Practising at home

[learner]

Hi All

I have no practical experience, just home study and practising at home with some copper pipe and bending springs and machines, joining with capillary fittings and compression joints etc.

I will be moving very shortly and the plumbing in the new house is awful. Taking the advice from my previous thread to practise on my own plumbing at home, I have decided to start with completely stripping the bathroom and refitting the lot.

So with that in mind was wondering if anyone out there can give me some advice on what to do and what not to do, what to look out for, order of work etc..

Your advice is appreciated in advance


Nick

[taydo]

I believe there are to many variables to answer this question. My advice to you is make sure the water is off and change the loo last make sure you have enough blanking caps cos your family may need to use that loo at some point in your project

GOOD LUCK

[Paulc]

Hi Nick,

Which home study course are you doing? Is it any good?

Cheers,

Paul

[learner]

Paul,

I have just finished the first of 2 OLCI plumbing courses

Is it any Good?

I can't really judge, as I have nothing to compare it to. But sections of it I did find helpful, one of its bad points is that you only have to answer multiple choice questions through out the 9 modules and I believe is the same in the advanced course which I have not yet started. At a glance the advance course does seem to be in a lot more detail (but you would expect that). The only reason I chose the home study was to give me a heads up before I moved and enrolled in a course. Although I think the course was helpful I dont think it was worth the money I paid for it.

Taydo fortunately the house has a downstairs toilet. However I am guessing it will take me awhile so round to the parent’s house for baths I think

Nick

[AlanE]

The advise I normally give when asked similar question to yours is to go and purchase some lengths of copper pipe, 15 22 & 28mm together with a few fittings and pipe clips. Also a wall mounted backplate and tap.

Pratice cutting and bending the pipe and fitting it around your garage. Use various adapters so you get to include all the sizes of pipe. It's a lot harder to solder 28mm than 15.

Pratice fitting it NEATLY, use a spirit level to get it level. The result may look a bit wierd but that doesn't matter.

End your pipe run at the tap and fitting. Now fit hose to other end and let water flow from tap to fill pipes with water.

The object, obviously, being to complete with no leaks when pipework pressurised with water.

Imagine the garage is a customers living room and treat it as such when you work. As I said it is a great form of pratice.

Alan

[Paveway]

Hello again.

The stop ends mentioned above are a good idea. Push fits are best for quickness and don't leave an olive and nut stuck on the pipe. A straight bathroom swap takes me about a day (bog, basin, bath, bath panel, but no tiling) - I did one yesterday.

I use flexible push fit connectors with built in isolator valves (Screwfix 22mm, £4.99 each) on the bath taps which I fit to the taps before putting the bath in and make it much easier to connect onto the pipes in the confined space at the end. Do a dry run to get the correct pipe lengths before you seal the bath in.

Look at every tap you fit. If the thread terminates with either a sharp edge, or if the mating face (to the connector washer) has dents in it (and it will have, even if they're small ones), file it to a nice flat surface before you fit it and your washers won't leak or need PTFE tape to seal them.

Use Plumbers Mait (that's how you spell it) on the wastes (ie plugholes) on the bath and basin, or clear silicone if it will have time to dry. Don't be stingy with it.

Fit the bath brackets downwards, not up behind the tiles so you can remove the bath if you ever need to without re-tiling.

Use a whole tube of clear silicone between the bath and the walls when you fit it. Clean the bath edge with meths first. Put masking tape on the top surface to stop the stuff which squelches out marking the bath.

Tile down to within 1/4" of the bath surface (if you've no rush, do this before you finally secure the bath in place, then you won't be working over it - same with shower trays). Once you've grouted it (powdered grout only, the ready mix is DIY c*ap), fill the bath to the overflow with water, mask the joint and fill the gap with silicone, smoothed with a finger wetted from the bath. (Not your mouth, it goes mouldy otherwise).

Let the sealant dry for a long time before you empty the bath. Result? Sealant in compression when the bath's empty and relaxed instead of under tension when the bath's full. So no leaks.

Bored yet? Good. That'll be £500 please!

Cheers,

Joe.

[Paulc]

Thanks for that Nick, that's the course I was considering doing. Have you had much contact with the "personal tutor"? They also run practical workshops as well, have attended one?

Really can't make up my mind which route to take!
I guess you are doing a full time job as well, which makes any other route almost impossible.

[learner]

Paul,

I think the personal tutor is a load of rubbish as I have never spoke to him and it seems that there is a different person marking my modules all the time, although I did not have anything relating to the course to ask so not sure if the call centre staff would have been able to answer any technical questions relating to course work (guessing probably not). I saw that they do practical workshops but they also work out quite expensive. I am not opposed to spending a lot of money on something if I feel would be worth while but judging on the course I think it would not be that helpful that is not to say someone else doesn’t find the course extremely helpful, I think it depends how you prefer to learn, personally I am more of a hands on learner I find doing it that way I don't normally need to be told things more than once and pick things up quicker, I am not saying I ignore the theory side of things though. I just received a book I ordered today called Plumbing heating and gas installation by R.D. Treloar which at a glance seems to have just as much useful information and I think comes recommended by quite a few in this forum. For the past months I have been holding down a full time job and doing the self study, I am moving soon which means I have to give up my job so I am doing my research on going to college and will be phoning around the yellow pages etc. from quite a few areas near myself (Basildon) to see if anyone will take me on so I can also get some practical experience I need. Hope the above has helped.

Thanks to Taydo, Alan, Joe (in order of response nothing else). I found your comments really helpful and appreciate them a lot.

Nick

[Paulc]

Cheers Nick. Best of luck mate.

[Guest]

This is a great thread, i think i am also oging to get myself some pipe and fittings to practisce

[Robster_1981]

Alan E\Paveway - Excellent replies! Very helpful!!!

[Paveway]

Thanks. I'll just update my methods if I may though. I don't use flexible connectors for anything now unless my customer supplies them to me with a tap they want fitting. Everything is fitted with copper, as it doesn't burst (most of the time )

[Paveway]

Oh, and a bathroom now takes me a day and a half as I found a single day too stressful and I hope the extra time means I don't rush and do a better job.

Cheers,

Joe.