Clamping a Broken Water Pipe

 

As you can imagine on a stud you have a lot of water pipes and valves.

It has been very cold here lately and one of the valves froze solid and broke, sending a spray of water everywhere. As sometimes happens, I couldn't locate where the stop-cock was located, despite going down some very wet and cold manholes looking for it.

In the end I gave up, as I was wet through and frozen, and retired to a hot bath.

But I did find a tool at the Drain Centre in Cambridge.

In the first picture you can see the rather fearsome tool clamped around the pipe, with the broken valve still in place.


Note the big crack in the valve. But the water flow has stopped.

In the end, I just cut the valve off with a saw and then cleaned up the pipe.


The final picture shows the new valve attached to the pipe.


Note the dent in the pipe, where the clamp was applied. It actually shows how strong these plastic water pipes are.

Having seen the power in this tool, I hope people don't ever misuse it.