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Need urgent information about old copper pipe please

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Discuss Need urgent information about old copper pipe please in the Plumbing Jobs | The Job-board area at Plumbers Forums

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M

Masood

Hi All,

I hope someone can help me, I'm part way through a bathroom refurb, got the floor up and the pipework is a mess - a real spiderweb of tangled pipes. TWO central heating pumps, TWO three-port valves. (One set has been electrically isolated and the valve manually opened, so they are just part of the pipework. Anyway I can simplify it all, and probably improve water pressure/flow rate, but the rising main is a type of pipe I've never seen before. Thick walled copper, slightly bigger than 1/2", and it has threads cut into it, like iron barrel! What I need to know, urgently, is how to connect this size of pipe to 15mm. Neither end-feed nor compression fit on, and there is no space around the pipe to get a file in.

Any ideas, please? This is going to be a mare otherwise!

Thanks in advance!
 
I don't know if you can still get them TBH but a 15mm metric to imperial adaptor may do the trick? Far as I remember 15mm was smaller than the old 1/2" and 22mm larger than 3/4" ... :)
 
One of these sorts of things
endfeed+imperial+to+metric+copper+fitting+12%22+to+15mm.jpg
Maybe?
 
Can you not get a thread cutting die and put a new thread on or will a 1/2" female iron not fit?

Never come accross this myself yet though but if its copper then there's loads of ways to do it, eg pipe expander.
 
15mm and 1/2" are interchangeable as is 28mm and 1".
22mm to 3/4 an adaptor is best else use a 22mm compression with an adaptor olive or just use a 22mm comp and tighten it a bit more.
 
On another note you aren"t planning on leaving it all under the floor if you tile it are you?
 
You tried a 16mm to 15mm conex coupler? Ive never come across this before with threaded copper but if regular 15mm compression/endfeed fittings dont do the trick its possible this might.

COreducer.jpg
 
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Long time since I've seen threaded coper too tamz :) ... Like the idea of the socket former! The threaded copper was soft, if my memory serves me well? That's touch and go! lol
 
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I've never come across any for years now. It is probably nearly all ripped out and weighed in. I have a couple of pieces of it lying around somewhere.
Here is a photo of a 3/4" bend showing the thread pitch compared to a bsp. The pitch is similar to that on a kuterlite or prestex fitting but i can't remember what it is.
IMG_3303-1.jpg
 
There's a lot of this pipe in the Bexhill area. A lot of people file it down and use a compression coupler. I anneal it and use my Rothenberger socket forming tool to form a 15mm socket on it.
 
I think what you have here is 20 thread ie 20 threads per inch have found this in large 20s houses, yorkshire used to make an adaptor threaded to soldered sadly no longer avalable.
I had to deal with 3/4 version last year transision fitting did the job.
Often found the treaded joints were not boss white and hemp as you might expect but threaded together and then soldered used to be nick named plenty thread round here due to its weight when scraped!
 
WAs it called 17 gauge or something like that, like Mike said there was a fair bit around my area & we used to file & put a compression fitting on, but not seen it for a few years now.......unlike durapipe.....
 
The ole socket former, ive never used one of those since college. Atleast i know what to do if i ever come across any of this stuff, thats the beauty of these forums.
 
Yes Tamz is right, it is an odd size. The usual metric to imperial adaptors are no good. Either expand it or file it down to fit a converter. You may have to anneal it to expand it. I can't remember the thread size either as said most probably weighed in years ago.
 
Thanks all for the information! It seems to be a regional thing as some people on here recognised it and others didn't. I'm not the most experienced plumber by a long chalk but I've been around the building trade for a long time as my Dad was a builder. Never seen it before in London.

Anyway, I went to PTS in Loughborough and a plumber in the shop recognised it straight away. It's 17-guage, and PTS do both compression and end-feed adaptors to attach this to 15mm. The end-feed is actually brass as well.

Something new learnt, and a couple of fittings bought to keep in the van.
 
It's 20 thread. You can get brass end feed adaptors from merchants in Loughborough area. Come across it often in the Loughborough area, good for weighing in!
 
Asking out of the interest of lazy plumbers who charge too much everywhere, wouldn't a philmac sort this?
 
Possibly but they are too large to use in a lot of situations and look horrendous if on show. You've also got the bonding issue with a plastic fitting in copper pipe.
 
Im sure you are allowed a certain length of plastic pipe depending on the size, 15mm I think you can have up to 1m without it affecting the bonding as it is deemed the water will carry the current for that distance or something like that. I cant remember the exact figures but I know one plastic fitting wont affect anything.
 
mfgs said:
Im sure you are allowed a certain length of plastic pipe depending on the size, 15mm I think you can have up to 1m without it affecting the bonding as it is deemed the water will carry the current for that distance or something like that. I cant remember the exact figures but I know one plastic fitting wont affect anything.
Click to expand...

You'd best let the institute of electrical engineers that then because I've got a paper from them somewhere about earth bonding and plastic pipe which states that water is too poor a conductor to act as an earth. Even if it did what would happen if the water was turned off and a fault developed?

I don't know where you got that snippet of information from but I would totally disregard it.


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