DIY / Plumbing / central heating
DeVlaeminck
Posts: 8,641
OK, I'm renovating an old terrace I took on from my dad who due to advancing age has let lapse into a state of disrepair. The central heating is at least 25 years old and the pipes are 8mm microbore - the ones attached to the rads are copper.
Given the house is being rewired and needing substantial replastering and other work so the floors are up and the carpets gone should I bite the bullet and change the system to wider diameter pipework now - I'm planning to keep the place and rent it out in the medium term with a longer term view of maybe moving in when the kids leave home ?
Given the house is being rewired and needing substantial replastering and other work so the floors are up and the carpets gone should I bite the bullet and change the system to wider diameter pipework now - I'm planning to keep the place and rent it out in the medium term with a longer term view of maybe moving in when the kids leave home ?
[Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]
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Its a piece of cake in plastic and just pop copper tails on the end to join the new rads.
When I did a three bed semi we bought for my daughter it worked out at £600 including labour and materials including new efficient rads.
Unvented hot water cylinder with system boiler
Expensive though
Its 25 years old!
Do it now while its easy and expensive, rather than later when its severe hassle and maybe even more expensive!
A new system will be so much more efficient.
Not to mention reliable and quite.
I put a new Worcester Bosch system boiler in our house to replace a 10 year old Potterton conventional room sealed, and its night and day better.
Ten yrs old - pah, 30 yrs plus
So I know it will be more efficient, etc, (1300 litres since Feb) but the payback is over the hill and far away when the quotes are stupidly high
I run a 275 ltr thermal store fed from a system boiler, a woodburning boiler stove and a large thermal solar panel.
Brilliant system and is absolutely the way forward.
*** Do not use push fit plastic plumbing pipe*** Seriously don't. It might be a piece of cake. But don't. I used to work for an exceptionally large manufacturer of said stuff, who claim that it is guaranteed for 50 years!! There is no way to test this in laboratories. The claim was put out there to hook in customers. And they will never pay up if it fails, because the will claim it is the installers fault.
One of my customers is the largest mechanical engineering consultancy in the UK and they will not underwrite any plastic pipe systems if their spec of copper gets changed.
Get a professional to re-install with copper. Tried and tested material since Victorian times.
Plastic has been around for long enough to be trusted, and it has improved a lot since then.
What 'professional' are you going to get?
Most plumbers will be using plastic now, so you are either going to need a specialist, or you will be employing someone who rarely touches copper on that scale, and is effectively therefor, an amateur!
I have seen some shocking copper work, and that was when it was standard practice.
Be very careful who you ask to do what these days
Is that copper with solder/ compression fittings or push fit copper? I have done a bit more plumbing than the average DIY enthusiast and wondered what the life expectancy of a "rubber" O ring is. In a few decades will having your house re-plumbed become as common as having it rewired? I hope it will be long after I have gone. Plumbers will be in even greater demand.
I installed a my own central heating pipework 12 years ago (not a plumber but do have trade/technical experience). I installed the feed and return headers in 22mm copper and ran feed and return pipes to each radiator in 15mm Speedfit. An absolute dawdle to use and not a single leak in 12 years (never even had to top up the boiler pressure in that time). If you do it properly, use the approved pip-end inserts and support the pipework appropriately it will be fine. Copper has been known to leak as well, it's down to the quality of the installation rather than the material.