Mr Wilsons full system build

[Mr Wilson]

Greetings Folks...

i decided to start my own build log for an upcoming project im undertaking over the next year. My main reason for starting a log is so that any questions i have i wont have to repeat information about the build and it will all be in one place and as i progress im hoping that if im heading in a wrong direction or have forgotten or overlooked something someone who takes interest will be able to point things out of prevent me from making mistakes. Perhaps someone like myself who is planning on doing such a job may get something out of it at the very least learn from my mistakes ...

Ok so for the job itself we purchased a big 3 story 1800 german Hof (farmhouse) building required total surface renovation and modernization. total size of the house is about 300m2 and heating came from night powered electric heaters and Domestic potable ho****er coming from instant electric boilers. We looked into all forms of heating and decided to go with gas due to its the cheapest startup costs and high efficiencies.

I do have a certified gas fitter to plumb in mains and do final connection to boiler but he dosent speak english and i no german. my main job will be to run mains water to boiler location, chase all walls for plumbing and install rads. will be installing as i renovate room by room so this build will take at least 6 months. that being said weve been in the house for 6 months now and build a kitchen living 2 bedrooms and just finnishing the new 2 bed rooms this week.
installing a Viessmann Vitodens 222-F combi boiler not decided if 26 or 35kW unit as of yet.
Will require 18 rads over the 3 floors will be using 20mm Pex with crimped fittings in walls and copper in boiler room. running dhw to 2 bathrooms both will require full renovation actually currently only 1 bathroom on lower floor and converting rooms on 2nd floor into a new bathroom maybe installing underfloor heating depends on what we find when floorboards come up and if joists will carry a screed.

attached are floor plans which ill need to update at some point gets the idea across for now.

thanks in advance for all and any input you guys have and i appreciate all your thoughts over the months :cool4:



first floor 2nd floor 3rd floor first floor 2nd floor

 

[Riley]

Good luck and should be interesting to see how it progresses. Due to different rules and regs it may be wise to enlist someone on a translation basis. I know the guys on here won't mind giving input but it would be difficult and wrong of us to tread on your fitters toes. Something he does maybe in line with regs over there but not here and vice versa. Sounds very interesting though

 

[Mr Wilson]

Good luck and should be interesting to see how it progresses. Due to different rules and regs it may be wise to enlist someone on a translation basis. I know the guys on here won't mind giving input but it would be difficult and wrong of us to tread on your fitters toes. Something he does maybe in line with regs over there but not here and vice versa. Sounds very interesting though

cheers riley... coming from australia ( :8:to the monarchy )where ya cant fart unless it complys with Aussie BSC codes. here in germany its quite the opposite you can do all electrical bar mains all internal plumbing can even do structural with out town approvals. i believe folks around these parts ( east germany close to poland border )even do gas themselves. the only codes with new instals that i can find are eco sustainable rulz which is more about economic stimulus than saving the planet so you cant use older boilers past like 5 years or something. but other than that its almost free game. And my fitter is on board with me doing most of the work myself and be sure ill be working up all final plans with him and my wife whos german.

couple more photos with furniture..of course floor plans do not represent actual fittings and fixtures... but wall thicknesses and room sizes are actual

 

[Mr Wilson]

OK ... so almost ready to start my first chase in the wall and install first rad as im almost finnished next room.

so my question is in regards to pipe locations as it seems to vary from country to country.

is it true that in UK you always plump to the bottom of rads with TRV on the Flow in side as in germany they always run pipes to tops pf radiators and thus TRVs horizontally. While working away i was thinking about these 2 options and thought id get some thoughts.
i came up with some logical conclusions for one or the other.

if plumbed low would you get a build up of deposits ( sluge) but heat my rise up threw the radiator and if air builds up in rad it would be easy to purge.

if plumbed low you dont have to bend down to adjust the TRV and crawling babys cant touch. and perhaps if dropping down from a higher floor it saves a little bit of pipe not having to go all the way to the floor. i cant think of any other reasons why have flows in the top of rad mabye you would have to loose less water when draining down and radiators in the system would stay almost full. a negative would be no bleed valve to remove air in rad.

actually wouldn't it be best to have flow in/out at opposite so that the how water is traveling the furthest distance diagonally threw the rad.

im sure these questions have all been asked hundreds of times but hea had limited time today to troll posts

 

[stevetheplumber]

most efficent way to pipe a rad is top and bottom opposite ends usually flow in the top with the trv can look nice if pipework comes out of wall direct into valve

 

[Mr Wilson]

most efficent way to pipe a rad is top and bottom opposite ends usually flow in the top with the trv can look nice if pipework comes out of wall direct into valve

so diagonally top to bottom. would this create a dead spot bottom under the flow in and if you went from bottom to bottom at a slow flow rate say 11C variance as i read somewhere on a balancing thread wouldn't this allow the hot water to rise up threw the rad and create an even temp.

