Was there ever such a thing as a soldered stopcock?

[WaterTight]

I've lost my camera so couldn't take a pic. It's seized and awkward so am fitting another one in line and leaving it be but it looks to me like the copper pipes on both sides are soldered onto the body of the stopcock. There are no nuts, just smooth rounded surface. The 15mm copper pipe sort of flares outwards as it joins the body of the stop cock where it seems to then become the body of the stopcock. The whole arrangement was painted so couldn't see 100% clearly but was very lightly and thinly painted and so I could see there were definetly no nuts, nothing with sides to fit a spanner on and pipes were copper, definetly not lead.

[ecowarm]

Yes there was and you can still get them

[WaterTight]

Hmm. Ok, cheers. At least I'm not going crazy. I did google it and checked on BES (which seems to have most oddities) first but didn't see anything so thought maybe I imagined it.

[ecowarm]

Solder Ring Stopcock 15mm - Trading Depot

[WaterTight]

Ahha. Kind of unprofessional to have fitted one of these on top of half an inch of pipe popping out of a concrete floor at the back of a toilet though. Luckily I've room to fit another one inline.

[WHPES]

Yes, you can get brass end feed ones too.


Came acoss one a while back where someone had soldered it on without taking out the tap mechanism. The washers had melted and gummed up the workings so it didnt shut.

[ecowarm]

just rewasher it?

[steveb]

you could take a normal stop cock and swap the workings over they look like the same size 71816.jpgSRIYP50115.jpg

[scotty plumber]

I never knew that you could get these

[wheeto]

They used to be all you could get. I bet plumbers of the time looked down at compression fittings like we do with pushfit

[Mike Jackson]

Pah modern rubbish. What you want is a good old brass stop tap with the tails to wipe a lead joint onto. Modern copper stuff isn't a patch on lead.

[WaterTight]

i thought of just changing the innards over but it looks properly old and i doubted i'd find a good match. doesn't look like the one pictured or any i've installed - it had virtually no detail/shapes/gumph. was just a spindle coming out of a plate. i seem to remember being told by a bloke in the merchants that you can't get matching innards for all old stop cocks types. best left alone i reckoned.

[system3]

Sometimes I wish that there was a self cutting valve that sliced through the whole pipe and clamped it and isolated the water supply, and I don't mean those horrible washing machine things! Would be good for emergencies.

[APPlumbing]

Sometimes I wish that there was a self cutting valve that sliced through the whole pipe and clamped it and isolated the water supply, and I don't mean those horrible washing machine things! Would be good for emergencies.

Sounds like an idea for dragons den mate. I'd buy one for a start!

[Nat]

While we are on the subject of stopcocks is it ok to have a lever ARM stopcock in place of a normal type as a main stopcock into a house? Why do people bother with the other type anyway I much prefer the quarter turn valves? Is it a reliability thing?