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Tee · test pointPlumbing and gas · the inner south-east

Rill. Open one tile, not the room.

Two plumbers in Unley for older villas and bungalows. Bathrooms, kitchens, laundries, hot water, gas and leaks, and the pipework behind the wall done once, so it stays shut.

The cold patch low on the right is water drying out of the plaster. We'd lift one tile there, remake the joint on the cold feed and put the tile back.

Hot on the left, cold on the right, as you face the tap.

A tiled bathroom wall seen straight on: pale grey-green tiles to a level line, plaster above, a white basin and a plain wall mixer.

Move the pointer, drag a finger or use the arrow keys to move the camera. Press Enter to check a spot for the leak.

Tee · a capped dead leg

Three renovations deep

Most walls we open have been opened before.

We work in the villas and bungalows of Unley, Parkside, Norwood and Burnside: stone fronts, lath and plaster, a lean-to out the back that has been a laundry, a sleepout and a bathroom in turn.

One wall often holds galvanised steel from the first owners, copper patched in by the second, and plastic tails from the third, joined where nobody can reach. Each fix was fine on the day. Together they leak.

So we take out dead legs, we never join new pipe to failing old, and we cap nothing blind. When the wall closes, what's behind it is one run we can draw for you.

Dead leg: a length of pipe that goes nowhere any more. Water sits in it.

  1. 1920s · galvanised steel. It rusts from the inside, so the bore closes up. We replace it; we don't join to it. The capped stub above is a dead leg.
  2. 1970s · a copper patch. Joined straight onto the steel, where the two metals don't get on.
  3. 2000s · plastic tails. Crimped on behind a cupboard, then boxed in.
  4. Our run. One length of copper, formed bends, clipped at 600, drawn before the wall closes.

Tee · the leak

One tile, not the room.

A leak in a wall shows up late: a soft skirting, a stain on the other side, a meter that turns with every tap shut.

  1. 01Look. A thermal camera shows where warm and cold water run behind the tiles. Thermal camera: it sees heat, not water. Wet plaster reads cold.
  2. 02Listen. A ground microphone hears a pinhole hiss under pressure, through tile, screed and slab. A microphone on the floor, and headphones.
  3. 03Open one place. Marked in pencil, one tile lifted, the joint remade, the tile back. If it can't go back, we find its match before we start.

What to watch for: a water bill that climbs with nobody home.

A check you can do tonight

Turn every tap in the house off, the ones outside too. Read the water meter and write it down. Read it again in an hour. If the numbers moved, water is going somewhere.

One tile lifted out of a tiled wall, showing a short run of copper pipe with a new joint behind it; the tile rests on a drop cloth below. 75 200
One tile out, the joint behind it remade, the tile back on the same afternoon.
A walk-in shower seen straight on: grey-green tiles, a terrazzo floor falling to a slim drain, a round rose, a lever mixer and a tiled niche. 1050 1950 300
Mixer at 1050 to centre, so the niche clears the lever.

Tee · shower · DN15

Set out before the tiler comes.

A bathroom is mostly pipe you'll never see again. We put it where you'll want it.

  • Strip-out to the frame, and the old runs traced back to where they start.
  • Set-out drawn on the wall at real heights. We ask where you want the mixer before we fix it.
  • Falls to the waste. Fall: the slope that takes water to the drain.
  • Runs clipped and lagged, and the wet area left ready for the waterproofer and the tiler.
  • Every run photographed and drawn before the sheet goes back, and you get the drawing.
A kitchen wall seen straight on: a gas cooktop and a sink in a stone bench, the cupboard under the sink open to show copper pipes and two small valves. isolation valves gas · moved 900

Tee · sink · DN15

Valves where you can reach them.

  • A sink moved across the room, and water to a dishwasher and a fridge.
  • Isolation valves at the front of the cupboard. A quarter-turn tap that shuts off one fitting and leaves the house running.
  • Laundry troughs, washer taps you can reach without moving the machine, and a tray under it.
  • Old waste pipes rodded or replaced, and every trap where it can come off by hand.

Tee · hot water unit · DN20

The wait for hot water

Turn on the shower and count. The cold that comes first is the water sitting in the pipe between the heater and you. The longer and wider that pipe, the longer you wait.

Move the heater. Change a pipe size. Run the kitchen tap with the shower on and watch the pressure. A good run is short, sized to the job, and goes the way the water wants to go.

A narrow laundry: a white trough, and beside it lagged copper pipes running into the top of a plain white hot water cylinder.
Lagged where it runs outside the warm part of the house.

An illustrative villa · the hot run in the roof

An isometric drawing of a single-fronted villa with the hot water pipe from the heater, through the roof, to the shower, bath, basin, kitchen sink and laundry trough. BedroomBedroomBathroomFront roomBedroomKitchenLaundryLean-toHallABCShowerBathBasinKitchen sinkLaundry trough

Drag the heater to A, B or C, or focus it and use the arrow keys.

28sbefore hot water reaches the shower

DN20 from the heater, 19.0 m of pipe, 3.8 litres to push through first, and the copper to warm.

With the kitchen tap on as well, the shower drops from 9.5 to 8.7 L/min, and from 280 to 235 kPa.

Each outlet running, with whatever else is on
OutletL/minkPaWait, s
Shower · on9.528028.4
Bath12.118515.0
Basin6.025318.7
Kitchen sink7.424114.2
Laundry trough8.62309.9

Taps running

Trunk
Shower branch

Return

Worked out on this page for an illustrative house. Your house will differ, so this isn't advice. It's why we draw the run before we cut a wall.

The working: Darcy–Weisbach friction with the Swamee–Jain factor, outlets as orifices, mains at 320 kPa falling as taps open, a ring balanced by Hardy Cross, and the copper warmed with the water.

Tee · cooktop

Gas, moved and tested.

  • A cooktop moved in a kitchen renovation, or a new point for an outdoor heater.
  • Old lines taken back and capped at the source, not left live in a wall.
  • After any change the line is pressure tested, and we write down what was tested and where the line runs.

Pressure test: we close the line, pump it up and watch that it holds.

  1. Meter. Where the line starts, on the outside wall.
  2. Under the floor. One run, clipped to the joists, sleeved through the wall.
  3. Test point. The gauge goes on here, and the line has to hold.
  4. Cooktop valve. A quarter-turn you can reach from the cupboard.
  5. The old branch. Taken back to the run and capped there.

Tee · four valves

How a job goes

  1. 01Look and listen. Camera, microphone, meter. We find where it runs before we touch it.
  2. 02Mark it up. Pencil on the wall, and a price in writing before anything is cut.
  3. 03Open one place. The smallest opening that does the job, with drop cloths down first.
  4. 04Close it and leave a note. Photographs of the run, and a note on the bench.
Hands in a navy work shirt bending a length of copper tube into a smooth right angle on a hand bender.
We bend copper where we can instead of fitting an elbow. Fewer joints, fewer places to leak.

A note like the ones we leave. Drawn for this page.

Tuesday. Ensuite, back of the house.

Remade the weeping joint on the cold feed behind the third tile course, left of the basin. One tile lifted and refixed. Line pressure tested after.

The run: DN15 copper, up from the floor 300 in from the corner, a formed bend, clipped at 600.

Watch for: grout going dark there. Tell us if it does.

R.

Stop valve · end of the run

Tell us where it runs.

Unley · Parkside · Norwood · Burnside

and the streets in between

Say what's happening and where. We'll come and look before we price anything.

What's it about?