Please help me repair my water supply pipe

[sandman77]

Last week I had a severe drop in water pressure and a new stream running over my back garden (and into the neighbours garden). Luckily I noticed it early and turn the water off at the toby before any damage was done.

Anyway after phoning my insurance company and being told it wasn't insured I phoned Scottish Water who said they would send out the leak team for an assisted repair. SW came out and apparently spent a day digging the garden up and couldn't find the water supply pipe never mind the leak. It was obvious to me they had been digging in completely the wrong area but they are now saying that they have spent enough time at the property and wont be coming back. Well thanks for that SW.
Anyway yesterday I decided to take an educated guess where the pipe and leak is and after a couple of hours of hard labour with a mate I uncovered the problem.

The pipe is 25mm outside diameter black plastic and has came out of the 90 degree bend where it turns towards the rear of the house. The reason it has broken is because it crosses the drainage pipe (actually touching it) and there was what looks like a piece of fence post laying on top it breaking its back over the drainage pipe. I guess the house builders were in a rush the day they laid the pipes and backfilled the trench (in 1972).

Anyway I am looking to repair the pipe asap and need to know what to buy and the best way to go about the repair. I have attached photos of the damage for you to see the issue.

Is there such a thing as push type fixings for this like you can get for internal plumbing? Also will the existing 90 degree bend come off the existing pipe? If not I will need to cut it off then I guess a new 90 degree bend wont be long enough to reach the two ends of the pipe.

As you can probably tell I am no plumber but do a lot of DIY and am a fast and eager learner.

Ok, on with the photos and sorry for such a long post.

Sorry - one more question. Why is the pipe black and not blue as I was expecting?

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• sandman77
• 18 Mar 2014
• 1

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• sandman77
• 18 Mar 2014
• 1

 

[picasso]

I think it might be poly york, try this link .

http://www.plasson.co.uk/content/page/Mechanical

 

[Blagard]

I don't know Poly York and can't offer a better guess, but I can tell you it is too old to be Blue MDPE which is a modern metric sized pipe. Yours will most likely be imperial.

There are no "push fit" connectors , you will need a mechanical joint and the universal one Picasso points to is probably your best bet. The hassle you have is the elbow. You may need to get two straight connectors and a length of MDPE in the middle and excavate far enough to get a swept bend on the pipe!

I would not fancy trying a repair on the joint that has failed unless you can get it all spotless clean, dry and free of stress. At least it looks like the joint has been pulled apart rather than an actual break. If you attempt to re-join, you may need a primer and suitable solvent but only worth trying if as said all is spotless clean, dry and stress free.

 

[mfarrow]

To 'extend' the elbow I would go imperial-to-BSP and a BSP elbow. Go female-to-female and add a nipple if you want to be sure.

Wrap back in Denso tape and job done.

 

[stardanny]

That pipe is Durapipe, a solvent weld pipes and fittings. You probably have it in house, on cold feed?

They are still in stock and you can cut back and fit 2 straight joint and a elbow.

As they aged, it will probably be brittle and i would rather replace the whole lot from street stopcock to house stopcock.

Daniel.

 

[sandman77]

Thanks for the replies. It sounds like if it is durapipe it will be quite an easy fix. At the risk of sounding completely useless could you please post a link to the stuff I need to buy?

 

[stardanny]

http://www.durapipe.co.uk

Contact them and they will tell you where the resellers is and be able to help you.

Daniel.

 

[Agile]

Thats a very useful reply!

I think that it may be the same type of pipe I have supplying my house in Leamington.

First time I have seen solvent weld used on underground pipes but then I don't dig many up.

I would also agree replacing all with blue pipe would be my preferred solution.

Now that you have uncovered it you might find that SW would come and do the repair for you. Its the digging that is the hard part!

Tony

 

[Charnwood]

I'd say Durapipe rather than Polyorc (correct spelling, even though it was made by Yorkshire).
Polyorc was used quite a bit when there was a copper shortage in the earlt 1970s.

 

[sandman77]

UPDATE

Well tonight I managed to repair the pipe. I went to a large plumbers merchant looking for the product mentioned above. They didn't do that brand but did have his stuff
http://www.pipestock.com/philmac/universal-transition/
I got 2 transition fittings, a 90 degree bend and a length of blue 25mm pipe. I also bought a pipe cutter to help me with the job. I had to expose more of the pipe in situ but got there in the end. Water is back on now and there are no leaks.

If I get any more leaks I will replace the whole pipe but have other priorities at the moment.

Here is a pic of the finished job. Thanks for all the help.

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• sandman77
• 19 Mar 2014
• 1

 

[Agile]

That is exactly how most professional plumbers would have done it.

Some would have exposed more pipe and made a curve in the blue pipe to avoid the elbow.

Tony