Found some (old) pipes

[jpdw]

Hi,
Just begun to re-decorate the kitchen/diner in our 100 year old terraced house. There was some bad quality "boxing" down the side of the chimney breast which had to go (was so bad it can never really have fitted anyway).

I always suspected this covered some pipes :

Are these likely to have been for a back boiler?
Also, what pipes are they? Dont look like lead to me.. ..?

I'm pretty confident these are unused and disconnected -- the fireplace hearth has been partially bricked in, whilst above I've found some similar looking pipes running under the bathroom floor towards the airing cupboard (via a nice 30 degree joist notch).. and crucially I'm pretty sure I've found the cut ends of both.

I want to remove them, was thinking of hacksawing them off as flush as possible with the brickwork at the bottom and as flush as possible with the ceiling. Then carefully removing them and making good the plaster "chase". The sections in the bathroom floor void can stay as removing would probably be more effort than its worth. Is there a better way to do this?

Any thoughts/comments / advice would be welcomed as this is the first time I'll have taken out anything like this.

 

[seco services]

as you say from an old back boiler.
look like copper to me just cut them off.

 

[doitall]

Looks like black iron to me make sure the're not connected to the cylinder or back boiler/water jacket

 

[seco services]

now i can see the top pic wouldn't open before yes it's poss iron.

 

[jpdw]

Looks like black iron to me make sure the're not connected to the cylinder or back boiler/water jacket

The cylinder is directly above the cut ends in the 2nd picture and the back boiler would have been (I presume) in the back of the fireplace (to the right of the first picture) - which has had the hearth bricked in, no sign of anything but bricks (oh, and a winerack that sits nicely in the space !).

Gonna be having some hacksaw fun on Saturday then

 

[WDIK]

1/2" black iron going to copper, will probabley still wet

 

[jpdw]

1/2" black iron going to copper, will probabley still wet

If you mean it'll *dribble* when cut.... oh well, bucket & plastic on the floor.
If you mean it'll gush because it's still connected, I can see (& feel) -- 2nd picture -- that the top of the pipes have been chopped.

Unless the backboiler is still in situ (encased in the new brickwork in the hearth) and was fed from the water supply then the bottom end shouldn't gush either. On that subject there *is* a lead water pipe on the OTHER side of the chimney breast... BUT I think it's disconnected in the bathroom and before I chop the cast iron pipes I'll check the bottom of the lead pipe under the floor (I'd assumed its an old supply pipe from ground to first floor).

Unless you can see other reason why it will be wet still? Obviously I'd rather be cautious on this - sawing into a live pipe would be 'rather annoying'.

 

[WDIK]

obviously it was once connected to a header tank and hopefully its since been removed?

yeah realistically all you are going to get is content of heat exchanger
id double check for a header first before i cut though
or make a cut that can be sealed like drill a small hole?

 

[doitall]

1/2" black iron going to copper, will probabley still wet

If you mean it'll *dribble* when cut.... oh well, bucket & plastic on the floor.
If you mean it'll gush because it's still connected, I can see (& feel) -- 2nd picture -- that the top of the pipes have been chopped.

Unless the backboiler is still in situ (encased in the new brickwork in the hearth) and was fed from the water supply then the bottom end shouldn't gush either. On that subject there *is* a lead water pipe on the OTHER side of the chimney breast... BUT I think it's disconnected in the bathroom and before I chop the cast iron pipes I'll check the bottom of the lead pipe under the floor (I'd assumed its an old supply pipe from ground to first floor).

Unless you can see other reason why it will be wet still? Obviously I'd rather be cautious on this - sawing into a live pipe would be 'rather annoying'.

The lead one could be GAS

 

[jpdw]

1/2" black iron going to copper, will probabley still wet

If you mean it'll *dribble* when cut.... oh well, bucket & plastic on the floor.
If you mean it'll gush because it's still connected, I can see (& feel) -- 2nd picture -- that the top of the pipes have been chopped.

Unless the backboiler is still in situ (encased in the new brickwork in the hearth) and was fed from the water supply then the bottom end shouldn't gush either. On that subject there *is* a lead water pipe on the OTHER side of the chimney breast... BUT I think it's disconnected in the bathroom and before I chop the cast iron pipes I'll check the bottom of the lead pipe under the floor (I'd assumed its an old supply pipe from ground to first floor).

Unless you can see other reason why it will be wet still? Obviously I'd rather be cautious on this - sawing into a live pipe would be 'rather annoying'.

The lead one could be GAS

Thanks for the caution on that... it's something we'd wondered which was another reason for checking both ends of the pipe before doing anything (and obvisouly, if it's gas, leaving well alone). As I *think* the top of the lead pipe has been cut, I think/hope it's not gas (that would explain our expensive bills ).

 

[jpdw]

Seems the concensus is the cast iron pipes can probably be removed with caution .. after checking the lead pipe isn't feeding either water or gas to the probably-removed back boiler.

Thanks all...much appreciated.

 

[jpdw]

Thought I'd post an update on this...

First, a mate gave me a top tip to finally check the pipes were empty -- drill a small hole in each pipe near the bottom. He's learned the hard way apparently. Anyway, I drill, got nothing so was more confident they were empty.

The copper at the bottom was easy to cut through but the two sections of cast iron were an absolute g*t.

Trying to chop them flush to the ceiling proved pointless, even with an angle grinder, thanks to the pipes being mounted to the brick so not level with the adjacent plaster. Anyway, much swearing later I chopped the pipes in the void above, lowered them slightly and chopped again to remove them...

For comparion with the first image:

Now I "just" need to plaster up - but already it looks so much better!

Thanks again for your input.