Isolating water supplies.

[Whitespirit66]

There's nothing to plumbing.

All you've got to remember is...............
hot water rises, and sh*t flows downhill.

 

[securespark]

Thanks, but I'm sure there's a bit more to it than that....

 

[Symptoms]

Whitespirit wrote:

"Gate valve.

No sir.

Work of the Devil!

A full flow lever arm valve if you please."

But only if Mrs securespark isn't in the habit of hanging-up heavy damp towels from convenient 'hooks' (ie.lever arms) in the airing cupboard

Anyway, looks like secure's already got the right tackle in place.

 

[securespark]

Well, I thought I had.

I had a go today at capping off some pipes temporarily.

First, the hot supply to the shower. Turned off the gate valve at the bottom of the cylinder. Hot tap stopped flowing, great! Cut the pipe, trickle of water, lovely! fitted stop end and tightened. Smashing.

Then the cold. Cut the pipe. Gush. Sh*t.

Only then did it dawn on me that in my new found plumbing confidence not only had I forgotten to drain off the cold storage tank, I had omitted to turn off the main 'cock as well.

Uh oh. Large uh oh.

With a massively-cursing (think of words rhyming with "clucking" and "hat") Mrs Secure plugging the pipe with her thumb and a Man Utd. shirt (well they do have their uses ), I raced down and turned off the water then used a bin to capture the remainder of the tank... the sofa in the lounge only got a little bit wet....the cushion on it took the brunt of the leak and that's dried out now.

Even the drips from the ceiling have dried up, fortunately just like insults from Mrs S......However, I don't think I'm doing any plumbing again in a hurry.

However, I would nevertheless like to offer a huge thank you to all of you who have offered kind assistance to me.

It's not your fault I'm a complete idiot.

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

It can happen! Might be worth making a mental note for future purposes to turn on any taps etc on the pipework you wish to work on prior to cutting or undoing anything. Once the flow dries up it's usually a safe bet there'll only be standing water left in the pipe, not a tankfull waiting to make an exit!

At least the pipe was tank fed, thumb and Man U shirt may not have sufficed to stop mains pressure!

 

[securespark]

Yup! Could have been much worse....

Me on my own.

Cut into pipe under mains pressure....

While I of course could have dashed to isolate the flow, the damage (and Mrs Secure's language / reaction / etc) would have been infinitly worse....



Anyway, hope I've done two things:

(i) given folks a laugh at my expense

(ii) shown them how not to do it...