Central Heating Progress Report

By the end of Friday most of the pipework was completed. In the top floor the radiators are fitted and ready to go, but all the other locations are bereft of plaster so careful measurement has been used to site the pipes in readiness for "second fix" of radiators post plastering.

All the pipework has been done in copper as we requested. Most of the pipe routing follows what I would have done. For example the main feed to the new bedroom has been done by feeding the pipes through the wall and drilling the joists as you go :

You may have noticed one of the compromises we made, where the pipework has been routed around the steel beams, rather than feeding through the wall in two runs - one either side, like I would have done. Here it is in detail :

This just means that when we box the beams with plasterboard it will be ~20mm deeper than it would have been.

The attention to detail has been a little lacking, when compared with how I would have done it (and taken 10 times longer !). For example the holes in this pair of joists do not line up particularly well :

The holes are over-sized for the pipes, but still in the first pair of holes the pipe is tight against the bottom, and in the second pair they are tight against the top. This has made the whole run quite tight, and I am sure it is going to creak when it is warmed. I think I will be using a coping saw to ease some of these holes a little before the ceilings go up. One other small point is that building regulations stipulate some rules about drilling joists. One of the rules is that they should be drilled on their centre line. This little lot is not going to pass any inspection on that criterion !

There is one place on the middle floor where the pipe runs descend to the floor below. We discussed at length how this could be hidden in the environment around the spiral staircase, but in the end went for the "safe" option of chasing them into the wall next to the lounge window. Of course we will need to remember where this drop is before knocking screws in to hang pictures !

In the basement the floor screed is all finished, so each radiator has to be fed by drops from above. Again, these have been chased into the wall so we will not see them. The lightweight "celcon" blocks are easy to cut channels in, but these concrete ones were much harder :

The pipes descend at the centre-line of the radiator, then splay out to each side at the bottom. The grey appearance is because the pipes have been wrapped in gaffer tape. This is done because otherwise there is a chemical reaction between the copper and the sand/cement render that will be applied by the plasterer.

Just to show that we do have some completed radiators :

And finally an architectural heated towel rail in the bathroom (the rails are not fitted yet) :