i got a house in april and im doing it up but i have found all the copper pipes in the house have splits evry 50cm as it was -30 over the winter and
the heating was off and the pipes were not drained,what i want to know is how long will the "o" ring in the push fittings last if i re-do
the whole house it in polly pipe. (i have just finishe decorating and turned on the water flooding the house there was water coming out evrywhere.)
are they water pipes or heating pipes, personally if water pipes I would do in platic pud sh fittings, central heating in copper
all water and heating i need to re-do the whole house,i was hoping to move in next week.i had a gas fitted fit my combi today and conect the main
water and turn it on .
It was -30 this winter?
are we talking about in this country??
Lowest ever recorded temp in scotland or england was -27
quote:
Originally posted by steve m
Lowest ever recorded temp in scotland or england was -27
quote:
Originally posted by Peteff
quote:
Originally posted by steve m
Lowest ever recorded temp in scotland or england was -27
So we are going to split hairs over -3 degrees rather than acknowledge that it was cold enough to burst his pipes? There are different systems you can use for heating and water systems and they are now pretty much industry standard so I would not hesitate to use them if I needed a job doing quickly.
Sorry, it was just my odd humour
Ive used plastic in my kitchen for hot and cold, personly i dont know if i would use it for the heating
but it only gets down to about -12 here in the south
I am in the trade and refurbish properties on a daily basis. My plumber always uses copper everywhere. I would certainly recommend copper for the CH. However, you should be alright with plastic elsewhere, it is much easier to install. Always ensure that the push fit joints are perfectly clean when assembling (no oil or dust) and there is no strain on them when installed, it is rare but I have seen them fly off. Barry
Did my underfloor central heating in plastic 12 years ago with no probs. You need to use barrier pipe to avoid dissolved oxygen.
Having said that mice eat through my neighbours plastic pipes
The pleasures of living on a farm know no bounds
as said above really. copper for CH due to prolonged higher temp and pressure.
plastic elsewhere will suffice and since the pipe is flexible it makes the job much easier. I have some plastic pipe and fittings in my house and over
time they will be replaces as I get to them, but that is a preference rather than a necessity.
either way good luck, plastic stuff is very costly, and copper isn't getting any cheaper,....
Crikey, seems a lot of people are in the dark ages!
Plastic is fine everywhere, except within a metre of the boiler (and that may have changed)
I have had a plastic install in a letting house for 16 years. When the combi filler went all leaky, as in filling the sysytem all the time but luckily
slowly, and the boiler pressure release valve happened to be seized
the pressure went off the gauge. However, the ONLY joints that weeped were a
few rad valves, all the push fit was fine. I have done my whole house in plastic (5 years ago, no issues) plus another rental (10 years ago) that had
one leak where the chappie who helped me used a saw to cut a joint and it wasn't square, so human error.
Get a proper cutter, make sure all is the same make, and that every joint is fully pushed in. Not difficult. Not clever. Just quick and more
expensive, but it does save loads of time. Use coper for the rad tails as it is prettier, and the one place the pushfit can't be used is on
stainless pipes (and possibly chromed copper??) as the teeth cannot bite, and they will slowly work there way off if you are unlucky.
Sorry if people think I am daft/rude, but it seems nobody has else has actually used the stuff. I know some plumbers that ONLY use plastic (except for
tails) as the reliability is higher than soldered joints, and no risk of fires (yep, plumbers do set fire to houses, ask the surveyor my missus works
for)
I think the only place you don't use plastic is on the combi condensate drain or on any pressure relief valves like on a megaflow cylinder.
In the commercial world plastic is widely used for everything. I even designed a multi million pound data centre using plastic pipes and a problem in
one of those usually costs millions an hour!!
I used a product called Qualpex when my house was built 9 years ago everywhere in the house except within 1 metre of the boiler and the hw cylinder
(if yours is a combi boiler, you won't have a cylinder) as was the rules at the time. I've had no problems whatsoever.
Greg.
quote:
Crikey, seems a lot of people are in the dark ages! Plastic is fine everywhere, except within a metre of the boiler (and that may have changed)
I did a mates bathroom in copper push fit and wouldnt bother with soldering again.
