Frozen apart mains stopcock joint - Picture

[outmyway]

I got home after a few days away on Sunday to find this compression joint frozen apart on my mains stopcock in the garage ...

Is this normal, or was it not correctly tightened?

The pipe had pulled off the olive which was left inside the valve joint.

Luckily I had left it off!!! (plus a plastic speedfit 15mm joint had been split apart ....).

Are the electric wire pipe heating elements any good ... or would lagging cure this?

 

[HERTS P&D]

I take it you had the water turned off. Well done!!!

That could of caused major damage if that had happened indoors with the stop cock still on.

Thaw out the pipe work. Reconnect the pipe if possible. It might not fit as the pipe might have expanded. If so then it means new pipework.

Andy

 

[Burnerman]

If the joint had been any tighter, the pipe would have split which would be more aggro.....
Go for plenty of lagging before thinking about heating wires.
John

 

[outmyway]

This all happened at 10pm on SUnday night when I got home ...

Luckily I had a spare 22mm olive ... so re-did the joint after thawing it out with a fan heater ....

and re-did the JG plastic 15mm joint that had also split ...

The house was 2c !! I suspect the boiler frost protection which is only 2ft from the stopcock had not kicked in becuase of a recent power cut ...
I had always 'maybe wrongly' that residual heat from the boiler would stop the pipes from freezing ...

Plus I had left the CH on with the house thermostat at 5c ...

 

[mickroyds]

As well as the power cut, is there also a cut out/sensor if the boiler fails to see mains water pressure present ? Frozen.

Mick.

 

[OvertonPlumber]

this is normally caused by builders /groundworkers not correctly ducting the watermain into the building. Ive had blocks of flats where the builder has concreted the mains in and when you have long runs it will just "PULL "of the stopcocks. Long lengths of any materiel need room to expand and contract.

 

[Nige F]

I blame the pipefitters for not putting expansion loops in

 

[outmyway]

Thanks for the replies ...

The water main is new and put in last summer ... although it does run through a sleeve in the concrete so should have some flex in it.

I blame the pipefitters for not putting expansion loops in icon_mrgreen.gif

What are they?

The boiler (a WB Highflow combi) does run the CH with the water off ... but maybe with no mains pressure?

The CH system was installed last summer by a WB approved local plumber .. I commented that had not lagged ANY of the pipework in the garage .. he said it wouldnt be a problem .. uuhhmm ....

 

[studips]

if you wanted to allow for expansion on say a long run of copper, you can remove a section of pipe and bridge it with an elbow, bend a 180 deg loop and another elbow on the other end, it's an interesting thing, but not really relevant in this instance.

box it in with batten and plasterboard, then lag it heavily with loose rockwool (plus armaflex if you like)

 

[outmyway]

I'm going to try these:

Frost Protection Heat Tapes
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Cable_Accessories_Index/Heat_Tape/index.html

I work away for sometimes up to 11 days ... I think this is a good solution with prolonged periods of temps below freezing.

 

[studips]

they must be selling miles of this stuff.

yarp, insulation will only take you so far, and tape is cheap enough to run

 

[go4it]

What I still find annoying is why people feel the need to wrap PTFE tape around threads and joints with olives! If water is passing through the thread then the joint has failed and not been made up properly in the first place; use a little jointing paste on the face joint where the olive sits, you shouldn't need it after that, it is so unprofessional to use PTFE in the way shown in the picture.

 

[gasbanni]

Hope you realize how very very lucky you were !

 

[outmyway]

gasbanni

Hope you realize how very very lucky you were ! icon_lol.gif

Yes!
Although I do leave the water off in winter when I am away for any period of time ... and paid a lot of money to have the mains water main fed into the garage instead of 1st floor kitchen!

Go4it

why people feel the need to wrap PTFE tape around threads and joints with olives!

I totally agree ... had big argument with a bathroom fitter chap about this ... he even wanted to tighten the olive joint - then undo and wrap olive with PTFE tape and re-tighten ... arrrggh!

 

[doitall]

You should put ptfe or jointing compound around the olive.