how do you cut a live water pipe?

and put a stopcock on it with out flooding the place?

A mate just asked me this, but I’ve not a scooby about plumbing, so thought I’d ask on here.

My wee brother suggests a freezing kit, but he reckons he’s had varying experiences with them, so is skeptical about their viability and reckons they might not work.

Any other way, or is he just going to have to bit the bullet and accept water pissing all over the shop or having a go with the freezing kit?

As I say I’m clueless so, not really got much more information. Any ideas?

Freeze it.

Yep, what the Brick said. Plumbing stores will sell you something to freeze the pipe.

and work quickly.

Stop the water at the external stopcock?

One on the street outside ours will shut the water off to four houses.

Cant you isolate it at the street?

Find the stopcock in the street

But be prepared

You could freeze it (never tried one)

or can you just turn the water supply off in the street? If it only feeds your house then you could get away with doing it, if not you might have to call the water board.

People might be along to say it’s highly illegal or something(no idea). Our landlord next door has to do it as the only stop cock for both of our houses (shared plumbing) is inside our kitchen ceiling and the one in the street just cuts our feed. You can buy long stop cock keys at toolstation.

Aye I suggested turning off the street supply, for whatever reason he doesn’t want to do that. No idea why.

No other options?

You can hire electric ones as well as the kits.
http://www.hss.com/hire/p/pipe-freezer-12-42mm-240v?gclid=CPTo5LjtwsgCFdQaGwod-FsJzw&gclsrc=aw.ds

They can work for longer.

only freezing will work if they wont stop the water from outside.

Cool, sounds like freezing is the way then, I’ll pass on that electric link.

Any other ideas come to mind post up and I’ll pass them on, be the weekend before anything happens anyway.

Cheers for all your help though, appreciate it! 🙂

Get a plumber!

gavinpearce – Member
Get a plumber!

Lets not get all sensible now! 😆 Not going to happen. tbh i’m not sure whether I want to ask him is he wants a hand, just for the comedy value! (Least I’ll not panic what the water starts going everywhere and will be able to stop it! 😀 )

http://www.naturalhandyman.com/iip/infxtra/infsad.html

Aye I suggested turning off the street supply, for whatever reason he doesn’t want to do that. No idea why.

Why on earth not.
Is he one of those people who likes to do everything the most illogical and difficult way possible ?

No other options?

Freezing is the only other option, and last resort (when outside stoptap not available or not working)

I’d never even consider freezing if the outside tap was available, and I’ve got a proper Heavy Duty 240v freeze kit. Just makes no sense.

What Gavin said! Messing about with the main water supply in a “clueless” condition can only end badly. Play safe.

Outside stopcock is the obvious but if that is out then do it quick with a push fit. Wrap it in a towel and place a washing up bowl underneath. Should be able to do it in time. Don’t put your thumb over it then realise you don’t have the fitting and there is no one else around.

nealglover – Member
Is he one of those people who likes to do everything the most illogical and difficult way possible ?

More or less tbh! 😆

tbh i suspect it’s broken, he’s daft but not that daft. But I didn’t ask, I’ll double check when I see him again in a day or 2.

Get a plumber!

Get a good one!

Ours isolated what I said was our supply (according to the dickhead from Scottish Water who clearly wasn’t giving a toss) and then didn’t bother turning a tap on to see if it was actually isolated before cutting into the main.

Guess what?

It wasn’t.

As said isolate the stopcock to the house (if private) or block (if ex cooncil) or use a freezing kit. Though from my own experience you are going to be in dodgy territory, the pipe was the imperial equivalent of 22mm but a regular 22mm stopcock wouldn’t fit so the old (3/4″?) stopcock ended up staying put and connected in to a new 22mm pipe via copious amounts of PTFE(which seals itself after a while) and an appropriate converter olive sourced from Jewsons. Make sure you are well prepared because there really is no going back. Get a JG Speedfit blanking cap as last resort backup, should work. Hopefully.

Make sure you are well prepared.

