disturbed dinner tonight over an ice plug

[DAPPH]

I got woken up by one of wifes friends ringing at 4.00am this morning. She said house is flooded so could I come and turn off the water at the pavement stopcock (house one seized). -5 degrees outside whilst I had to lie on ground as stop cock so deep in the hole !
Wife and this friend have been away for a short break (Xmas markets) and friend didn't leave central heating on until coming back home yesterday Water has has also blown the upstairs electrics. I did my bit of turning off the water and left for plumber & electrician, or whoever, to sort out the cause. Insurance claim will have to be made due to damage.
With cost of energy I'm betting this sort of thing might be more common this winter as people restrict time central heating switch on.

TIP have a bit of 2x 2 with a decent deep V cut in one end about three feet longer than the street stop valve , use the fork made by the V to straddle the handle and then turn it on or off , mark the wood on all four sided with a thick marker
" KEEP -- STOP VALVE ROD ".

If you're posh and lucky to have a welding machine make a bespoke claw out of half inch rebar and put a top T bar on it . Then using either device you'll never need to lay down on the job ever again in sun ,rain ,snow , ice or old age ..

 

[DAPPH]

Why aren't these pipe insulated as standard practice?

You can get trace heat cable kits with frost stat settings to keep such pipes frost free when I looked 17 yrs ago they were not expensive .....about the price of a slab of Heineken . Stick the cable on a copper pipe under thermal insulation extending into a covered drain .

 

[Kayos]

TIP have a bit of 2x 2 with a decent deep V cut in one end about three feet longer than the street stop valve , use the fork made by the V to straddle the handle and then turn it on or off , mark the wood on all four sided with a thick marker
" KEEP -- STOP VALVE ROD ".

If you're posh and lucky to have a welding machine make a bespoke claw out of half inch rebar and put a top T bar on it . Then using either device you'll never need to lay down on the job ever again in sun ,rain ,snow , ice or old age ..

Screwfix used to do a long key for about £6

 

[dobbslc]

Sexual Equality is good, only when they want it to be.

Just look at all the caffufle over pension age...women have fought for a century to get everything the same as we more superior men, but when they finally get allowed to retire at the same age as us they have a hissy fit.

Plus they live longer, I reckon they should have to work a couple of years more than us blokes!

I think I'll need a bigger sofa if the wife sees this...

 

[DAPPH]

It's been a while since you purchase one at that price, a 906 mm steel one is about £35 ( Screwfix on line ) tonight .

Our stop valve tap head is close to 30 inches below the pavement so the bespoke made to 55 inches wooden one I did is the best and cheapest for me .

 

[DAPPH]

Plus they live longer, I reckon they should have to work a couple of years more than us blokes!

I think I'll need a bigger sofa if the wife sees this...

One with a full length hoist and high sides, that can be lifted about at the ends & middle like a hospital intensive care bed ???

 

[dobbslc]

No more hospital for me, I spent most of Tuesday night sitting in A&E in a geriatrics wheelchair with a knackered neck

 

[DAPPH]

No more hospital for me, I spent most of Tuesday night sitting in A&E in a geriatrics wheelchair with a knackered neck

You are now a fully fledged & signed up member of the NHS waiting room club .
I've got at least nine medals waiting to be issued & two for more than 8 hrs. bed rest in an ambulance before being admitted to a ward .

Still it's not as bad as our refuge house guest says it is in lots of areas in the Ukraine , she was telling us this morning at breakfast before taking her son to the local school ( white faced ) over 72 missiles chucked at vital facilities taking out remaining hospitals electricity substations & big building that might house fuel , food & clothing stores .

 

[dobbslc]

Xxxxxxx Putin!

 

[roofman]

Came home today to water running down the outside of my house...the pipe that feeds my workshop and wifes washing machine in shed has burst..well insulated and tucked inside a walkway roof but the easty beastie still found it, job for tomorrow after turning off the isolation tap today.

 

[bricol]

Our mains water frozen again this morning. Not surprising at -9.5C mid afternoon!
Use the hot air paint stripper again. Tonight I am filling the hole where the pipes and valves are with pop bottles full of hot water!

