TOP TIPS! What are your top tips that you CAN share?

[kintangoman]

used Toms Tip today lol, heres another one... if you're going to go to all the hassle of mains flushing a system, replace all the valves too! re-connected everything, bled rads etc, weeping lock shield olive with no drain cock.... gutted lol.

I make it a habit to ALWAYS wrap PTFE around olives of compression fittings that I have to reuse, as a precaution. Better safe than sorry. Saves me worry of draining down again and again. Though I must accept Rad valves are notorious for little lee way to comfortably wrap PTFE on the suspect olives. In which case, I use a spanner to ''knock'' the olive (by tapping on compression nut end) further out giving better accessibility, then fit valve and tap valve body to push olive back in place, then tighten. Always work for me.

[MSCPlumbing&Heating]

Heres a good one!! lol. If youre soldering pipes together and you need them to stay in a certain position i.e. vertical or horizontal, before you flux the ends just give each end of the pipes a nip with a pair or pump pliers and the solder fitting should fit snug and not move when soldering.

MSC

[MSCPlumbing&Heating]

When fitting rad valves I always make sure i tighten the valve onto the copper pipe first, this way you know for sure that the valve is full slip and not at any angle that can produce an annoying weep.

MSC

[fred99]

Heres a good one!! lol. If youre soldering pipes together and you need them to stay in a certain position i.e. vertical or horizontal, before you flux the ends just give each end of the pipes a nip with a pair or pump pliers and the solder fitting should fit snug and not move when soldering.

MSC

Or as Tom Plum says "give it a little t*at with a hammer"

[Dickie]

Here's one I posted up on DIYdoughnuts;

If you fit a lot of combis or sealed systems, get yourself a couple of 15x1/2" flexi tap connectors & a 15mm pressure reducing valve(adjusted to 1.5Bar). Remove the system filling loop & fit your flexis & prv. Makes filling & airing your systems 10 times quicker & saves you running back & forth to fill & bleed the system...............Simples!!!

[royaloakcarpentry]

If you connect the supply back up to your outside tap on Sunday, only to find the said tap is shagged due to the cold winter. Remove shagged tap and instead of going to B&Q and queueing up with all the DIY mumblies for a new tap, use one of your spare rad valves from your 'secondhand box'. Connect hose to it and wash patio.

Then on Monday morning pop into Plumbase, no queues and purchase a new tap.

I can't believe how scalextric that improvisation of mine was................especially for a carpenter. Chuffed to F and will be reminiscing about it for years to come.

[Dickie]

Blocked shower tray outlet??
Take the shower head from the hose & remove the grate if it's a top access type. Blast water down the outlet directly with the hose. That'll clear it about 80% of the time...........

[Dickie]

Is your cistern syphon washer knackered and you can't get a replacement washer or everywhere is closed & Aunt Maggie, with here high fibre diet, is coming to stay for Xmas??
Well here's what you do; strip the syphon & cut a replacement washer from Builders plastic DPC. That way the toilet can be used over Xmas................Job done..........

[Deleted-user-3]

this 'syphon washer' dickie...
do you mean the thin one that wrap round the insides of the syphon so when you turn the top of the syphon it lifts off and inside theres like a 'diagphram' (cant spell sorry) washer thing that if damaged will allow water to trickle down the internal overflow?

if so, can you get them from any good plumbers merchants?
didnt realise they came off, it looks well, sort of co-extruded almost? bit like a flipper washer type thing?

anyway.... top tip (if its not in toms tips)..

if your a numpty like me and you inadvertantly send a drywall or pointy screw through a water pipe...

then, you realise what youve done, remove the screw to find a geyser of water and spend the next 5 minutes in 'headless chicken' mode....

PUT THE BLOODY SCREW BACK IN!!!

at least till you can figure out what to do and drain the water down...

[Dickie]

That's it mate the plastic disc type washer in the syphon. Here's another one;
If your doing all the connections under a Kitchen sink; water & waste to sink, washing machine & dish washer. Connect, test all the Hot & Cold pipes before fitting any waste pipes/traps etc. That way you can get easy access to them before the traps/hoses etc block your way. Oh, and remember to put the sink plug in before turning on the taps though or you'll get an early bath!!............

[Deleted-user-3]

nice one dpm eh? well I never...

another one for handymen + kitchen fitters..

changing sinks -

'real' plumber probably hard pipe it but if youve got a monoblock tap and the 2 iso valves...

use the flexi tap connectors backwards...

fit the compression ends to the 15mm stalks on the tap... (ptfe the threads on the stalks too)

fit waste in the sink, fit tap on the sink (throw away the rubber washer so the steel washer bites into the sink, nuke it up)

fit the sink in the cut out....

fit the whole worktop on the unit....

then just screw the tap connector end (with rubber washers) onto the iso valve by hand...

test...

update - fit trap (see above ^^^ )

bolt up the mitre(s)...

screw in down...

done...

[XDavid]

This one's probably been dealt with somewhere here, but in case not:
Trying to dismantle a tap caked with lime deposit, I just could not shift the retaining screw under the cap; penetrating oil was no help.
Answer: a drop of kettle descaler produced a fizzing chemical reaction with the deposit, and all became easy.

[Dickie]

Puller's tip of the day!!
Stuck for PTFE tape?? It's 10.30pm & you want to get the water back on; Use Dental Floss & plenty of Boss White. Of course you'd replace it with PTFE the next day!!

[Razor]

This one might save you having to get the manufacturer out to replace a faulty transformer that was obviously dead out the box and definitely nothing to do with you

When strapping a condensate pipe to a basin waste check to make sure the muppet that's posing as an apprentice has actually drilled a hole in the wastepipe so the condensate doesn't back up over the weekend after you commission it until the bottom inch of the case is swimming and the RCD doesn't trip all the house electrics

Alledgedly

[thescruff]

Went to a flood in a hotel, where the plumber had run the overflow from the wc into the soil, and hadn't bothered to drill a hole.