John Stumbles wrote:
wrote:
I am replacing (well trying to replace) the taps on our bath. The
side of the bath came off very easily and everything is very neat and
tidy underneath. However I cant see any realistic way to remove the
unions which attach the 22mm copper feeds to the taps. Although easy
to see and get a hand to etc. there is little clearance between the
end of the bath and the wall so a correct size open ended spanner does
no good as there's no space to turn it.

I have a 'washbasin wrench' which can be persuaded to get hold of the
union nuts but there's no way I can get enough purchase in the
wrench's handle to actually undo the nuts.

I think the taps must have been assembled to the bath before it was
put in place and then the pipes were soldered.

The only thing I can think of that might get the nuts undone would be
a 'crows foot' spanner, does anyone know of any suppliers of these who
would have sizes suitable for plumbing? The nut I want to undo would
seem to be 1.125" across flats.

Or does anyone have any other ideas?


I always use a box spanner of suitable size (27 x 32mm A/F £6.98 from
local ironmongers) with an adjustable spanner on the other end to turn
it. Only once I had to resort to an angle grinder to cut the taps off :-|

I use a pipeslice to cut back the copper pipe and replace with Hep20
tails: usually 15mm even for gravity fed 22mm pipework - the short
length of smaller pipe doesn't add much resistance to pipework overall.
flexi tap connectors are similarly narrow bore internally anyway.

I insert isolation valves in the pipework, usually as soon as I've cut
back the existing pipe (so I can turn the water back on) which then make
a convenient place to join in the new Hep2O.

Yes, I guess cutting the pipe and replumbing is one approach and it
may come to that.

--
Chris Green