Bad weekend...

[chips55]

I attempted to remove and cap off a water pipe that fed a wash basin. Bought the compression fitting, turned the mains water off, started cutting and discovered that the pipe was iron or lead, not copper. The pipe is quite inaccessible, so I can't cut a thread onto it and cap it off, and the place where this particular pipe is joined to the main pipe is behind six inches of concrete in my cellar.

As a last desperate attempt, I tried to cap it off with the compression fitting (I wrapped the olive in teflon tape), which sort of worked (there just remained an extremely slow leak when I turned the water back on), to stop the leak I put some special mastic for fixing leaky pipes around the fitting, there's still a tiny leak, am going to try putting a bit more mastic on today.

Anyone got any suggestions about how I should have done it?

 

[slippyr4]

surely you can tell the difference between iron and lead? lead is soft, iron is not.

What size is the pipe?

 

[DP]

Wet gear, boat and oars come to mind.

NEVER cut anything until you are sure you can effect a fix.

 

[Nige F]

You shouldn`t have but you could look@ your local diy shed. they sell copper pipe...it`s copper coloured. they dont sell iron .and no one sells lead pipe now, not even cluedo

 

[chips55]

Thanks for the replies. Being pretty new at this pipe cutting game, I'm not yet experienced in telling the difference between iron and lead based on their relative densities and saw-ability. It was a b****r to cut through. Once I'd cut through it and realised it wasn't copper, I presumed it was iron, I only thought it might be lead because I know that a lot of older houses have lead pipes. I might add that it was very rusty and thus a copper colour. Not a mistake I'll be making again.

Anyway, whether whether I can tell the difference between iron and lead, and why I cut through it is rather immaterial now, as the damage is done! The pipe is 22mm or thereabouts, at least that is the size of the compression fitting that has (sort of) done the trick. Really, the leakage is minimal, a drop every five minutes or so.

This may be a stupid suggestion, but once I had a tap fall off and I blocked the flow with a cork from a wine bottle as a temporary measure while I waited for a plumber. What if I unscrew the top bit of the compression fitting and bung a cork in the iron pipe to stop it up, then put the top back on? This should stop the small leak I have, I would think, but is this likely to taint my water supply or cause any other nasty problems? Perhaps if I use one of the new plastic wine corks it would be better? Thanks for any tips.

 

[BenStiller]

Im sure i will get quoted on this, but if you say its a drop every 5mins, from what i gather, as you have used compression, apparantly it will self seel in a short space of time, something to do with the minerals in water.

 

[Nige F]

Im sure i will get quoted on this, but if you say its a drop every 5mins, from what i gather, as you have used compression, apparantly it will self seel in a short space of time, something to do with the minerals in water.

I quote and agree with you leave it alone...it`s probably half inch iron very rusty if it looked like copper And yet another "Idunnit" story...I repaired a iron pipe underground once by welding up the hole in the top,that was spurting....managed to get the water out, and bingo.

 

[DP]

You call that a bad weekend.

For me bad weekend was taking a full tank of petrol IN A DIESEL VAN. Now I have all that petrol contaminated with diesel to dispose of.

 

[PEDANTICVINDICTIVEMAN]

Hey DP dont bother about the petrol in the diesel, I put 3/4s of a tank of petrol in my diesel van before realising, my van ran a bit weak power wise but was ok, just keep adding diesel as the gauge goes down to improve the petrol to diesel ratio, it's putting diesel in a petrol vehicle which is a BIG problem.

 

[slippyr4]

It was a b****r to cut through.

Then it wasn't lead. You could probably cut lead with a breadknife.