Advice on old/capped pipes

[Kaish]

Hello everyone, I've got a cupboard in my living room that I want to totally rip out and put plasterboard up inside to wallpaper over. The problem is there are two pipes in it I'm worried about covering, one looks like a capped water pipe and the other goes right across the middle of the upper part of the cupboard.

I'm not sure who to ask about them, I don't want to get a plumber in just to ask a 5 minute question. Can anyone shed light on whether it would be safe to cut the big horizontal pipe and put plasterboard in front of the capped pipe? Cheers folks.

Cupboard

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• Kaish
• 19 Feb 2013
• 1

Upper section horizontal pipe

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• Kaish
• 19 Feb 2013
• 1

Capped pipe

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• Kaish
• 19 Feb 2013
• 1

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[onecog]

Hard to say what that pipe is but it looks like 28mm & could have come from a boiler to a cylinder.where does it come from/go ?

 

[45yearsagasman]

It may be the remains of an old cylinder support.(there were sometimes 2) and the cylinder sat on top. You need to know what's at either end before cutting out. Chisel out the wall just above the pipe and into the wall and you may find the end of the pipe.

 

[Kaish]

I never even thought of that, that would make sense because there's that dirty big cylinder shaped mark just above the pipe. Hopefully it's just a support and I can chisel it out. Cheers.

 

[rjm2k]

An additional check might be to use a multimeter to check for continuity between the pipe in question and the other pipes, lack of continuity wont prove anything so don't assume you can cut it but +ve continuity may give you an indication that something is going on elsewhere. You would need to scrape a bit of paint off.

 

[dhutch]

Alternatively, if you are unhappy doing that, its not stupid to get someone in.

Scraping the paint of the horizontal pipe will tell you if its copper or not, which is a starter fot ten.

The capped pipe can clearly be capped off higher, but equally, maybe be able to come out totally and be capped off far near whatever, if anything, its plumbed to. Ditto the other pipes, which will need to be traced back from which you can determin if the can be removed, or if they need to stay or be rerouted.

Are they room temp? If turn run taps do either of the get warm or go cold? And if you turn on the heating?


Daniel

 

[Bosswhite]

You could loosen off the blank cap SLIGHTLY to see if any water drips out .

 

[dhutch]

You could loosen off the blank cap SLIGHTLY to see if any water drips out .

 

[Kaish]

I'll check it if the pipe changes temp when the boiler is going. Is it safe to assume the large horizontal pipe isn't gas?

 

[dhutch]

I'll check it if the pipe changes temp when the boiler is going. Is it safe to assume the large horizontal pipe isn't gas?

All assumptions are with risk!

Where is the current boiler? meter? have they moved?

 

[Kaish]

Current boiler is in the kitchen and has been there since 2003, I don't know where the boiler before that was located.

The meter is in a cupboard in the hallway and looks relatively new. I only moved into the flat 4 months ago so I'm not sure where things were before then.

I suppose the only sure way to tell is to get a plumber in to have a look, better safe than sorry.