That sounds a bit like those slim pre-filled waer containers you (used) to buy to put in cool boxes - when the water freezes in the pop bottles and keeps your water supply nicely chilled

 

[bricol]

TIP have a bit of 2x 2 with a decent deep V cut in one end about three feet longer than the street stop valve , use the fork made by the V to straddle the handle and then turn it on or off , mark the wood on all four sided with a thick marker
" KEEP -- STOP VALVE ROD ".

If you're posh and lucky to have a welding machine make a bespoke claw out of half inch rebar and put a top T bar on it . Then using either device you'll never need to lay down on the job ever again in sun ,rain ,snow , ice or old age ..

I cut a slot in a lenght of steel box section to slip over mine - when I found it! At least, I think it was mine. I worked out where the neighbours ones were, but couldn't find mine. Finally, out the back, on the side road by my back wall, I found one - filled with silt. Got the silt out to a considerable depth - could not turn the valve at full arm stretch.

Slipped the box section over it and turned with stillsons . . . turned it closed as tight as I dared . . . didn't want to shear it and have more hassle. My water never even slowed down. No neighbours came out to complain.

I went off to screwfix and bought a freezing kit - fitted a stop cock where the pipe came in the house, rather than where the original was, under the sink, some distance away. Never worked so fast with a pipe cutter or fittings Mains water pressure is in excess of 3 bar, so I was a little worried.

 

[DAPPH]

Came home today to water running down the outside of my house...the pipe that feeds my workshop and wifes washing machine in shed has burst..well insulated and tucked inside a walkway roof but the easty beastie still found it, job for tomorrow after turning off the isolation tap today.

Get a trace heat cable and run it against the pipe in the thickest foam insulation you can get 15 mm in a 75 mm foam sleeve .
Before doing my previous bungalow use a home made mitre block in a U shape so you can cut perfect 90 degree & other angles easily and very accurately with a fine toothed short panel saw ( 20 tpi ??? ) , lightly tape the long foam splits with a wide super sticky grey metalized cloth weave ducting tape .

For right angles leading to drops to a room on outside walls in the past I've used Copydex latex glue to seal and glue the components up after being told that tape alone with the pressure of the joint often softened & came apart in hot summers often curling up off the foam . On the straight runs they were joined end to end with Copydex , I lightly put on a zip tie every 18 inches or so , T junctions became a work of art worthy of a Turner prize .

 

[DAPPH]

I cut a slot in a lenght of steel box section to slip over mine - when I found it! At least, I think it was mine. I worked out where the neighbours ones were, but couldn't find mine. Finally, out the back, on the side road by my back wall, I found one - filled with silt. Got the silt out to a considerable depth - could not turn the valve at full arm stretch.

Slipped the box section over it and turned with stillsons . . . turned it closed as tight as I dared . . . didn't want to shear it and have more hassle. My water never even slowed down. No neighbours came out to complain.

I went off to screwfix and bought a freezing kit - fitted a stop cock where the pipe came in the house, rather than where the original was, under the sink, some distance away. Never worked so fast with a pipe cutter or fittings Mains water pressure is in excess of 3 bar, so I was a little worried.

The first stopcock off the mains is usually the waterboards property & liability as it is directly attached to their pipework thus becoming an integral part of the pipework as they have legal 24 / access to it . everything after their stop including your own pipe work to your internal stop is your problem .
I think it was set in law in the water boards favour so they at one time could cut your water off if you didn't pay your water bill ( since undemined and well diluted ) and to stop uncontrolled water loss from the mains at that point.

Depending on how long you have contracted with the water board for supply and the terms of supply it might be a good idea to ask them to sort out what you think might be your board's non working stopcock to your property . Even if they fit a meter I don't think they can use the evidence to charge you what the meter reads .. was a legal case 20 or more years ago , as the client hadn't requested a meter , so the original contract of supply was deemed to stand
It's handy to have the boards working stop to cut of the property supply as you found out & might be picked up by a buyers solicitor on their endless tick box forms .

