About Us

Australian Hot Taps connects into pipelines that can’t be shut down. Gas, water, steam, chemical and process lines, in every state and territory. We’ve been doing it since 1996.

Call 1800 468 827 with your pipe size, material and what’s in the line, and we’ll tell you what the job involves.

What we actually do

Under pressure tapping, and everything around it. If you know the work by another name, it’s the same thing: hot tapping, wet tapping, live tapping, under pressure taps or UPT.

The principle is simple even if the execution isn’t. A fitting goes onto the live line, a valve goes onto the fitting, the assembly is pressure tested, and then the cut is made through the valve while the line stays in service. Nothing is drained, nothing is vented, and nothing has to be recommissioned afterwards.

From there it branches into line stopping to hold flow back, pipe freezing where nothing can go on the pipe, live valve insertion where you need a permanent isolation point, and squash offs, bag off isolation, leak repair, thermowells and testing and purging. There’s a comparison of the methods on which method do I need.

The 1998 accreditation

In October 1998 the Office of Gas Safety, now Energy Safe Victoria, accredited Australian Hot Taps to carry out hot tapping work on gas installations. We were the first company they accredited to do it.

That mattered then and it still does, because live gas work isn’t something any gasfitter can take on. The regulator assesses the method, the equipment and the competency of the people doing it, job by job, before work can start.

The accreditation came with conditions, and they say more about the work than any claim we could make:

• A procedure manual maintained by the company and lodged with the regulator
• A record of every gas installation hot tap completed, by address
• Only operators who had completed the approved training permitted to carry out hot taps
• The regulator able to audit the records and the procedure at any reasonable time
• A start work notice lodged at least 48 hours before any hot tap
• The regulator able to rule that another method was more appropriate on safety grounds
• An operating pressure ceiling, above which a detailed submission had to be accepted first

We’ve worked to that standard ever since.

What we can tap

Steel, stainless, copper, PVC, HDPE, PE, cast iron, ductile iron, cast and ductile cement lined, AC and most other pipeline materials, from 12mm upwards.

The taps go into natural gas, coke gas, chilled water, heating hot water, potable water, condenser water, steam, compressed air, chemical, petrochemical and various waste product lines. Every pipeline gets ultrasonic NDT wall thickness testing before we weld or tap it.

Two things we do that others in Australia don’t: size-on-size tappings on copper water lines from 50mm to 100mm, and live valve insertion into steel water lines from 100mm to 300mm with the EZ2 system. Where the EZ2 can’t be used we offer balloon or bag off isolation instead.

Who we work for

Commercial tenancies, hospitals, civil, sporting arenas, defence facilities, mine sites, steelworks, aluminium smelters, schools, universities, data centres and government installations.

Most of our work comes through mechanical services contractors, plumbing contractors, water authorities, councils and the engineering firms designing the tie-in. If you’re specifying a live connection rather than doing it, talk to us early: the method affects the design.

Where we are

Depots at 2/33-39 Corporate Boulevard, Bayswater VIC 3153 and 8/5 Coghill Drive, Currumbin Waters QLD 4223. Clients in all states and territories of Australia as well as the Pacific Islands and New Zealand, and we regularly fly in and out to service them.

Coverage by state is on where we work.

Call 1800 468 827 or email [email protected]. If you’re not sure whether your line can be worked on live, just give us a call, we’ll ask a few questions and let you know.

Australian Hot Taps in brief