Pipe fittings for hot and cold supply

 

 This was for two reasons. the first was I am not so good with soldering or anything involving flames. The second reason was that although compression fittings are much more expensive we had a very small and limited water run in our small house. We also had to ignore some nonsense advice from a forum as well that said you cannot use plastic pipe because of the high water pressure. As the first thing you should install in your pipe run even if using copper is a pressure regulator. This enables you to set the pressure at 3 bar, or if your feeling lucky 5 bar. A friend of ours with copper pipe had to install a pressure regulator because it was so high his toilet tank would not stop filling up. And you never know when it peaks as water pressure here is not a constant it changes like the weather. We have heard reports from regions of France of 10 bar pressure!

Compression fittings

Where pipes are not under great strain from tight curves we used electrical pipe clips which are much cheaper than the plumbing pipe clips. Saved a few euros why not? The large picture below is the compression fittings we decided to use which consists of strange olive with split in it and insert with thread. Do not buy the key for inserting them if you own a set of Allen keys why waste 9 euros? : the cheeky buggers.

WARNING look at the diagram on the back of the pack it shows a small amount of plastic pipe perhaps 3mm left sticking out of the end of the olive when fitted if you forget this your joint will leak.

The blue pipe we used came in rolls of fifteen,twenty five or fifty metres it is called P.E.R. We used 16 mm pipe throughout the house and once you get used to constructing the joins it really is a breeze if not quite a breezy-break. Most decent taps you buy come with flexible hoses at 10mm and we had to buy reducers for 16mm to 10mm.

The French do have a system rather like speed-fit at 9 euros a fitting you would have to be rich indeed to use them throughout your house. One difficulty which caused us headaches until we figured it out was the adapters from one size to another; like 10 mm to 16 mm male to male adapters. These often are in imperial measures and it goes like this 10mm = 3/8 of an inch....16mm = 1/2 inch and 20mm = 3/4 inch.

French water tanks

 The hot water tank (chauffe-eau) is a good French system which we rather like, in theory you just bolt it to the wall fit hot and cold attach a plug for electric and away you go. It should have been that simple and the fact that it was not, is more to do with our old walls than the tank itself. Our walls have crumbly mortar holding together the toughest granite you could imagine. The four bolt mountings on the tank are fixed and where they fall on your walls is pure chance. So when I started to drill the holes some fell on mortar points where we had to chisel out and re-mortar before setting the bolt. It would also help if you can raise up the tank a few more inches than seen in the photo as well; as it is difficult to get the element out which drops out of the bottom if you need to change it. Do not laugh as I did at the big mounting bolts in the DIY stores.

 My logic went like this; its only a tank weighing in at perhaps 200 kilogram's when full you don't need 4 expanding bolts 6 inches long. I was wrong because the extra length can get you a grip at the back of small stone walls even if the mortar is soft.The other difficulty was the size of the tank its combination of size and weight make it very difficult to manoeuvre into place and requires two strong people or one and a half strong people and lots of cushions to get it to the right height.

 

Shower cubicle

After we got the tank in we purchased a cheap shower from Mr Bricolage. Looks good but we had a few problems assembling it. It was no surprise as they say "you get what you pay for". Our major lesson was if parts come pre-assembled don't assume that it has been tightened fully. We have had a few puddles and the bottom drain still needs sealant even now to stop another small leak. Overall though I do think a shower cubicle with all the fittings is a better idea than bath with DIY screen and tiling. The finished product is very smart for 229 euros.

Waste pipes are quite easy with bits of flexible hose for difficult areas. The all glue together quite easily, but do not believe the claim on the tin that it takes an hour to set. I marked and cut the shower waste; glued all the parts. assembled them and before I could get back to the first join to make a minor adjustment of angle the damn thing had set. All in a matter of 2 or 3 minutes, arses!

 

 

New toilet

Rather pleased with the new toilet having paid 33 euros and it was still quite easy to assemble and install. The old toilet tipped forward which was courtesy of a sloping floor and a wedge under the toilet which moved around. And the new one has a larger base which is much more stable even on the slope correcting wedge. We were warned in advance  about the cheap plastic bolts which hold tank to base;  by our plumber friend Ian. These can leak so best replace with steel bolt and washers if you can; but best not over-tighten either.