How much to fix my Frankenplumbing?

MoLatif

Greetings to all,

I was wondering if anyone could give me some sort of a ball park figure as to how much it might cost to replace some outdated plumbing in my house. (Recent purchase, Early Edwardian 3 bed Terrace in the NE)

At the moment everything is fine save for some odd looking plumbing; rads heat up quick, good pressure throughout and a 1 year old combi boiler which works great.

The problem is there is a funny bit of plumbing where downstairs in the kitchen there is a partially exposed old looking vertical metal (lead?) Pipe under the sink which disappears into the plaster then reappears in the loft where there is a strange loop of newer looking copper pipework attached which then goes back down into a bedroom ceiling (visible in the corner of the room) and just before the skirting board, elbows into the internal wall, reappearing under the bath where it appears to be feeding the cold tap and further pipework going under the tiles and supplying possibly the towel radiator and /or the sink taps. I assume this setup was a workaround from when the combi was installed rendering the water tank surplus. Incidentally I have 3 old water tanks in the loft (all disconnected btw) 1 lead 1 plastic and one fibreglass(?), clearly a lot of stuff done over the years.

I want rid of the exposed pipework in the bedroom, but Im worried the strange plumbing might be there for a reason and Im reluctant to cause problems when it works well, just for the sake it looking better.

I had one plumber round but he couldnt work out how everything was routed, particularly as the join under the bath is right up behind the sunken bit and the floor is tiled over the pipes.

Anyone able to make sense of this and suggest a possible rough cost to fix?

Thank you
Mohammed.

naf123

Do you have any contact with the previous owner ? Perhaps ask them...

MoLatif

Thank you. Emailed them but no response. They were only there for 5 yrs and from what I heard from the tenant that they had, did nothing except for a bit of wallpapering. Prior to that it changed hands quite a number of times over a short period so no real prospect of tracking down who did it. Might have been done in the 80s, 50s, 30s, who knows!

Alfrescodave

Ballpark costs from non local contacts are often meaningless as plumbers rates vary considerably depending on which part of the country you're located.

Best action is to keep asking local plumbers to visit and quote accordingly, though make sure there are no call out charges

vw100

Looks like to reduce work and upheavel the tanks in the loft got cut out and pipework joined in the loft. Leaving everything else intact, aka the old plumbing. If everything is working ok, you could try boxing in the pipework in the bedroom?

MoLatif

vw100 wrote: »

Looks like to reduce work and upheavel the tanks in the loft got cut out and pipework joined in the loft. Leaving everything else intact, aka the old plumbing. If everything is working ok, you could try boxing in the pipework in the bedroom?

Vw100 that sounds exactly it! There is already a pointless horizontal boxed in section in that 3rd bedroom (the vertical pipe from the loft comes down through it) so with that removed it could be possible to box that vertical pipe in yes. Until I save up to get it sorted that sounds like a good option.