 

[Mr Wilson]

So came across another question while looking into my piping layout and planning on running a double pipe system which id assume is standard nowadays. ill use attached image as an example.

actually before ill ask my question can you fellas give any feed back on my proposed piping layout ... red hot blue cold and theres a darker red for DHW. ive got a few chimneys that are unused so running plumbing up those threw the floors ... my main concerns are pump pressures over such a large area and my thought was to split the line into 2 into the left side of the house and the right. that would put 8 rads on the left side and 7 on the right rads on top floor will also be separate and will be much bigger rads due to the near 7 meter ceiling heights

extra lines not on layout attached
not sure if mentioned but boiler is on top floor in the small boiler room thats not build yet.

cheers

 

[stevetheplumber]

so diagonally top to bottom. would this create a dead spot bottom under the flow in and if you went from bottom to bottom at a slow flow rate say 11C variance as i read somewhere on a balancing thread wouldn't this allow the hot water to rise up threw the rad and create an even temp.

obviously you know much more than me

 

[tolly]

20mm Pex sounds too small to me. Consider using 25mm for the main run, or zone off each floor running 20mm for each floor back to boiler.

You would have to work out your index circuit taking into account head resistance of boiler Hex aswell to see if 20mm would be sufficent to do the whole house.

 

[oz-plumber]

Just install the panels that have both connections at the bottom ( 80mm centres ).
The flow is piped to the top within the radiator and a TMV installed at the top of the radiator.
They cost a bit more but you will save on the chasing - 1 chase instead of 2.

 

[Mr Wilson]

obviously you know much more than me

sorry you misunderstand my post i was confirming you were saying the connection diagonally as i was confused ... you said "top and bottom opposite ends" not top TO bottom.

and bring up a question i saw posted on another thread about dead spots being detected with an IR camera with this piping method i hadnt seen the IR photos myself so was just bring it up as a matter of discussion not questioning your experience for if i already had all the answers id wouldn't have posted the question in the first place and i appreciate your feedback.

 

[Mr Wilson]

20mm Pex sounds too small to me. Consider using 25mm for the main run, or zone off each floor running 20mm for each floor back to boiler.

You would have to work out your index circuit taking into account head resistance of boiler Hex aswell to see if 20mm would be sufficent to do the whole house.

25mm eh .. theres a spanner ... all the local hardwares around me dont sell anything bigger than 20 mm ... might have to look online.

Just install the panels that have both connections at the bottom ( 80mm centres ).
The flow is piped to the top within the radiator and a TMV installed at the top of the radiator.
They cost a bit more but you will save on the chasing - 1 chase instead of 2.

cheers oz-plumber ( are you from aus or just like the place)for bottom floor of the house im using older rads that we were given to us from some family members... they were clean with little rust and saved us a chunk of cash the others have plumbing both top and bottom so were stuck with direction of rads. sounds like a good idea for rads though... i was thinking that wouldnt it be best to T the flow into both bottom and top and the same with the flow out thus insuring complete saturation of radiator with hot water. although since ive never seen this done i guess its unnecessary.

 

[Mr Wilson]

well finally put in my first rad and it was pretty straight forward ... i went with stevetheplumbers advice to have the flow in the top and flow out the bottom. and as the wife wanted the TRV on top well i attached it to flow in but i guess thats pretty standard. ive also decided to zone the house into 2 zones 8/7 rads and a 3rd zone for the top floor but that a long way off...
ive also ran the chasing at flow in height thus minimizing the length of piping to each rad. this also helped with less chasing as i have to remove the internal windowsills which are a crappy fake plastic marble stuff and its gotta go. Theres also 100mm foam stuffed gaps under each one. the benefit of this is that is a great cavity to run pipe thus less destruction work for me.

also the rads ive received for free are a type that runs the plumbing from the bottom and has internal pipe to the top like oz-plumbing recommended. these rads will be installed on the lower floor so ill chase these along the bottom.

decided to use pex crimp fittings to 15mm thread and than 15mm thread to 15mm solder ... sadly i couldnt find pex crimp to 15mm soldered elbows that was cheaper than this and that was local. so having 15mm copper straight out of walls into rads nice and neat.



i do have pictures of the room but have to pull off a phone. will have to wait :smilewinkgrin:

 

[Mr Wilson]

small update ... got photos of phone

room when we moved in

had to gut the whole room raise roof resheet and render all walls even pull up old floor boards as they were warped and some rotten as it was not in best shape. who whould have thought id find dirt used for insulation between floors.mg_smile: .... dirt???


so connected all plumbing for pressure testing (photos in reverse )



so i pressure tested by jimmy rigging up my compressor with some random fittings i had lying around i can control the amount of pressure with ease... i checked the mains pressure and its on 360-400 kpa or 3.6-4bar
going of this i pressure tested up to 500kpa / 5bar left it over night and held pressure ... oh and used a visual test with soapy water over all connections. all good :wink5:

 

[ShaunCorbs]

looks good and old school using dirt as insu

how are you finding using the mlcp?

and what have you done

16mm to a main manifold, or you doing 25-32mm mains runs?