Hi There, I have been a heating engineer for 25 years and never had an insurance claim until this month when I have been called out to two separate water leaks at two separate addresses. The cause on both occasions has been a connection between the Wednesbury pipe and a 22mm end feed tee (manufactured by CB) on a cold mains pipe. I have noticed that the tee fittings in particular are extremely tight to install and require a tap to insert the pipe sufficiently. Once they are fluxed it is impossible to rotate the fitting. I have checked all my fittings with a vernier guage and discarded about 5% due to inconsistencies. The pipe is also inaccurate but by no means to an extent that should cause a problem. The issue seems to be exclusively with 22mm tees! On both occasions the joint failed on a cold mains section of pipe. The pipe held water perfectly for 8 hours in the first incident and an incredible 72 hours in the second before the fitting failed with a fine spray of water running down the pipe onto the ceiling below. My feeling is that the fitting was so tight that it prevented an adequate depth of solder. Having dismantled the fitting the solder had run all the way around! It is making me paranoid as although everything is leak free after leaving site the element of doubt in my mind is that a joint could fail up to 1 week later... The claim on the first failure is currently £4000 as the customer was not aware of it for 12 hours and although it never damaged the ceiling it leaked on the carpet and furniture. The second will require redecoration of the ceiling only as they noticed it quickly and rang me... Help! Has anyone experienced: A. A water leak so long after the system is filled and tested especially on a cold mains supply circa 4 bar in pressure? B. Any issues with end feed fittings being discarded due to poor tolerances?
Most strange,if the fitting was going to fail,I would have thought it would happen instantly,especially with 4 bar, not hours later or days later.( very weird) I've had 22mm fittings that are tight, poor tolerances, but like you on cutting fitting in half, the solder has flowed all the way around fitting. Don't use Wednesbury pipe had a few issues with it,inaccurate size,had some & it wouldn't solder properly, & the pipe/fitting was throughly clean. Always use Yorkshire pipe now. I still cannot see how a solder fitting can fail after 72 hours, something fishy I say.
And how is it possible that it never damaged the ceiling, yet it leaked on the carpet and furniture. Where was the pipe located that did this, I smell a rat, plasterboard will soak up water. I went to a flat years ago to a leak,one pipe had not been soldered properly (not my work), water had been running about 5 hours, it brought down several ceilings & soaked just the carpets.
Hi Happy. How did the fitting fail exactly - did it split, or did water come out from the pipe/fitting joint?
Yeap, just recently and the same type of situation as yourself. On a central heating system, 22mm feeds branching off a tee, pressure only about 1 bar. During final checks before putting the floorboards back, it went after about 20 minutes. Fortunately caught it in time so no damage Never got to the bottom of it, joint looked to be fine, couldn't get the joint apart to look but all looked to be absolutely fine visually. I just put it down to my bad workmanship, but I didn't do anything different to this one compared to the other 10k plus I've done in the past. Got me wondering now. I always use Telux flux, you can freely move / rotate the fittings when assembled. Maybe tapping the joints is an issue - if a get a fitting that is too tight or loose (extremely rare) I always chuck em in the scrap bag.
I have some 22mm copper work with CH here to do, in a few weeks when heating goes off,I'm going to be watching the pipe work very closely. Tapping joints shouldn't be an issue, done it to thousands over the years, never had a problem with it,neither should be flux, using La-co here.
No, I cannot imagine how tapping could cause it, however... Solder? I only use 'green' solder, you cannot be sure about the 'blue' leaded stuff. Solder should be 63/37 but I've come across some 50/50 which was a nightmare, threw it away in the end. Try Telux flux, I found the Lo-Co dreadful, once the joint is assembled it locks solid not allowing any final adjustment before soldering. Just personnel preference - like I never use wire wool these days, abrasive strips only!
Haven't used wire wool in years,using foam sanding pads, bought a load at 10p pad, last ages & double sided. Finally decided to sort some boxes in the workshop today, found several large tubs of Fernox Powerflow flux,bags of olives,etc, can't even remember buying them, & other goodies.
Hi I seem to remember a case many years ago in the high court, 1970s I think, that it was found in a case against a plumber, than he was not liable for the work if it was sound and correctly carried out while on site. He , of she, had no control over what was done to the pipe after he left the site. Therefore, if it is shown the workmanship was not at fault, it's not necessarily he fault of the plumber. The judgment was found in favour of the plumber. It was in a trade magazine at the time. I always remembered the case, touch wood not had to use the information! Regards Peter,
Me too, entire re-work of the downstairs pipework - cold, hot, gas and heating. I've done things in the wrong order though, I had some iron gas pipe disconnected and removed, but the gas fires don't work now. So I have to leave the heating alone till the weather warms up. I use Powerflow flux, I find it 'runs' slightly easier than La-co.
Interesting replies - thankyou Yes, so the fittings were soldered with Laco flux and lead free solder. Both leaks in two separate houses were on the same brand 22mm fitting. The most recent was installed on the cold main on Tuesday 21.3.17 and filled and tested the same day. I returned to site the following two days to complete other work in the same area and then handed the installation over to the end user on Thursday 23.3.17. the customer called me at 8pm on the following Saturday evening to explain that whilst watching TV they had noticed a damp spot on the lounge ceiling that was increasing rapidly. I advised them to turn the water off and as it was local I was onsite at 8:25pm. I discovered a fine spray of water leaking down the cold mans pipe and following the pipe under the floorboards to the lounge ceiling below. The water was leaking from the solder joint. Fortunately, I was onsite quick enough to prevent any further damage but the entire ceiling now needs repainting. The first job at a different property some two weeks earlier involved an almost identical set of circumstances except as the customer didn't use the lounge very often he had not found the fault until the water had started leaking from the light fittings onto the carpets and furnishings below. I had left the system working perfectly at Six pm and was sure everything was leak free because I had left blue tissue roll on the floor all day under all the pipes to identify and small water leaks from valves etc... The tissue was bone dry when I left site and the system had been on test since lunchtime that day. I received a phone call at eleven am the following morning to advise that the leak had developed. Again, I was able to call quickly and by strategically drilled the ceiling and lifted the floorboards in the room above to save the ceiling. In total the two joints that leaked on these jobs represented less than 1% of the soldered joints completed onsite with the other 99% having no issues at all. Don't get me wrong, I've very rarely had leaks on soldered fittings before on central heating pipes that held with pressure for UpTo 1 hour or until some heat passed through them but always while I was onsite to prevent a problem - never for a day and in the last case multiple days. Really confused and so disheartened that I might move to press fittings from now on for all cold mains fittings. Take the point about tapping the fitting - if I threw away all the tee fittings that were tight (it does only seem to be the tees) I'd probably have none left! All pipes were cut with a new wheel and a reamer was used on all ID / OD pipes as well. Any advice would be very welcome
If I had those tees, I make a test set up rig using one of those tee & do wet pressure test in workshop at home,could easily leave days or weeks setup. Wouldn't need to be that big, so little water involved, pumped up to say 4 bar & see what happens.
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