Joining to old water pipe

[blawford]

Just bought a (relatively) old house (1957) and the bathroom seems to be the original. Need to change over the taps on the cast iron bath and I'm not familiar with the pipework I am looking at or the most efficient way to join to something more modern (preferably flexible tap tails with isolation valves). Not got diameters I'm afraid, but I do have some digital callipers on order that should provide that information, if it isn't obvious/common.

Can anyone help me out?

Also what is up with the bulging pipes, is that a design feature or some kind of failure, they aren't leaking or anything but there is black particles coming out of the tap, mostly on the cold side (the pipe closest to the camera).

Thanks in advance.

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Sorry to say but you need to have a complete new heating and water system as it’s old galv pipe eg steel and lead

Wasn’t this found on the inspection?

 

[blawford]

Inspection being when we purchased the house? We didn't get one and it probably wouldn't have changed the situation much anyway, wasn't expecting this house to be easy.

In my experience it probably wouldn't have found this anyway as every exposed pipe I have seen (under sink cupboard, radiators, boiler, hot water tank cupboard etc) are all copper, so they would have had to lift floor boards or remove the side of the bath to find this, which wasn't easy to do.

Given that is the case (it is mostly copper, than I can see), where do I go from here? Sounds like I have some reading to do.

 

[Last Plumber]

The bulges are normal and quite a neat job to be fair. The bulges are for strength. The joint lies within but they look good from here.

You would be better to replace them with copper if indeed, you can get back to copper.

You will likely find that the copper pipes are 1/2" and 3/4" (not 15mm & 22mm). It's not a problem though. End feed, solder ring or compression will fit the 1/2" (bit tight on soldered fittings but should tap on). The 3/4" to 22mm, you can buy adapters in solder type fittings or an olive in 3/4" which will fit 22mm compression fittings.