24yrs ago my friend wanted to build a ground floor large day room & a larger than normal double bed room room & wet room with toilet in the same area. For easy access to two 3 /4 beds with a full flat floor center draining wet room C/W hoist system throughout the extension rooms for moving his newly severely stroke disabled wife around. The BCO & planners did an advisory site visit as it had to run to a new modern much larger septic tank etc and demanded to see the water meter /stop .
None could be found , the water board sent out a locating team , they couldn't find one either not even any trace of a four inch cast iron water main supposedly at the road side edge facing the property .

I said to David " Iit looks as though it had once been a single large late 1700's farm house " .. sure enough . David's incoming water was taken off the next doors supply , neither had a meter fitted . . The stop for it was almost 170 mtrs away at the branch end of the cast iron mains .
They split the old feed in to two new branches with new posh meters , one for each half of the now converted semi ( done around 1930 ) neither of them had to pay the registering meterage or the cost of the meters installation .

Funny thing was, there was another cast iron mains passing my home ( Former railway crossing gatekeepers house sat on top of a double track embankment )
about 100 mtrs away from him, which was put in over the proposed railway embankment a few weeks before the track bed was laid . when the county council applied for and got road access over the embankment after the compulsory land purchase order railways act 1860 to put the eastern railway in .
I guess they went for the cheapest quickest option rather than excavate about 45 mtrs & under two C class 15 foot wide roads to my newer 1863 laid cast iron water supply main .

Found out much of this in the county reference library as I needed proof that county council could not charge me in excess of £ 21 K for & to buy their ransom strip so I could put in an HGV accessible access to the rest of my property ( 2.5 acres ) as there was no ransom strip on either side of the embankment for the limit of the embankment on either side .

 

[Maker]

Came home today to water running down the outside of my house...the pipe that feeds my workshop and wifes washing machine in shed has burst..well insulated and tucked inside a walkway roof but the easty beastie still found it, job for tomorrow after turning off the isolation tap today.

My brother came home from uni yesterday, first thing he did was went out to the garden, not sure why but it's a good thing he did, he came back in and asked "Is that pipe supposed to be ******* water up the wall?"

"Err I think you know it isn't. "



Conveniently it burst immeidatly after a water meter so I can see how much was wasted, about a thousand litres, it must have only been like it a few hours. Had he not gone outside it would probably have been going for a few days and tens of thousands of litres wasted before it was spotted.

 

[bricol]

The first stopcock off the mains is usually the waterboards property & liability as it is directly attached to their pipework thus becoming an integral part of the pipework as they have legal 24 / access to it . everything after their stop including your own pipe work to your internal stop is your problem .
I think it was set in law in the water boards favour so they at one time could cut your water off if you didn't pay your water bill ( since undemined and well diluted ) and to stop uncontrolled water loss from the mains at that point.

Depending on how long you have contracted with the water board for supply and the terms of supply it might be a good idea to ask them to sort out what you think might be your board's non working stopcock to your property . Even if they fit a meter I don't think they can use the evidence to charge you what the meter reads .. was a legal case 20 or more years ago , as the client hadn't requested a meter , so the original contract of supply was deemed to stand
It's handy to have the boards working stop to cut of the property supply as you found out & might be picked up by a buyers solicitor on their endless tick box forms .

I think I forgot all about it because the water meter is fitted under the sink - must be 40m from the stop cock. 15mm copper from the stop cock, under the garden and up through a foot square hole in the oversite concrete - which is where my new stop cock is fitted. The location on the meter info is "under the sink" - and technically it still is . . . just about 6ft lower than before, under the house . Water board have replaced it once since, for one they can read from outside - and after I re-seated his new unions, it doesn't leak either.

A mate's parents always complained of low, randomly varying water pressure - blamed it living on top of a big hill above Batley. Come the time to fit water meters, discovered their supply was 1/2" copper, teed-off under next door house - which explained the irregular flow and pressure. I can't remember if the neighbour already had a water meter.