Plumbing round the world... is it diferent?

[sidecar_jon]

There i was up in the loft attempting to cap off a water pipe with a fitting that appeared to be slightly to small when it occurred to me that maybe my pipes are so old they are pre metric. Now i know the metric is just imperial in millimeters, but thats not an exact equivalent. Maybe my pipes are that old!... anyway this all leads to thinking of foreign pipes. Are say french pipes totaly metric and always have been? are they then different sizes? And are American pipes another size again? (maybe bigger?).... anyone know?

 

[bab]

Wow lota different questions there. old 1/2" is almost the same as new 15mm but not quite .old 3/4" pipe is no where near 22mm .22mm is larger. In europe the use different size metric to us & America are imperial still. there is also the possibility that the pipe u tried to cap off may some time in its life been frozen but nt burst making it a little enlarged.

 

[sidecar_jon]

thanks for the answers... it is posible the pipes been frozen, its still not capped.. and the old back boiler pipes are still dripping (depite tieing up the ballcock, cos the valve leeks every so sligtly)

 

[Nige F]

I got an American 3/4 stub to fit a brit compression coupling by judicious filing of the Yankee.

 

[chrishutt]

All European pipe threads are based on the old BSPT and are still known by their inch bore sizes - 3/8, 1/2, 3/4 etc. However US pipe threads are different.

European copper pipe sizes are metric, but different countries standardise on different sizes - for example Germany uses 12, 15, 18 and 22, but France uses 12, 14, 16, 18 and 22.

 

[sidecar_jon]

thanks for the answers, its the sort of question that would have nagged me for years, before the net sorted such things out!...cheers.