In an ideal world, pipe runs would be made in one piece from one fitting or appliance to another, to minimise the number of potential leak sites. In reality, it is simply impossible, pipes and are made from infinite lengths, and the complex shapes often required would make it impossible to feed a single pipe through the structure of a house. So shorter lengths must be cut, shaped and joined together. Radlett Plumbers use all pipework

At one time, domestic plumbing systems used iron and lead pipes. These days, copper pipes are the usual means of carrying water around the home, with plastic pipes used for waste systems. The most common size of copper pipe has an outer diameter of 15mm, although you may find smaller sizes (10mm) feeding monobloc taps and radiators, and larger sizes (22mm/28mm) feeding baths, storage cisterns, tanks and boilers.

If your system was fitted before the middle of the 1970s, the pipework will more than likely be of imperial dimensional is (1/2, 3/4 and 1 inch in diameter). You can join modern 15 mm pipe to half-inch imperial and 28mm to 1 inch using standard metric compression fittings, but connecting 22mm pipe to 3/4 inch requires a 22mm compression fitting with a special oversize olive. For soldered joints, there are, metric/Imperial connectors in the relevant sizes. A Radlett Plumber fits plastic pipes


Copper.
Copper is strong but lightweight, solders well and can be bent quite easily. Copper pipes can take capillary, compression or push-fit fittings.

Plastic
Although plastic pipes are commonly used only for wastewater, there are also types of plastic pipes that are suitable for hot and cold water supply pipes and central heating systems. They can be joined to copper pipework and are made to the same standard sizes, although the wall thickness of different makes can vary. They are easy to bend and install, are impact and frost resistant and they do not corrode.