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wrote:
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.

However even that is going to difficult. Where the two pipes come up
through the floor they are too close together to fit anything except
solder fittings to them. They have an elbow each and then a bent
length of 22mm to get to the taps, no really easy place to insert a
stop valve.

--
Chris Green