This is the Aladdin Pipe Genie, this is not actually commercially available for
sale just yet. This is a prototype kit which has been sent out to me to test. This is
comparable in price to a pipe freezing kit but it has considerable
advantages over a pipe freezing kit. This kit contains four valves which can
be used on 15 millimeter pipe and also four valves that can be used on 22
millimeter pipe. I do believe you can also get an imperial set which has four
half-inch and four 3/4 inch valves in that set. You get the spanner or the wrench
you then get a 15 millimeter cutting tool and a 22 millimeter cutting tool, you then
get two 15 millimeter bungs and two twenty two millimeter bungs. You've then got the socket
to drive it in and you also get two small containers full of grease and a
hex screw driver for undoing the grub screw on these, and you also get a spare
worm screw and a couple of spare grub screws. So this kit contains everything
you need however you will need a powerful cordless drill. I do have to
point out that this is the prototype kit so the actual kits that become
commercially available may have some different components in it.
This kit is going to be about £500 plus VAT when it does become
commercially available that's comparable to a professional pipe freezing kit
but this has a lot of advantages. For one if you actually install one of these
on the pipe and put the bung tool in you can actually leave it for long periods
of time so you're not racing against the clock. You can quite comfortably leave it
for an hour or longer once you've installed a valve.
Another advantage of this kit is that you can actually use it on the
hot water and you can also use it on flowing water which is something that
you can't do with a pipe freezing kit. This kit will also work on pressures up
to 10 bar. Obviously this is very difficult to demonstrate in a
real-life situation but I can do it using this setup. As you can see we've
got just over 8 bar of pressure in there. We do have a tiny leak on this system
so the pressure is dropping gradually. The actual mains pressure at this
property is 8 bar that's why I'm going to keep the needle above 8 bar whilst we do
the test. I'm going to start off by taking the valve ensuring that it is in the
open position or pointing to the red dot. Then I'm going to remove the pressure
plate from the back and the nut. I'm then going to take that and slide that
over the pipe. I'm then going to insert the pressure plate, and then screw on the nut.
When you do this you have to ensure that you don't cross thread it.
Now we've got that started I can rotate that round to the correct orientation.
This is a bit difficult because there is only just enough room to actually rotate that and
it is actually digging into the wood but that would be easier if you had a longer
piece of pipe because it would flex more. I'm just going to hold that using a pair
of water pump pliers whilst I tighten the nut. So that's the valve installed you
can actually install these on copper or plastic pipe. I'm now going to take the
cutter tool I'm just going to take some of the grease which is supplied with the
kit, I'm just going to grease the worm screw at the end. Now we have done that we
need to unscrew the handle fully.
We can then remove this cap. You now need to check
that the valve is in the open position so that the slot is pointing to the red
dot. If you take a look in the fitting you can actually see that we've got a hole all
the way through to the pipe. I'm now going to take the cutter tool
and I want to screw that onto the valve.
I am now going to wind in the handle a bit
stopping there as there is some resistance there. We're now going to take the drill
and the socket ensuring it is in a forwards gear. I'm going to put that on to
the nut at the end there and when I started driving that
turn the handle at the same time.
I can actually feel that that went all the way through. You will notice that
we've lost a bit of pressure there so I'm just going to pump that back up.
I am now going to undo that to remove the cutter and the slug.
Now we have lost even
more pressure so I'm just going to pump that up again. I am now going to close the
valve by turning it till it touches the green position. Now we've done that
we've now closed the ball valve in there we can now undo the cutter part there will be
some water that leaks out obviously when we do this. You can see there's minimal
water there. Take a look in there you can actually see the copper coupon that has
been cut out. We can now take the 15 millimeter bung tool and you screw that
on to the valve.
Once we've done that we can then open the valve. We have actually lost a
bit more pressure so I'm just going to pump that up so we get back up over 8 bar.
I'm now going to screw in the handle on the bung tool you can see that it is
actually increasing the pressure on the dial there.
We now have the bung tool installed and that has created a stop in
that pipe which would allow you to work on something on this side of the pipe work.
So if you ever get a pipe that you can't freeze it's got flowing water in
it or hot water this is the ideal solution. Just to prove that the bungs
worked I'm now going to open this valve the pressure should stay the same in there
but we should loose the water that is trapped in there, and remember that is
at least at 8 bar of pressure. You can see that the dial is not moving at all
there so the Pipe Genie has successfully trapped all the
pressure in that part of the system which would allow you to work on that
part of the system. Once you finish doing your work you can simply unscrew
the bung tool, obviously the pressure is going to drop now because the water can
get back up into this part of the pipe. So I'm going to unscrew that until it stops
and pressure that back to 8 bar again and then going to close the ball valve.
I can then unscrew the bung tool then
finally we can replace the cap. You can of course buy the valves separately.
This is just a prototype kit which has been sent out for me to test and I have
to say that it has worked well, if you want to get one of these you can
actually pre order them by Kickstarter. The company that's making
these actually needs quite a bit of money to develop the product further
before this actually goes into production. I will put a link in the
description to the Kickstarter page. I think that's an absolutely fantastic
idea and once it has been developed fully I'm sure that this will be a very
common piece of kit for professional plumbers. I would like to thank you for watching
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