Cast iron downpipes

[worms]

How does one correctly mount a cast-iron down-pipe onto a rubble stone wall?

All of mine are merely held horizontally to the wall by a spike/hook with an opposing wooden wedge but held vertically by a cast-iron bend at the bottom, which in turn is held by another section of cast-iron down-pipe laid at an angle underground into the soakaway. This arrangement makes it impossible to clear the downpipe without dismantling all the way down to the soakaway.

I want to terminate it at the bottom bend and make new arrangements for the soakaway, but need to be able to keep the pipe supported. Inevitably the flange section of the downpipe where you might mount a bracket is never in the right place to fix screws into the rubble wall. In a couple of places where I have done a botch repair with a plastic downpipe, I have mounted a block of onto the wall and then the pipe fixings onto the wood. But there must be a more elegant solution!

 

[Lime]

Cast iron piping is very heavy.
The standard method of install was to take the weight of the down pipe at the base.
Some cast pipes have lugs near their soffit or pipe obvert which can transfer the weight onto/into the wall.
However if the wall is not able to take the concentrated extra load the weight needs to be taken at the base.
What alternative is there?

 

[Feltwell]

Is the solution to your problem to stick with cast iron, therefore still taking the weight at the bottom, but put a pipe with an access plate in?

Like this:-

http://www.classicalrainwater.co.uk/product.htm?scID=1&category=Round Pipes & Fittings &groupID=54

I wouldn't bother with Saint Gobain though, products are fine but they are expensive - Longbottoms do a much bigger range and I found them to be cheaper, as well as very helpful. Not much of a website, but you can see a bend illustrated on the link below with an access plate. It's for a soil pipe but I wouldn't be surprised if they do one for a rainwater downpipe.

http://www.longbottomfoundry.co.uk/gutters-pipes-fittings.htm

 

[MatthewC]

You could try using some downpipe fixing brackets (http://www.rainclear.co.uk/index.asp?cat1=2&cat2=10&ps=4|11&ct=6&t=Downpipe%20&%20Fittings). If tight, these should transfer weight to the wall at various points rather than just the bottom.

My old 2.5" cast iron downpipes were held to the wall by the same sort of umbrella spike/hook that you have but the bottom was an eared shoe held to the wall with large pins through the lugs. I'd recommend also replacing the shoe so you can have a decent attachment at the bottom.

A few months ago I replaced all these downpipes with new ones from Rainclear which had lugs at the top of each 6ft section (so each section hangs from its own top rather than being supported from the bottom of the lot). I also replaced all the old 4.5" ogee guttering (as it had corroded attachment holes because of which the fascia had rotted). I reckoned that there was an issue with the volume of water so used 5" half round guttering from the same company with 3" downpipes. By replacing everything we were able to choose a good place for drilling the attachments for the downpipe. We drilled carefully into the limestone rubble and it all attached beautifully with the hefty screws which they provided.

Matthew
http://houseintheenchantedforest.blogspot.com/

 

[worms]

Thanks for the replies!

I've put the downpipe I was working on yesterday back up, with a couple of flat stones supporting the shoe and a flat-stone/wooden wedge combination keeping it all off the wall and against the spike. It seems pretty firm at the moment, but not an elegant solution. And by doing away with the clogged cast-iron section leading to the clogged soakaway, at least the water can flow away now.

Perhaps in the longer term I'll splash out on one of the eared shoes shown on the rainclear site.