Redeye wrote:
after a rather more eventful weekend than i was hoping for, i'm hoping
somebody can explain this....

i finished plumbing in everything in my new bathroom a couple of weeks
ago. no real problems and all went quite well. so, i was a bit
surprised to be woken at 1am on saturday to the sound of water running
and a hysterical girlfriend. it appears that one of the compression
joints has spontaneously exploded, allowing mains pressure water to go
everywhere. fortunately no real damage done, just a lot of mopping up
to do downstairs.

the bit i don't understand is why this joint went so suddenly. here's
the facts :
You did not tighten it enough
for 15mm pipe if you tighten the nut as much as you can by hand and
then tighten by a further 3/4 of a complete turn
if it should weep you can tighten by another 1/8 turn
Beware of being told that you cannot over tighten compression fittings
thats a guaranteed way of making them leak
PTFE can be used on the threads but never on the olive