IMM wrote:
A friend had an accident late yesterday. he rammed a nail through a CH pipe
under the floor. He pleaded with me to fix it. It required a small amount
of pipe and fitting. the first thing was to drain down. I didn't have any
fittings or soldering equipment to hand, and had to make a distress purchase
at the local shed. Only Speedfit was available, a system I really do not
like. I reluctantly bought the fittings and a 2 metre length of 15mm pipe.
The system was suffering from creaking around the puncture pipe point, so
plastic pipe should cure this too.

I cut back and cleaned the copper, inserted the Speedfit fittings and some
pipe. I explained that plastic fittings are reduced in size from 15mm to
approx 12mm because of the inserts.

Well time to fill up. I always fill with just fresh water in case of a
swift drains down in case of a problems and lose the inhibitor.
Lo-and-behold one Speedfit fitting was ****ing out. A swift drain down. On
inspection the O ring had been pushed out of its housing ring and was
bunched up further down the fitting. The pipe inserted was plastic that
pushed the O ring put. Straight out to buy another fitting before they
closed. Inserted the new fitting and all was fine...well for now. The
expansion creak has gone......but the fittings holding up for a period of
time is another matter. I told him to observe the fittings, and if he
wanted too, I could replace with Marley Equator, Osma Gold or Hep2O, or
better still replace with copper. He said he will let me know, which will
mean if it is OK for a week or so he will leave it because he can't be
bothered. Which will mean if they **** out again he comes around to me
again on a bank holiday Monday.




So you had no tools or parts to hand and in your expert opinion, only
poor quality parts were available. Perhaps you should have advised your
friend to call someone else.

Nick Brooks