On Jun 9, 8:41*am, "Ret." wrote:
Lobster wrote:
On 08/06/2011 11:21, chris French wrote:
In message 20110608090714.4a69ff54@rad1, TheOldFellow
writes
On Wed, 08 Jun 2011 08:35:24 +0100
Lobster wrote:

I'm going to be replacing my shower valve soon. I know the old one
was installed using plastic pipework, and this will need a bit of
reconfiguring for the new valve (basically, with the current valve
there are 90-deg elbow 15mm tap connectors on the feeds, and these
will need changing to straight ones.

I've never used plastic tube before, but AFAICR it's important to
use fittings which are compatible with the brand of tube, correct?
Particularly inserts within the pipe? I have no clue what brand
mine is (it's grey, 15mm) - maybe I'll find it printed on the pipe
when I have it fully exposed?

If it's grey, it is likely to be either Polyplumb or H2O, all but
the very cheap pipe (eg some white floplast) has this info printed
on it.

John Guest also do a grey Speedfit pipe, but yes name should be on
the pipe, you could probably also identify it by the fitting design.
either by Googling up images or posting an image for others here to
identify.

Thanks everyone all the info; that's reassuring. *Hopefully when I
expose the pipework fully it'll be clear what brand I've got and I can
take it from there.

I often wonder what professional plumbers think of polypipe. It's no doubt
made their job much easier - but also increased the opportunity for even the
worst DIYer to do an effective plumbing job and avoid the need for a
professional.

I never had a problem with shaping and soldering copper pipe - but polypipe
just makes the whole job dramatically easier and simpler.


Do all plumbers use polypipe now, or offer 2 different prices, since
it must be much quicker to use plastic? Its not the soldering of
copper that really takes the time, but the bending etc. Must admit I
still use all copper.
Simon.