I know this subject has been discussed before, so apologies if it seems like covering old ground, but we have an old lead pipe that's driving us crazy!
It has a hairline leak and is spraying a fine mist under the floorboards in our top bedroom. This water is then "seeping" along the downward joists and causing damage to all areas beneath it. It is hard to get access to it as it's in the corner, it's impossible to get compression joints on two ends. I can't even put a "bandage" around it without digging a large hole in the ceiling of the room below.
After much detective work, we followed the pipe sunken beneath floorboards, it seems the pipe comes in the house at the front into the cellar, then runs upwards (to where the old Header Tank would have been I guess), then along the top of the house, under the floorboards where it's "sunk" beneath the main joists where they seem to have dug-out a sort of "mouse-hole" shape to accommodate the lead pipes.
I know that lead pipes are BAD NEWS, but our problem is that it supplies cold-water feed to the whole house, and therefore we need a fix for now - until we replace it all with plastic.
Does anyone know how to mend this pipe with restricted access? Is it enough to GENTLY knock it with a heavy hammer 20 times then squash on some Milliput? I've tried pouring some molten lead onto the pipe but it doesn't create a strong enough bond to adhere.
It has a hairline leak and is spraying a fine mist under the floorboards in our top bedroom. This water is then "seeping" along the downward joists and causing damage to all areas beneath it. It is hard to get access to it as it's in the corner, it's impossible to get compression joints on two ends. I can't even put a "bandage" around it without digging a large hole in the ceiling of the room below.
After much detective work, we followed the pipe sunken beneath floorboards, it seems the pipe comes in the house at the front into the cellar, then runs upwards (to where the old Header Tank would have been I guess), then along the top of the house, under the floorboards where it's "sunk" beneath the main joists where they seem to have dug-out a sort of "mouse-hole" shape to accommodate the lead pipes.
I know that lead pipes are BAD NEWS, but our problem is that it supplies cold-water feed to the whole house, and therefore we need a fix for now - until we replace it all with plastic.
Does anyone know how to mend this pipe with restricted access? Is it enough to GENTLY knock it with a heavy hammer 20 times then squash on some Milliput? I've tried pouring some molten lead onto the pipe but it doesn't create a strong enough bond to adhere.