iron water pipe dilemma

[nicam49]

Hello All, wonder if you can help/advise me here...
my daughter has a 1920s house and I want to re-route the water pipe into the kitchen. Currently, the incoming feed and stopcock are in the adjoining toilet, in 1/2" iron pipe. From the stopcock, the iron pipe rises to a T-piece which feeds the kitchen and ultimately rest of house. The top of T-piece feeds the cistern to the downstairs toilet, and the side output of the T goes through the wall and turns into a 1/2" copper pipe which in an unsightly way feeds the kitchen and ultimately rest of the house. I want to dispense with the T piece and make the house feed more discrete by having it rise in the downstairs toilet and connect to the rest of the pipework under the upstairs floor. So far so good....except I don't know anything about iron pipe plumbing. I've worked out that it's 1/2" and have bought both a fip and mip to 15mm compression fitting (brass) I scraped off years of paint and took these pics which I hope will make my description clearer.
How do I remove the T piece, or better still, fit a brass coupler to the stopcock and have it 15mm copper from there on? Take a look at the top of the stopcock pic... is that a nut that the iron pipe is inserted in or part of the stopcock itself? An added complication is that the house is in South Wales, and I'm in Leicester...house is currently unoccupied as it's being renovated. ...hope I can upload these pics...
Regards, Nick
sorry, it seems to upload multiple copies of the same pic..so 1, 2 and 4 are above the stopcock, showing the T-piece through the wall, and 3 and 6 are a close-up of the stopcock. pic 4 is the feed to the stopcock, showing an unknown coupler.
Thanks for viewing!

 

[foxhole]

No point bodging it , it will eventually fail , replace it all with plastic main.

 

[Doggit]

Sorry nicam, but that was too long winded, and not enough full stops and paragraphs to read sensibly. And on a Sunday morning, with only one coffee under my belt, I can't get my head completely round it.

So my best suggestion, is grab the brass fitting in the 1st photo, and use that further back down the line, (possibly in picture 4) and then replumb things properly. If you've got an angle grinder with a thin metal cutting blade, then that will cut the pipe off, and then use a pair of stilsons to twist the pipe off. Worst case, is apply a bit of heat to the other side of the joint, and the expansion will help break the joint.

 

[dilalio]

 

[Dan Robinson]

Jeepers that lead singer looks like my nephew

 

[nicam49]

Rip it up...ouch! that's going to cause massive disruption to the fabric of time, space, and everything.
And to make it slightly more challenging, the mains stopcock in the street is shared with next door.
A question about Stilsons....I always thought that they were the same thing as adjustable spanners.... for loosening nuts and bolts.....are they the best thing for gripping and turning (to unscrew) the iron pipe?

I'm now thinking using an angle grinder, (thanks, Doggit) cut through the T-piece where it goes through the wall, and try to unscrew the T-piece from the pipe in pic 1. then replace it with a coupler. I know the threads are packed with hemp....I can see fibres sticking out- I'm hoping that there's a trick to release it...is there?
One last thing about iron pipe plumbing.... do iron pipes like these use a tapered thread? I'm curious how that's achieved in the field.
Thanks for the interest and comments!......any more?
Nick

 

[footprints]

Well..... if you can turn the water off the best bet would be to strip back to the longscrew connector then you will have a standard ½" thread to work from in copper or (yuck yuck!) plastic.





The backnut unscrews to the right hand side (while holding the pipe the other side from turning) allowing the socket to be unscrewed back after it so releasing the pipe, stilsons will be too bulky to get in there to unscrew but should be OK for holding the other pipe a large pair of gland nut pliers should shift the nut end.

That's how to do it, but by the time you have bought the tools and struggled with a pipe that has been rusting for years it will be better to pay a plumber to do it.

Whatever you do decide to do with the pipe avoid moving that connector unless you intend to take it out as once that starts to leak around the backnut you are stuffed! The only seal is a winding of hemp and jointing paste squashed up between the nut and socket.

 

[EAST61]

Honestly just upgrade the mains to 32mm MDPE.

You'll improve the flow-rate to the property and improve the quality of the water by removing those old pipes.

Have fun.

 

[Nige F]

. I know the threads are packed with hemp....I can see fibres sticking out- I'm hoping that there's a trick to release it...is there?
One last thing about iron pipe plumbing.... do iron pipes like these use a tapered thread? I'm curious how that's achieved in the field.

Nick

Iron pipes have tapered threads achieved with tapered stocks in a holder . To release a hemp+paste joint apply lots of heat for several minutes.

 

[Madrab]

I'm curious how that's achieved in the field

One of these

& one of these

and lots of this

or buy a machine and take all the effort out of it

 

[Doggit]

If you've got a shared stopcock, then you'd be better off installing a new one in your property as the first job, then you can get the neighbours water back on whilst you continue your space time continum work.

 

[nicam49]

Wow thanks everyone, it's getting to be a real learning curve..especially knowing the proper names of the components-
that longscrew connector especially. And thanks for the warning, footprints, re the backnut to that connector.
Don't we 'do' dielectric connectors over here...seems to be a big deal in the USA, but not UK.

 

[Madrab]

We do use them yes, for certain applications, un-vented under counter heaters are one that springs to mind. Don't use them really for water mains applications like that though, we use universal all plastic couplers to connect different pipe materials together.

You may find that your daughters may now be internally corroded as it's been connected to that brass and copper pipe for a long time, is there a metallic taste to the water? May be worth considering removing as much of it as possible as others have suggested.

 

[dilalio]

Those pipes will be like Les Dawson's arteries - even when he was alive!

 

[nicam49]

Thanks for your comments..I'll certainly look into these universal plastic couplers...one I've just found is called a Talbot Gripper.
'groan' there's so much concrete from house to street stopcock plus steps down to street level....would just have to put entire pipe renewal for a not-so-rainy day (or week....) shared stopcock makes it more complex/challenging too.