make the bath really firm before carpenters build the frame if your not doing it yourself.
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

Save the 3/4" plastic nuts & rubber washers from old washing machine /dishwasher hoses. Put a ten pence inside the nut with a washer on top and you have a homemade blank end. Most new w/machines are cold fill only so the cap is great for blanking off the unused hot valve. For extra security, remove the plastic handle from valve as well.
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

use a magnet to check for iron oxide build up/blockage in pipes( only effective on copper or plastic not steel pipe )
no guarantee of diagnosis, but if it sticks - indicates a problem.
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

always take the burner torch of the gas bottle when not in use ( especially a piezzo igniter )
I didn't until I went out to the shed one day to find it full of propane
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

never ever ever do what an inexperienced plg trainee like me did and use the 10000000 year old stopcock thats burried underground in the garden. i used this because the one in the kitchen was it terrible shape. so i used the outside stopcock and the head came off the tap when it was in the closed position(and i promise you i wasnt using much force)........not cool. seventrent dont deal with it if its on your property. in future if i find myself in the same situation ill use the one in the street. the trouble was it wasnt directly outside the house so i couldnt tell whos was whos..........best of all....it was the mother in-laws house.



lucky for my after blagging my way into getting the seven trent man to take a look at the broken stopcock he merely chuckled and said ''ive got a bit that will sort this out quickly'' and thank god for that!!
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

Hi guy's, 1st post, i only read up to page 9 so sorry if this one has already been said, If the gate-valve ever sticks shut in a vented h/w cylinder you can get your apprentice to stick a w/machine waste spike into the c/w storage tank draw off to save draining the storage tank.
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

dont remove a trap and pour the water into the sink....
set a pressure reducing valve to 1.3bar ish connect two 15mm flexi's and use to fill sealed systems on your own!!!
 
dont remove a trap and pour the water into the sink....
set a pressure reducing valve to 1.3bar ish connect two 15mm flexi's and use to fill sealed systems on your own!!!

That will work but i think most people will half fill the system then leave the filling loop cracked open just a bit then run round and bleed rads


Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk
 

Official Sponsors of Plumbers Talk

Reply to the thread, titled "Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!" which is posted in UK Plumbers Forums on Plumbers Forums.

We recommend City Plumbing Supplies, BES, and Plumbing Superstore for all plumbing supplies.

Thread statistics

Created
REDSAW,
Last reply from
firemant,
Replies
1,091
Views
209,247
Back
Top