Home Forums Chat Forum Capping an old lead water pipe

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  • Capping an old lead water pipe
  • DT78
    Free Member

    I’m refitting a bathroom, and have been able to re route water from the updated copper piping. This leaves me with a redundant lead cold feed that comes up from beneath the concrete I believe the other end is somewhere under the kitchen which at this stage I don’t want to rip out…

    What is the best way to cap it off? I’ve been looking at leadlocs and then use a screw cap, can’t work out the right size I should be using, and they are reasonably expensive

    Any other options? I was thinking about crushing and heating the end but I reckon that will end a right mess.

    FunkyDunc
    Free Member

    We bent one over and crushed it.

    (It was an outside pipe though and we had just sold the house)

    Proper capping looked complicated for the reasons you have said

    wrightyson
    Free Member

    They uses to just hammer em flat then a bit of lead solder.
    Do not do what an Asian gentleman dis back in our piling days. He didn’t like the flattened lead pipe that was sticking up out of the floor after the refurb. So he took it upon himself to bend back and forwards to remove, he was warned not to as it could be live. And there she blows all over nice new plastered walls….

    jam-bo
    Full Member

    we had one like that in our shed when we moved here. a couple of years later it started dripping occassionaly, then more frequently. couldnt isolate it either, think it may even come from next door.

    now we have a leadloc terminated with a tap so I can draw water for the garden…

    neilwheel
    Free Member

    .

    DT78
    Free Member

    What is that leadloc you used there?

    The ones I’ve been looking at online are brass and seem to work by a compression type claw. Looks a fairly old design.

    Potentially I could re-reroute it to feed the toilet cistern and use the copper fed for the basin. I will definitely have to cut it back though as it current feeds a cistern above head height that is knackered and leaking

    EDIT – is it this?
    https://www.pipestock.com/philmac/universal-transition/joiner

    Cheaper and looks like it might be easier to use as it covers a range of diameters

    The pipe does have what looks like an old shut off valve but the tap head is long gone and I can’t turn it with molgrips.

    jam-bo
    Full Member

    think it was one of these.

    https://www.plumbcenter.co.uk/product/philmac-universal-transition-coupler-21-27-x-15-21mm/

    been in 18 months now and absolutely fine.

    DT78
    Free Member

    thanks will give that a try. bonus there is a plumbbase about a mile from work too

    crofts2007
    Free Member

    You’re probably going down the best route of re-using the lead line rather than capping off, as the length of capped lead pipe would be substantial and it would then become a dead leg of stagnant water over time, potentially contaminating the current cold water feed.

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