Cast Iron downpipe brackets

[StepOne]

Hi,

We need to replace the bracket on a cast iron downpipe at the front of the house. The Original bracket had split the stone holding it. We are looking for something that can hold the pipe up, and be attached to a different part of the stone. We saw brackets like the one in the image at the weekend - the wider shape would allow these to be attached to the still-solid parts of the stone. Does anyone know where we can buy something like this or similar?

https://1drv.ms/i/s!AlqP4Us57ye5gYN9zV64LmlNPdZtTw

Thanks,
StepOne

[csearle]

Just spend a little while Googling around. Found this, which is not exactly like the strap in your picture but not wholly unlike it either.

Seems a remarkably difficult thing to locate!

Chris

[bungeejumper]

That's an authentic Victorian/Edwardian bracket, or I ain't no judge. We have fancy ornamental Coalbrookdale gear on our (square) Victorian downpipes, and it's been an education trying to match it for those places where the brackets have cracked or broken. Still, in this case you've got the opposite problem - it's your stone that has cracked, not the bracket.

Assuming you want an old look (correct?), I suspect you''ll be best advised to check out the architectural salvage yards, or spend many hours on Ebay. (They'll be there....) I'd also try googling for images of cast iron downpipe brackets, and see whether that gives you any manufacturer leads.

Most of the newly made 'antique' brackets are in fact made from cast aluminium these days, but I'm not aware of any that are as 'wide-legged' as that. When one of our Coalbrookdale brackets broke out (frost damage), I was eventually reduced to making up an inconspicuous bracket from steel and placing it somewhere nearby where it wouldn't show - and then, once I'd tackled the 'support' job in that way, I faked up the busted bracket with metal filler. Honour was satisfied.

BJ

[csearle]

Make your own perhaps?

http://myhomefoundry.com/members/introd ... l-casting/

[StepOne]

Thanks all for the tips. I thought this would not be an easy find. The original brackets on ours are just bog standard question-mark shaped, with a spike going into a single hole more or less behind the pipe. We had the stone repaired by a stone-mason last year, and have had a 'temporary' piece of plastic downpipe in place ever since, while we wait for the local odd-job man to come up with a solution as to how to re-attach the original pipe.

We saw the bracket in the photo in St. Andrews at the weekend and though that something like that might work for us. I'm guessing that the diameter of the pipe might also be a problem - I have no idea how standard they are. I'll just need to keep looking I guess - making my own is not really an option, but you never know !!!

StepOne

[bungeejumper]

I wouldn't expect the diameter of the pipe to be a problem. Manufacturers are still using the old three, four and five inch pipes that the Victorians did, although they might call them something metric these days. Either way, there's a surprising amount of diameter leeway in downpipe fittings, so no major worries.

A bigger problem, for us, is that most of our Victorian downpipe and gutter fittings are secured with huge wide-headed nails that have been simply hammered into broomstick-diameter wooden pegs in the wall. That sort of thing was okay for 150 years or so, until the pegs rotted out, but those damned Victorians just didn't think long-term, did they?

BJ

[StepOne]

I wouldn't expect the diameter of the pipe to be a problem...

A bigger problem, for us, is that most of our Victorian downpipe and gutter fittings are secured with huge wide-headed nails that have been simply hammered into broomstick-diameter wooden pegs in the wall. That sort of thing was okay for 150 years or so, until the pegs rotted out, but those damned Victorians just didn't think long-term, did they?

Good news on the diameter. Our fixings were something similar, but the property is a bit newer than that - 1920s I think.

StepOne