Non-motoring > Plumbing advice Miscellaneous
Thread Author: bathtub tom Replies: 26
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 Sat 21 Sep 13 16:58 
 Plumbing advice - bathtub tom
I'm replacing a few grungy looking radiator valves, the sort that are very stiff or have green verdigris around them and fitting a few Thermostatic Radiator Valves (TRVs) where appropriate.

How on earth do I remove the old olives from the existing pipework? I've bent one pipe and partially flattened another in my attempts. I don't particularly want to re-use the old olives as I believe I'm less likely to experience leaks if I renew them.

I've a tube of joint sealant, the sort that smells of the silicone sealant used around baths. Any views on it being sufficient to seal the new fittings to the old olives?
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 Sat 21 Sep 13 17:02 
 Plumbing advice - Zero
Mapmaker complained like hell, claiming it was terrible advice, but this works for me.

I do reuse the old olives ( you cant get them off without damaging the pipe) and I use a thin smear of this

www.screwfix.com/p/fernox-ls-x-leak-sealer/23614
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 Sat 21 Sep 13 17:11 
 Plumbing advice - VxFan
>> I do reuse the old olives

Same here, but never bothered with any leak sealer around them afterwards. From replacing taps, to taking off radiators to decorate behind.

Touch wood, never had a leak yet.
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 Sat 21 Sep 13 17:14 
 Plumbing advice - Zero
you dont put the leak sealer round them afterwards. You clean the in situ olives with steel wool, smear the leak sealer round them, then make and do up the compression joint.
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 Sat 21 Sep 13 17:35 
 Plumbing advice - VxFan
>> You clean the in situ olives with steel wool, smear the leak sealer round them, then make and do up the compression joint.

I don't even bother doing that. Just a quick wipe around with my fingers to make sure no loose debris is there then reconnect and do back up.
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 Sat 21 Sep 13 17:17 
 Plumbing advice - sherlock47
Same as Z - reuse the olives and nuts and be generous with LSX on pipe and threads, Clean excess off before its ets once the joint is done up.

You can get olive removal tools

www.amazon.co.uk/Monument-2030b-Olive-Removing-Tool/dp/B0001P0FFY

or an alternative design

tinyurl.com/nb3hd5g

but I would not bother! I reckon that there is a greater chance of damaging the pipe and getting a leak.
Last edited by: pmh on Sat 21 Sep 13 at 17:20
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 Sat 21 Sep 13 17:48 
 Plumbing advice - Armel Coussine
Haven't done any small-bore copper pipe stuff for years, but olive joints will usually reassemble all right - the olive gets compressed a bit - provided it was put together straight in the first place. I've watched plumbers working, OK, fairly fast, but in a quite unnecessarily slipshod manner... more haste less speed. Why not cut the pipe off straight instead of at some dumb sluttish angle?

However I haven't always been lucky reassembling an old joint. I wd agree with Zero that putting a bit of plumber's gunge in as a precaution is always a good idea.
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 Sat 21 Sep 13 19:29 
 Plumbing advice - crocks
If you do use LS-X be aware that it goes off in the tube very quickly if you leave the top off. Prepare everything beforehand. Open the tube, apply, and put the top back on before you assemble things and spanner it up. Otherwise you will end up paying £5 for just one smear.

I learnt this many years ago the hard way.

However I would usually just re-use the original olive with Boss White. Just occasionally you will find a non-standard thread on the captive nut so the olive will have to come off.
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 Sat 21 Sep 13 19:49 
 Plumbing advice - madf
I remove old olives using a small hacksaw and patience.. Works well , never had a problem.. Saw across the olive in two places about 25 mm apart - taking care not to saw completely through either until the other is almost ready to be cut through. I have a Dremel look alike but even at low speeds they can go through copper like a hot knife through butter ...
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 Sat 21 Sep 13 20:08 
 Plumbing advice - Number_Cruncher
Yes, I use a junior hacksaw, cutting across the olive as close to the axis of the pipe as I can get , taking care not to go through. Once there's a decent slot, I break the olive open by using a flat bladed screwdriver twisting the slot as if it were a screw.
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      2  
 Sat 21 Sep 13 20:30 
 Plumbing advice - Zero
Assuming of course you can get a hacksaw in close to the axis of the pipe in that 2 inches sticking out of the floor board and one inch against the skirting board.

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      1  
 Sat 21 Sep 13 20:42 
 Plumbing advice - henry k
>> Assuming of course you can get a hacksaw in close to the axis of the
>> pipe in that 2 inches sticking out of the floor board and one inch against
>> the skirting board.
>>
I had my wedding ring ( similar to an olive ?) cut off a while back. If you do not have a Dremel , that sort of small rotating tooth cutting disk would do the job.
Glad they did not use a hacksaw, even a junior one :-)
In case you are not aware of the process.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XjJzusiJPE
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 Sat 21 Sep 13 20:46 
 Plumbing advice - Number_Cruncher
>>2 inches sticking out of the floor board and one inch against the skirting board.

Plenty.

It's a question of skill really....
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 Sat 21 Sep 13 20:49 
 Plumbing advice - Zero
Its a question of leaving the olive on the pipe where it belongs and the hacksaw in the garage.
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 21 Sep 13 at 20:50
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 Sat 21 Sep 13 20:53 
 Plumbing advice - No FM2R
Why replace the olive every time? Why not reassemble it and just replace it the times that it does leak.

Following that approach I have replaced one ever that I can remember.
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 Sat 21 Sep 13 20:54 
 Plumbing advice - Number_Cruncher
>>leaving the olive on the pipe

Sometimes, yes.