Which I would translate as “get someone in”.

tbh i suspect it’s broken,

If it is, ring the water board and tell them you need to change a leaking internal stoptap, but you can’t because the external one isn’t working.

They will be out same day/next day to fit a new one as it is their responsibility to provide every house with a working stop tap externally.

Have done this plenty of times to avoid freezing.

Our street stopcock had been tarmacced over at some indeterminate point prior to our occupation. We spoke to the water co. And the came and found it, replaced it and restored the cover. No charge to us, as it’s their kit. So if it is broken, just get it fixed, would be my advice.

Edit; by street stopcock, I mean the stopcock in the street that served our house (only) not the entire street.

Cheers squirrel, I’ll emphasis that advice. and suggest getting the street stockcock fixed if that the issue v8.

Stop tap outside in street or if they a good plumber can do it live but they have to be quick!!!!! Pre made flex or some hep with a tee and some blanks pre fitted and shove on pronto. This was my job for a few years on a major pub chain on refurbs to strip out all the old and isolate live and make temps for the site cabins 80% of the time was done live due to stopcocks not being in the places they should or the taps broken off :/.

Freezing kits OK but not fool proof and you need a good run of pipe to actually attach the clamps to it… And they can be expensive to hire.. In all my years of doing this ive never seen one plumber dommy or commercial use a oipe freezer….. Go figure.

If outside fails and you dont mind a bit of water spraying you go live if your confident.

Once upon a time I moved into a wreck of an old and decrepit house. It was late November, it was proper cold. The boiler (label inside read ‘next service due: Oct 1974)was on full blast but the C/H pipework was serviceable but needed removing to allow the installation of internal insulation. Cue entry of Ants, my local college plumbing lecturer and good mate. He’s the sort of guy who fills you with enthusiasm and confidence. He suggested to me that there were two ways to sort this situation, the ‘Proper way’ or the ‘Ninja way’. Obviously a challenge had been set, obviously I had to rise to it. Ants is a trusted mate, so it’s what you do innit?

The trick is to cut the pipe and immediately install a compression fitting. Obviously there will be some leakage so tools need to be close to hand to tighten the fittings ASAP. Between cutting and installation you cap the open bore with your thumb.

The C/H was live so I turned it off, it was still hot and full of Fernox. I gave it a go, cut the pipe close to the ceiling and hot, nasty water pi55ed down my arm. I jammed my thumb over the uphill end and fumbled for the isolation valve. The olives weren’t properly aligned but I managed to slide it onto the lower pipe. In the meantime the hot nasty water was leaking so I twisted my thumb a bit to stem the flow….

…which caused the sharp end of the copper to cut into my thumb and water, Fernox and blood to spurt gloriously into my eyes. So I let go- argh! and then reattached my shredded thumb to the hot and horrible thing. Anthony is pretty much useless at this point, he’s just laughing like a drain.

I eventually managed to fit the isolation valve. In the meantime the commotion had attracted the dog’s attention. She mooched in, smelt the blood on the floor and the wall and cleaned it all up.

Top Tip- if offered ‘NinjaPlumbing’tm, avoid it like the plague.

Hire a couple of squeeze offs from Fusion Provida. HSS may do them too I guess.

If it’s PE pipe (it will be blue plastic if it is) you basically squash the pipe shut.

You will need 2, one each side of the cut and due to the pipe deformation, you will need a bit of room each side off the squeeze off, so you are cutting a bit that’s still round.

I’ve used freezing kits before but never on a mains supply, only tank fed. They do work but to be on the safe side it freeze it on 2 locations on the pipe run.

You do need to be very very organised though and have all your tools and fittings laid out ready to make the cut and fit the valve. Once you start the cut there’s no time to fanny about looking for tools.

Play safe

It’s water, it’ll be fine.

if it is a blue poly pipe you can put pieces of 2×1 on opposite ‘sides’ and squeeze them together with a G-cramp. This squishes the pipe sufficiently to reduce or stop the flow.

I’ve seen this approach taken when the street stop cock was immovable.

If it is not poly pipe freeze it or work quickly.

Whatever your mate does, make sure he videos it and put it on you tube.