Connect pipes

Pipes and fittings vary by home and vary in length, shape, and connectors. Fortunately, this is no longer a problem and there are many solutions to secure your piping and reduce the risk of leaks.

The tools and materials required to connect the pipes

At one time, home plumbing systems used iron and lead pipes. Today, water is typically carried around the house in copper pipes, with plastic pipes used for waste systems. The most common size of copper pipe has an outside diameter of 15mm, although you can find smaller sizes (10mm) supplying one-piece taps and radiators, and larger sizes (22mm and 28mm) supplying tanks, bathrooms, and boilers.

If your plumbing system was installed before the mid-1970s, the piping will almost certainly be imperial sizes (1/2, 3/4, and 1-inch inside diameters). You can join modern 15mm to 1/2-inch imperial and 28 to 1-inch pipe using standard metric fittings, but to join 22mm to 3/4 inch pipe you will need a 22mm compression fitting. For welded joints, there are metric/imperial connectors in the corresponding sizes.

How to cut the pipes

It is possible (but not ideal) to cut copper or plastic with a hacksaw. Simply wrap the masking tape around the pipe as a cutting guide and carefully align its edges to achieve a square cut. But it's much easier to get a clean cut with a pipe cutter.

Joints are important in the piping system. For clean and safe joints, always clean the ends of the pipe before mounting a joint. File the burrs with a half-round tile and use a deburring brush or wire wool to remove paint, tarnish, or limescale from the copper pipe.

Measure the length of pipe you need and mark it with a pencil. Then place the knife on the pipe so that the knurl is aligned with the mark and tighten the screw. Run the cutter around the pipe, steadily tightening the screw until you have cut the pipe.

Remove the burr around the inside of the cut end of the pipe by inserting the triangular reamer of the knife and rotating the tool. Make sure that there are no copper fragments left in the pipe, as they could damage the valves or faucets in the system.

Clean the outside of the pipe by polishing it with wire wool. This gives you a good surface for the joint and assures you of a watertight seal. Or you can use a deburring brush, which will do the same job and prevent slivers of wire wool from getting caught in your fingers or falling down the pipe.

How to connect the pipes?

The traditional ways to join copper pipes are with capillary joints which you need to solder, and brass compression joints which you tighten with an adjustable wrench. However, interlocking plastic joints are just as effective - and much easier to use. They come with rubber O-rings for sealing and work well with plastic and copper pipes.

Safety first

Plastic socket fittings on copper pipes break the grounding continuity of a plumbing system. You must restore this by joining the two copper pipes together with a 4mm2 long single core earth cable, secured with earth clamps.

Capillary joints

Solder fittings are called capillary joints because when heated, the solder is pulled between the fitting and the pipe by capillary action. You can get two types: final feed and solder. In either case, you'll need to brush a chemical cleaner (called "flux") onto the end of the pipe and inside the joint before heating it. You should also thoroughly flush the pipes after joining them to remove all traces of flux - which is corrosive.

End seals

This is the type of fitting that professional plumbers in Emergency Services 24-Hour normally use. You will need to add lead-free solder to the mouth of each joint, as it is heated with a torch.

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