wrote in message
oups.com...
.....
I could do with a clue on pipe freezing too, would be considerably
easier than drain the whole thing down. Presumably I'd need to freeze
both the rad pipes, and I'm guessing the quoted upto 35 minutes means
15-20 IRL.

When I used pipe freezer, my main probem was the time it took to thaw out
before I could try the stopcock I had fitted. It is important that you only
freeze a straight run of pipe and that you make sure that the ice plug is
long enough.

That also leaves the q of the best way to cut the pipes: some of them
are up against the wall, making a hand held rotating wheel thingy
un-fittable-in-there.

There are compact pipe cutters, which only need as much room behind a pipe
as given by a normal pipe clip. I prefer them to the adjustable sort, but
you do need one cutter for each size of pipe. Otherwise, use a hacksaw blade
in one of the handles designed to hold broken hacksaw blades. However, the
cut will need cleaning up after if you do it that way.

Colin Bignell