Replacing a pipe

[SquirrelHammer]

hi all, just a query. I am looking to rework some pipework going to my shower because I have some weird setup where the pervious owner must have had alsorts of spurs of this one hot water pipe. they cut them off and put stoppers on them all.

on a single hot water pipe I must have 5 stoppers on it and I would like to cut the pipe and run a pipe another way (rather than the roller coaster form it is in now).

to do this, I assume I turn off the boiler, water tap, turn all taps on in house to drain what water is lingering around in pipes. then I cut the pipe, do the work and then slowly turn it all back on and test?

I have a worcester Greenstar combi, is there anyway to drain the water res inside the boiler to ensure that non is left in the pipe. just to reduce the spillage when I cut.

the pipe is only 15mm and connects to the boiler. it uses a mixture of compression and soldered fittings. I assume since there are so many compression fittings and stoppers I can just couple the pipe and remove all the other dead end crap left on it.

help advice much appreciated.

[chrrris]

No need to touch the boiler or the heating pipework at all, just turn the water off at the stopcock. If there's a drain off below where you intend to cut, you can attach a hose to that to drain down. Otherwise you can open the taps upstairs and down to potentially drain off some of the water (obviously, how successful this is depends on the layout and where you're cutting). Close the taps before you cut the pipe and have a bucket and a couple of towels handy to catch whatever's left. It'll be clean water so no dramas if you get a few drips on the carpet or whatever.

[Rorschach]

A pushfit stop end is very handy to have in situations like this. After you cut a pipe you can pop on the stop end and any water in it will be held while you do the other work.

[Razor]

Turn the water off either at the stopcock or under the boiler if you still want tea

Then open all the hot taps in the house including the shower and it will all drain itself - especially if the shower is upstairs

[SquirrelHammer]

thanks all, yeah i turned boiler off, turned off the water, ran the taps. cut the pipe and not even a single drop of water, bent a new pipe and connected it all up as well as adding pipe clips rather than having it just loose in the loft.

[Rorschach]

Thanks for letting us know how it went.

[SquirrelHammer]

no problem, it took longer getting the 3m long pipe into the loft, bending it to find things in the way, i should have bent it outside and took it up :)