Why is it that 'progress' is always a backward step?? When I first learnt domestic plumbing and gasfitting it was all lead pipe and the only 'fittings' you would use would be short lengths of brass tube with nuts captive on the end to join the pipe to equipment like the boiler, water cylinder, taps etc. Mostly joints were pipe-to-pipe either end-to-end or onto a hole drilled in the side of another pipe to make a 'Tee' - a pound of solder usually made one neat wiped joint.. Then copper became popular and you could choose between 'end feed' fittings and 'Yorkshire fittings' which had an inbuilt solder ring - pipe sizes were standardised at 1/2 in, 3/4 in, and 1 in and there were fittings for every eventuality. Then came compression fittings which were just added into the mix, mainly for the benefit of 'non-professional' plumbers (DIY who didn't have the skill to solder). Now, the variety of fittings is ridiculous - we still have solder fittings of both types and compression fittings plus various kinds of patented push-fit fittings and plastic pipe and its fittings as well - not to mention that we're now 'metricated' and so adapters are needed to join the only available metric pipe onto old Imperial pipe systems. No shop can be expected to keep all the different varieties in stock and so the ranges are now 'rationalised' and the variety reduced to an almost unusable minimal assortment of any particular type of fitting. Whereas, in the old days, we could just go to one supplier and instantly get whatever parts we needed to complete a job, you now have to spend time identifying the appropriate type of fitting and then trawling suppliers looking for the one who just happens to have the right combination of parts you need. Many times more complicated and far less efficient... Bahhh!!!
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