Last of the Radiators

With cold weather on its way, this weekend seemed like a good time to finally finish off the central heating system. There was one remaining radiator to hang, then this, and the three others in the basement, to connect up.

The hanging was straightforward enough, but this threw up a problem. The pipework for this missing radiator was put in place before the wall was plastered, so the pipes are in the wrong place. Actually, I think this is a feeble excuse I am posing on the installers behalf. The real reason the pipes don't come out of the floor in the right place is there is a joist in the way. They simply couldn't be bothered to lift the floorboards and notch the joist. Here is how it looks top-down :


The lateral positioning isn't much better :

There was no way these pipes could be "flexed" into the right position. It all had to be re-piped while the heating system was drained down.

The radiators in the basement are not much better. Short stubs of pipe are sticking out the wall ready to be connected through a 90 degree elbow to the rad-valves. However, the pipes were found to be too close together - again, the installers lack of attention to detail. I have had to cut some very short bends to make up the difference :

The other option would have been to flex the pipes outwards from the wall, but I didn't want to risk causing a leak to any joint there might be embedded in the wall. If it is going to leak I want it to do so on the outside where I can see it, and more importantly, fix it.

By the end of the day I had plumbed in 2 of the 4 radiators. Unfortunately this means I have to leave the heating system drained down. Our boiler throws a wobbly at this - lack of pressure in the heating circuit shuts down the whole machine except for the red and amber flashing LEDs. It's a combi boiler, so no hot water tonight or tomorrow morning.