Black plastic supply pipes from cws...?

[Artisan Bathrooms]

Hi guys,

Got a situation with hot from a combi and tank fed cold so the customer wants the tank bypassed and cold hooked up to the mains. I come across this more often than I'd hope, but this case is a little unusual.

Firstly, massive asbestos tank, so no cutting that up (or even moving it into the corner of the loft as it's so heavy).

Secondly, the confusing bit - the supply to the ball valve is 3/4 inch copper, fair enough, and the old cold feed for the hot (capped 6 inches from the tank) is also 3/4 copper. However, cold supply from the tank to the bathroom and separate toilet is black plastic. Looks like about 28mm (or 1 inch probably) and there's also a couple of tees off this in 3/4 black plastic pipe. The pipe feels like MDPE (except it's black).

So, does anyone know what I'm dealing with here? Is it old school imperial MDPE that's been used to supply a bathroom for some reason? and is this commonplace anywhere? Only place I've come across anything that looks like this stuff before was on an old stable yard... And are fittings readily available for this stuff?

Any advice gratefully received....
Cheers

 

[rssteve]

i have some plastic pipe in blue like you describe, it states "plastronga" on it, or something very similar. it uses compression fittings.

 

[holty]

Sounds to me like black alkathene, used commonly in the old days but prone for splitting if bent too aggresively, eg sharp radius bend.

If you go to a plumbers merchants and ask for fittings for this im sure they will know what your on about. i tend to use Plason fittings for these with the class c or d converters.

 

[Artisan Bathrooms]

Thanks holty - sounds like the stuff. I've used the plasson fittings on blue MDPE but not this black stuff. At the moment the joints are made with pretty standard looking brass compression fittings.

Are the c & d converters reducing sets to use old imperial pipe in metric fittings? and will I need imperial inserts for the pipe?

Cheers

 

[doitall]

All the information should be on the pipe ever 3 feet

 

[Artisan Bathrooms]

I did have a look and couldn't find anything on the pipe. There was an awful lot of crap in the way though so I could've missed it...

 

[doitall]

It will be there in green or blue writing depending on the type