If it's been damaged, then, no, it has to come off.

It's also rather difficult to change the nut without taking the olive off.
Last edited by: Number_Cruncher on Sat 21 Sep 13 at 20:58
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 Sat 21 Sep 13 21:04 
 Plumbing advice - Zero
Not had to change a nut in 15 years. Thats the beauty of standards, they are (usually) all the same.

I think I must have cracked open about 40 compression joints int he last 15 years, and never had to replace an olive or a nut yet.
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 21 Sep 13 at 21:07
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 Sat 21 Sep 13 21:08 
 Plumbing advice - Number_Cruncher
>>Not had to change a nut in 15 years.

I've had to change some, but, yes, not many.
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 Sat 21 Sep 13 21:11 
 Plumbing advice - Zero
Slight lie by me, if you include the olives that got thrown away when I had to cut the CH pump out. Damn isolator valves *always* corrode onto the body of the pump.
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 Sat 21 Sep 13 21:17 
 Plumbing advice - Number_Cruncher
Here's an odd quirk of internet forum nonsense; related to Pat's thread on what has happened to us.

I'm fairly sure I haven't suggested that you must change an olive EVERY time.

I'm also fairly sure that Z doesn't think that there is NEVER a valid reason to remove an olive.

However, anyone reading this thread might reasonably adopt that impression of our discussion.
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 Sat 21 Sep 13 21:37 
 Plumbing advice - Armel Coussine
When are we going to get back to filthy old wornout drum brake systems with the pipes rusted through and ready to explode, the cylinders full of toxic filth and half the pistons seized with corroded old bores...

Now that's what one could call plumbing (mumbled the corroded old bore)...
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 Sat 21 Sep 13 22:09 
 Plumbing advice - MD
AC becomes COB. Love it....
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 Sat 21 Sep 13 22:14 
 Plumbing advice - Number_Cruncher
Reminds me of a chap who worked in Bristol office of a company I worked for....


The Severn Bore!

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 Sat 21 Sep 13 20:08 
 Plumbing advice - henry k
I have only ever used Boss White over several decades ( same original tin still in use )
I usually remove the olive by tapping the cap nut to force the olive off.
I have lots of spare olives imperial and metric and others for imperial/metric.
The olive should come off easily if it has been correctly tightened. Unfortunately a load of so called plumbers think more is best and over tighten the nuts and distort the pipe.
All my rad valves were brass ( not chromed) so I needed the olives off!

I have fitted the familiar neat Drayton TRV4s.
www.draytoncontrols.co.uk/TRV4ThermostaticRadiatorValves.aspx
Which can now be fitted on flow or return.
Earlier versions have been available for decades and replacement heads ( and valves) are easily obtainable. Not sure about other brands.
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 Sat 21 Sep 13 20:48 
 Plumbing advice - Armel Coussine
>> The olive should come off easily if it has been correctly tightened. Unfortunately a load of so called plumbers think more is best and over tighten the nuts and distort the pipe.

Yup yup yup... nothing properly aligned, nothing cut square, just a savage attack with a bent but huge old stillson wreaking sometimes irrevocable damage.

Had a friend in the sixties, a Jamaican plumber and dope dealer. He did some plumbing for me in my house in Highbury back then. The work was OK I seem to remember and we got on quite well. But when I drove his Cortina Mk 2 1600 he told me I was a rude boy. . Nice cat with a charming, beautiful wife, lived over in Hackney.

Actually I'm a bit of a plumber myself. I have several special plumbers' screwdrivers of different sizes. Very adaptable tool, a plumber's screwdriver, although rather bad for screws.
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 Mon 23 Sep 13 09:51 
 Plumbing advice - Cliff Pope
The olive is supposed to distort - it is soft, and gets compressed hard against the pipe so forming a solid joint. In my experience this pipe/olive/nut assembly will tighten easily and without leaks onto any other valve or fitting. As Zero said, that's standardisation.

In fact it's on the rare occasions where I have for some reason needed to to get the nut off and so have sawn the olive that it subsequently leaks with a new olive. When an olive is compressed onto a pipe both the pipe and the olive distort slightly. replacing one of them eg the olive, results in a mis-match, and the new olive has to take up the conformation of the old pipe before it will seal. It's much better to keep them solidly together as a pair.
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 Mon 23 Sep 13 10:53 
 Plumbing advice - bathtub tom
Update.

I kept the old olives and (so far) no leaks.

The system needed a service. It's a twelve-year-old Baxi Bermuda back boiler that was kettling and hammering away. The loft tank was full of grunge. It had a few radiator valves that were weeping or seized, one TRV that was working occasionally and I wanted to fit a couple more TRVs.

I got a syphon going in the loft tank while I scrubbed away at the grunge on the sides and base. I left it syphoning until the resulting 'brown windsor soup' turned clear. I then drained the system down, that came out black!

I changed the valves, although I couldn't fit one TRV as it needed the pipe moving a few millimetres more than I could manage. The pipes came through a wall and fitting the TRV meant they didn't line up the same. I refilled the system, checked for leaks and drained it again (it didn't come out quite as black - oh well!)

The boiler sits at the bottom of its own pipes with a drain valve fitted. I thought I'd be clever and fill it with a de-scaling solution via a hose,and funnel. The book said it held two litres. I mixed this bright yellow liquid (it says it turns blue when no longer active) and got some on my hand. I washed it off, the water, soap and hand turned blue! I've still got a blue hand that stinks of sulfonic acid. It seems to have worked as the boiler's quiet for now.

Glad I didn't become a plumber!
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