Fractured Condensate Drains?

[sinewave]

Has anyone come across this before?

We have a client with a reasonably sized 8 year old VRF instal over three floors.

In the last 6 months or so we've been out to 5 split condensate pipes with what look like fatigue fractures on the 32mm solvent welded drains.

Some of the splits are over 12" long and in all sorts of places.

It can't be a bad batch of pipe because two floors are piped in black polypipe and one in Grey.

All three floors have had problems! :mad:


First time I've seen this? :confused:

[harte25]

where is the drains and what are they running with eg are they running in cable tray or on there own hangers

[sinewave]

Hi Harte,

They are running on drop rods as is the Fridge pipe work.

I have already thought about possible stress fratures caused (maybe) by not installing in tray but some of the splits are in sections not subject to any free air stress at all.

Plus loads of instals are carried out using drop rods and hangers.

[r0ss]

I've had it before mate.

We installed a system a few years ago and used a batch of inch 1/8 plastic to do all the main run in one hit.

A few months later we had call backs due to leaks. Expecting it to be on a joint we were very surprised to see a slit in the middle of a straight length. First thought was sabotage but then we had a few more call outs a couple of weeks later. We phoned the wholesalers up and they blamed it on a 'bad batch'. :/

Still dont understand how it happened. We have hangers every 1m and there was no cool/heat cycle enough to effect the pipe.

Very weird in your case though. Especially being two different types of drain over 3 floors.