Saddle Valve

[mike2016]

Hi,

I bought a water filter kit for under the sink - reverse osmosis & uv (cherry flavoured!). Anyway, I can fit it under the sink after taking out a shelf but I'm worried about the saddle valve after my escapades last year with plumbing....

 

The hot water feed pipe is straight enough but the cold water feed bends a fair bit. Both are copper. My concern is getting a good seal with the Saddle Valve and avoiding leaks. 

 

Are Saddle valves prone to failure? Would a T-Piece be better? 

 

There might be a place to install it on a short horizontal section that tees off the cold feed and goes out the back wall of the house to a tap there, I'll have to remove the thin-ply at the back of the sink cabinet to see it though....

 

Any thoughts appreciated.

 

Pictures:

Under Sink

Two feeds to mixer tap - left is hot, right (bendy one) is cold

View from Left - potential connection points off cold feed - lower is larger 22mm? feed to attic cistern probably, upper one is smaller bore to outside tap:

 

[PeterW]

Can’t tee off those copper tails with a saddle valve as they aren’t hardened copper - they are annealed to allow them to bend to the bottom of a mixer tap and will most likely just bend or crush when you try and pierce the pipe. 

 

There is a compression join though so they  must connect to something else - is that copper too..?? It may just be simpler to replace the compression coupler with a tee or even a tee valve - what’s the connection to the filter ..?

[Nickfromwales]

Isnt the 22mm one the original hot feed from the cylinder?

+1 on the soft copper, not on there. 

Can you get to one of those compression couplers and swap it out to a compression tee?

[mike2016]

Thanks! Didn't even know about "soft" copper, would've been a disaster so! I'll get a suitable compression tee then and work off that. Much appreciated!