Jack wrote:
I'm in the process or repiping my whole house with copper. During the
process in removing the iron pipes I've encountered a little problem under
the house in a tight crawl space. There are a few sections of existing iron
pipes where I wasn't able to remove with a 30" pipe wrench because of the
limited space (no leverage) to work with under the crawl space. There was
also a section where the pipe won't cooperate where I was able to crushed
the pipe with the pipe wrench but still couldn't back the thread out of the
coupling. Anyway I resorted to use my super sawzall (24 teeth bi-metal
blade) but that is slow going, about 5-10 minutes to cut through a 3/4"
pipe. Is there a better way to disassemble the iron pipes in a tight space
situation?

5-10 minutes per cut is way out of line. 24 tooth sounds like too fine
a blade, try down around 16. I can cut 3/4 pipe with a manual hacksaw
a lot faster than that.

Leave the pipe in place? I would unless it is in the way of the
re-pipe job.

Harry K