Advantages of plastic
1 quicker and easier (push and twist in the case of speedfit, who also make fittings for use on cars. Yup bought a car in the last 15 years or so and
not Japenesse then you've got push fit fittings already)
2 quieter no need for expansion loop (not that I've seen a plumber fit an expansion loop in the last 20 years) but due to the flexible nature of
plastic it doesn't carry those 'banging sounds' like what cooper does
3 the more pressure the better the seal
4 the 'o' rings are good for at least 50 years, i've known copper to rot/pin hole in 3 years (extreme case)
5 much lest scale build up, apparently as the pipes carry vibrations it kinda shakes any scale off
6 no resale value...so if your renting your house out the tennant aint going to do a bunk with first having ripped all your copper pipes out and taken
to their mate the scappy Ok they may still take the rads but at least they are easier to replace
7 YES you can use it on hot and cold pipes (although I thought it was within 1.5metres of the boiler but it's probably changed)
8 in cold conditions the plastic gives better insulation value than copper (although no ware near enough for -30
) and if it does freeze plastic
stretches rather than split, although the fittings themselve being hard plastic will split.
Also takes the same sized insulation as copper.
9 it's the fittings that tend to make it dearer than copper use rolls of rather than 3metre lengths and only use fittings where ness and
you'll keep the price down.
10 YOU DON'T SET FIRE TO THE HOUSE WHILE FITTING PLASTIC UNLIKE BLOWLAMPS AND COPPER
That wasn't supposed to take that long
the problem with plastic is that it looks amateurish to many customers, they assume that you havent used copper because you arent skilled enough to solder it (i know its not really a skill, but that what some people think). And in places where there are lots of joints, like under the kitchen sink, its very expensive and looks a total mess. Plus many taps will wobble more if they arent on rigid pipes.
I need to replace my CH piping over here and was going to use plastic.
As I have a full cellar under the house, I intend to run copper down from the radiator, through the floor and then join to plastic.
As I use the cellar I had the idea of running the pipes in square electric conduit.
Plastics OK but the cost is horrendous, buying from Screwfix is bad enough but from B&Q even a bag of 5 pipe stiffeners is a rip off. As your now
fitting a boiler the pipe freezing shouldnt be a problem again.
If it was me copper and end feed fittings every time.
Cheers,
Bob
i just needed to know how long the o rings would last ?
as i was told 10 years by a mate ?
i was going to do it in copper but polly is so quick and easy i wanted to use it.and i have a very small pipe chase so without major work it would be
a nightmare soildering the pipe work .
as for the cost there is not much in it if you get the pipe and pipe fittings from ebay.
it worked out about £100 more for push fit.
(should have said i have used speedfit loads of times )
I had 2 bursts in the utility room over winter, both from plastic 'T' fittings splitting along the molding line, the fittings are JG, not some cheap no name crap!
I've just finished a bathroom refit which involved a lot of repiping and ended up using copper soldered fittings throughout except for a couple
of compression fittings where soldering wasn't possible due to access restriction. I was going to use push fit fittings and got as far as buying
some and starting to use them but it didn't like they way the pipes can still rotate and move about. I also read too many stories about pipes
popping off after a while and flooding the house.
Apparently one of the most common probs with pushfit is nicking the o-ring during installation which causes it to weep so make sure you chamfer the
pipe ends to remove any sharp edges. The other common problem is not pushing them together far enough causing them to pop off so mark the pipe with a
pen to allow you to judge engagement properly. With plastic pipe you need to cut the pipe carefully and use pipe inserts to stop the pipe crushing -
another common problem is forgetting this step.
I thought about it long and hard at the time and weighed up all the pros and cons and concluded that copper soldered fittings was the way to go. Much
more compact, elegant, mechanically rigid and tried and tested over decades. I'm so glad I did it this way now the floor is all sealed up! Peace
of mind!
Cheers,
Craig.
OK, cards on the table, I work in R & D for Polypipe.
Cliftyhanger has it spot on.
Just to add, our plastic pushfit fittings are guaranteed for 25 years.
Another company guarantees theirs for 50 years, but to be honest that's just marketing!!
Check whichever system you buy is certified to BS7291, 2010 and you'll not go far wrong.
There is a system on the market not certified and sold by screwfix........I wouldn't.......
Used Hep2O throughout during my renovation. Water and heating. Found it appeared to be better quality than the JG Speedfit. Great stuff. I think they're the ones offering a 50 year gaurantee now on the latest gen stuff. Think it was 'only' 30 on the stuff I used. Easy to install, can disassemble joints for maintenance/flushing/modifications etc. I have the boiler and incomming main in the integrated garage so I made manifolds there for hot, cold and central heating flow and return, then individual pipe runs to every fitting. So I have no joints at all under the floors anywhere. Not that I'm worried about the Hep2O joints.