Pressure tester

[markadams]

I recently purchased a pressure tester from Williams (Ray), looks a nice little unit. I was not at a stage with any of my jobs to try it out but a friend was so he borrowed it to test a CH system he had just installed. I gave him a quick overview of how to operate it but he must have forgotten some critical information.

He has just come back and told me that he tested the system to the pressure of the PRV (3 bar) and the system had no leaks. Well after speaking to him a little further it turns out that he pressurised it to 3 MPa (30 bar).

Despite him having no leaks of the system at this pressure do you think this will cause any future problems?, I am surprised the push fit stop ends he used withstood this pressure.

 

[Chris F]

Lmao how long did it take him to pressurise it to 30 bar ?

 

[Ch4 plumbing]

Whoops, lucky a cap didn't fly off and hit someone!

 

[markadams]

I tried it on a short bit of pipe just before sending this message as I was curious, it only takes a 7 strokes of the handle.

I have not used the tester myself yet but looking at the gauge it will go upto 70 bar, that seems crazy.

 

[stratplus]

Surprised pipes didn't split. Cant have been good for the fittings.

 

[markadams]

At least I guess he knows that the pipework will take anything the boiler can throw at it. LOL.

 

[Ray Stafford]

I have seen Polyplumb pumped up to the point where the pipe started to deform, but the fittings didn't blow off.

 

[Chris F]

@ray stafford . That is impressive

 

[markadams]

Hi Ray,

Just thought I would do some testing of my own, I just pressurised a pipe with a solder joint and push fit stop end. I increased the pressure to 45 bar for an hour, just checked it and other than a slight drip from the stop end, everything looks fine.

 

[Ray Stafford]

Hi Ray,

Just thought I would do some testing of my own, I just pressurised a pipe with a solder joint and push fit stop end. I increased the pressure to 45 bar for an hour, just checked it and other than a slight drip from the stop end, everything looks fine.

Thats serious pressure for domestic plumbing!

 

[markadams]

Yes it is serious pressure, I just wanted to see if it had any effect on the pipework, mainly because my friend is getting very concerned now. I did not think that the joints would take that sort of pressure but it seems they can.

Mark.

 

[PlumbersMate]

Would love a 45 bar back scratcher

 

[stratplus]

I have heard concerns from large building companies of overpressurising. They have had issues with fittings blowing off/failing when heatings have gone on at commissioning stage on new builds. They were concerned that 18 bar was too much. Not my work I may add so cant comment on someone elses testing but was more than one property.
I have reached 18 bar, after 2 mins had 10mm pipe split.

 

[Mike Jackson]

Quite a few years ago I had a couple of apprentices with me and we were doing a complete re plumb in Hep. They asked me what pressure it would take so I said let's give it a go. I connected a bit of copper to the test pump to Hep with a Hep coupling and capped the Hep with a speedfit cap. I then pressurised it to 60 bar and it held. After holding for an hour we decided to try and make it fail. Chucking bricks at the pipe didn't work so we took the sledge hammer to it. This partially flattened it but it didn't split. We finally got a failure by smashing the speedfit cap with the sledge hammer.

We also tested copper, a compression coupling and an end feed cap to the same pressure and it held but didn't try the destruction testing as we knew that a sledge hammer would flatten it.

 

[stratplus]

Interesting, I thought the 10mm hep may have split due to a possible hit with the hammer when nail clipping.

 

[AWheating]

some of these no specific uk testers have different scales on the pressure guages. most do have bar in small print somewhere tho.

its always best to use your eyes to see LOL