Hi,
I'm after a little advice.
I am working my way through a renovation of my central heating system prior to new carpets being fitted in the next few months and an unvented cylinder conversion from my current vented being fitted in the next year or so - this will be moved from the 1st floor airing cupboard to the ground floor garage. I could ideally do with getting the new system in before new carpets but I have a wedding to pay for in July which is scuppering my plans
so right now the priority is to do as much as possible to convert fully to 15mm and replace T&G floorboards where possible that have been hacked by previous fitters (also to lower pipes to prevent banging on the boards when stood on) . This should mean minimal carpet removal when the new system eventually gets fitted.
As I start prep work, I've been lifting a few floor boards to get an understanding of the layout and what I'm faced with. My current set up includes 13 rads (approx 35-40k BTU, yet to calculate accurately), of which 7 upstairs which are the ones getting sorted first - 4 of which have 8mm pipework which I'm not comfortable with given it has been installed for at least 2 decades and has taken a lot to get it running clean again, obviously nothing added to prevent corrosion (average run is 8 meters to each rad from the landing). My plan is to run 15mm push fit from the 22mm feed/return running along the landing, fitting copper risers to new TRV's. My plumber also wanted me to run some pipe to the en suite mains shower for a direct hot water feed from where the unvented will be situated.
The system seems to have a main feed from the kitchen boiler (downstairs), going upstairs to the middle of the house where the cylinder lives, this then splices above the pump (next to the cylinder) into the electric valve which feeds the rads and hot water coil alternately. From what i can see so far i have 2x 22mm pipes for the rads, one which is the colder of the two on my working system, I assume is the return, this runs along the landing returning to the boiler with a T in the middle feeding downstairs, along the way it has the returns from the various rads - the other 22mm pipe (feed) appears to run halfway along the landing and downstairs again feeding into the rads along the way.
My question at this point is a strange one - when lifting one of the boards near the cylinder i noticed several wide coils of 8mm copper pipework from both of these feeds to 2 of my upstairs rads - not only are they coiled at least twice under the floor, they also appear to have been almost squashed fully by pliers in several places, presumably to reduce flow - why would this have been done? i presume to reduce flow perhaps, but isn't that what the lockshield's are for?
I don't really want to remove this and replace with the 15mm until i know why it's been done.Can anyone help?
Thanks
Tim
I'm after a little advice.
I am working my way through a renovation of my central heating system prior to new carpets being fitted in the next few months and an unvented cylinder conversion from my current vented being fitted in the next year or so - this will be moved from the 1st floor airing cupboard to the ground floor garage. I could ideally do with getting the new system in before new carpets but I have a wedding to pay for in July which is scuppering my plans
so right now the priority is to do as much as possible to convert fully to 15mm and replace T&G floorboards where possible that have been hacked by previous fitters (also to lower pipes to prevent banging on the boards when stood on) . This should mean minimal carpet removal when the new system eventually gets fitted.As I start prep work, I've been lifting a few floor boards to get an understanding of the layout and what I'm faced with. My current set up includes 13 rads (approx 35-40k BTU, yet to calculate accurately), of which 7 upstairs which are the ones getting sorted first - 4 of which have 8mm pipework which I'm not comfortable with given it has been installed for at least 2 decades and has taken a lot to get it running clean again, obviously nothing added to prevent corrosion (average run is 8 meters to each rad from the landing). My plan is to run 15mm push fit from the 22mm feed/return running along the landing, fitting copper risers to new TRV's. My plumber also wanted me to run some pipe to the en suite mains shower for a direct hot water feed from where the unvented will be situated.
The system seems to have a main feed from the kitchen boiler (downstairs), going upstairs to the middle of the house where the cylinder lives, this then splices above the pump (next to the cylinder) into the electric valve which feeds the rads and hot water coil alternately. From what i can see so far i have 2x 22mm pipes for the rads, one which is the colder of the two on my working system, I assume is the return, this runs along the landing returning to the boiler with a T in the middle feeding downstairs, along the way it has the returns from the various rads - the other 22mm pipe (feed) appears to run halfway along the landing and downstairs again feeding into the rads along the way.
My question at this point is a strange one - when lifting one of the boards near the cylinder i noticed several wide coils of 8mm copper pipework from both of these feeds to 2 of my upstairs rads - not only are they coiled at least twice under the floor, they also appear to have been almost squashed fully by pliers in several places, presumably to reduce flow - why would this have been done? i presume to reduce flow perhaps, but isn't that what the lockshield's are for?
I don't really want to remove this and replace with the 15mm until i know why it's been done.Can anyone help?
Thanks
Tim
