Lots of questions about potential 'Bodge job' installations and rectifying them!

[JollyJed]

Hey guys!

Recently we have had a bunch of ceilings re-plastered in our house by the son of a good friend of my dads, he has worked for his Dad for multiple years renovating houses so it was mentioned to us that he could replace multiple radiators that we wanted doing. Since returning from university i have seen the work he has done and some of it has confused me and has left me wondering if he has done a rubbish job or if he has done the correct job and it just looks rubbish to me.

1) Can the piping of wall mounted radiators go through solid walls instead of the floor? The house is an old farm house and is all solid walls but my mother wanted the downstairs kitchen radiator (one of those tall thin ones) to be freestanding and now have the pipes going through the floor but he said it wasn't possible. The wall itself it an interior solid wall.

2) He has angled some piping down and away from the radiators instead of going straight down, this looks absolutely awful but is this fairly normal?

3) Two of the radiators replaced in the bedrooms are half the width of the previous radiators and they look completely out of place and stupid but is this fairly normal? we were told it made more sense to have them as the bigger ones aren't 'necessary' but these smaller ones look stupid.

4) Can towel radiators go through upstairs solid walls? We had one of the upstairs bathrooms renovated by a proper bathroom company and they managed to mount a towel radiator to the wall and have it freestanding and that is also through a solid wall, so why cant another one be done in another bathroom?

There are still a few radiators to be fitted and the ones already fitted can hopefully be refitted in the correct manor. My mother has stressed that she would want a proper plumber to fit the remaining radiators and fix the work already completed so if you work in the Essex area around Colchester then message me your number and when we are ready to get it sorted i will contact you!

Thanks guys!

 

[Riley]

I think pics are required mate as it is not clear what you believe is a fault. There could be numerous reasons why pipes are in walls or not materials, floor make up, cost etc. Pics will quickly allow us to understand. It sounds immediately to me like a lack of communication as to job required and job carried out. Prime example of this is the smaller rads, these will most likely have gone from imperial to metric and this should have been discussed at the quote stsge

 

[Best]

Why did you get a guy who is not a plumber or heating installer, but a sort of builder/plasterer/handyman, to be involved in your heating work?
As to answer some points, - how did he calculate the rads outputs, if at all?
Yes, pipes to rads can be put tracked into walls or drilled through the walls, but need sleeving and stone walls can be near impossible. Copper pipes could rot if in plaster or mortar or touching brick or stones.
The pipework should all look neat and professional to anyone, particularily all pipes on show.
Could you post a few photos of the workmanship on this forum?

 

[JollyJed]

I think pics are required mate as it is not clear what you believe is a fault. There could be numerous reasons why pipes are in walls materials, floor make up, cost etc. Pics will quickly allow us to understand. It sounds immediately to me like a lack of communication as to job required and job carried out. Prime example of this is the smaller rads, these will most likely have gone from imperial to metric and this should have been discussed at the quote stsge

I shall take some pictures now of the downstairs and i will do the upstairs in the morning mate and upload them, people asleep etc right now so i won't bother them. As far as communication i think it comes down to who did the job for us, my dads friend has been in construction his whole life and he came round to measure everything and we sort of took his work to what size radiators will go where bearing in mind the radiators just taken out are like 20+ years old so we just assumed technology etc has changed so much as well as generic sizing. To me the radiators seem out of place and stupid but to actual plumbers etc they might make perfect sense in terms of heat output, u values etc.

 

[JollyJed]

Why did you get a guy who is not a plumber or heating installer, but a sort of builder/plasterer/handyman, to be involved in your heating work?
As to answer some points, - how did he calculate the rads outputs, if at all?
Yes, pipes to rads can be put tracked into walls or drilled through the walls, but need sleeving and stone walls can be near impossible. Copper pipes could rot if in plaster or mortar or touching brick or stones.
The pipework should all look neat and professional to anyone, particularily all pipes on show.
Could you post a few photos of the workmanship on this forum?

Hello mate i appreciate the reply. My father has been friends with his father for 40+ years and we were informed he does all of the renovations for his father and has a lot of knowledge, jack of all trades master of few comes to mind. Ill be uploading some now and some in the morning

 

[Riley]

I have to go with what Best says and ask why in the world you didn't get a plumber. And any business transaction is a two way thing you have as much responsibility to ask questions and say what you want as he does to mention things like the radiators being smaller. The outputs of the rads might be right but I bet no calcs were done. If they were imperial to metric you can still buy imperial sizes but a plumber would know this

 

[Best]

20 plus years old isn't too old. Rad technology hasn't really changed with standard rads for over 30 years or more. If you have rads with fins attached to the panels, then they are similar to current rads. Also take note that while modern finned rads can be much smaller than non finned old rads, they still need to be extra output ideally for condensing boilers.
Proof will be if they are capable of heating the rooms, all at same time and in severe weather.

 

[Riley]

20 plus years old isn't too old. Rad technology hasn't really changed with standard rads for over 30 years or more. If you have rads with fins attached to the panels, then they are similar to current rads. Also take note that while modern finned rads can be much smaller than non finned old rads, they still need to be extra output ideally for condensing boilers.
Proof will be if they are capable of heating the rooms, all at same time and in severe weather.

Probably just what was cheap in poofix

 

[Best]

Hello mate i appreciate the reply. My father has been friends with his father for 40+ years and we were informed he does all of the renovations for his father and has a lot of knowledge, jack of all trades master of few comes to mind. Ill be uploading some now and some in the morning

Okay, fair enough. Sounds like you trusted him because of knowing both him and his father well. That approach is often better than getting a stranger in, but personally I hate that builder types should poke their nose in at plumbing jobs, especially fairly major heating work, without much experience. Would have been decent of him to simply recommend a very good installer and perhaps just do the labouring and any joinery, plastering jobs that might occur when installing heating to help.

 

[Best]

Probably just what was cheap in poofix

I hope we are wrong, but I had same thought.

 

[JollyJed]

Okay, fair enough. Sounds like you trusted him because of knowing both him and his father well. That approach is often better than getting a stranger in, but personally I hate that builder types should poke their nose in at plumbing jobs, especially fairly major heating work, without much experience. Would have been decent of him to simply recommend a very good installer and perhaps just do the labouring and any joinery, plastering jobs that might occur when installing heating to help.

Yeah it just comes down to trust really and as for sticking to his main trade i agree, i think he enjoyed the weekend work and pay a little too much to turn down extra work. My biggest queries were around having the 2 radiators free standing as my mother hates that the pipes go through the floor tiles. And as for the poofix comment it wouldn't surprise me, i know the bathroom and kitchen radiator were chosen specifically but the only brief for the others were that they be the same style and be a fitting size to the specific location/

 

[Best]

Yeah it just comes down to trust really and as for sticking to his main trade i agree, i think he enjoyed the weekend work and pay a little too much to turn down extra work. My biggest queries were around having the 2 radiators free standing as my mother hates that the pipes go through the floor tiles. And as for the poofix comment it wouldn't surprise me, i know the bathroom and kitchen radiator were chosen specifically but the only brief for the others were that they be the same style and be a fitting size to the specific location/

Poofix do Kudox rads and other brands. Lightweight and cheapish made IMO, but should still do the job if correctly sized. Would be acceptable if you were paying a very low price for materials and labour, but not if you paid what should have done a decent install

 

[oz-plumber]

General consensus - if it looks carp to a lay person, then it is a carp installation.

If the pipework was fixed and the existing radiator sizes were imperial, then there would only be a 20mm spacer on each side of the radiator to make up the difference.
Any more than that - woeful installation!!!