The beauty of microbore is that the pipe can be fed behind skirting boards. And to dent any microboare pipe a vacuum cleaner would have had to be rammed into it extremely hard indeed. That sort of force would dent 15mm too.
There is no may or may nots about it!!! If the engineers are competent it will work far more efficiently that 15mm/22mm small bore. Millions have been installed all over the country with no problems whatsoever. It appears you view the world only by personal experience. In this one. Do you believe there is an Antarctic?
A lot more than most put together on this ng.
One method is to rise behind the skirting boards and emerge behind the rad, with microbore pipes running to rad valve(s). Then you see no pipes at all. Very neat. A method that some plastic pipe makers promote to avoid the plastic being shown on the rad tails, and vacuum cleaners hitting the flexible pipe and causing damage. There is plastic coated microbore just for this purpose.
You have a lot to learn. Listen the pros.
I don't buy that. First of all the circulating water is very rarely changed and there is only a limited amount of calcium and magnesium compounds in the water to be deposited. Secondly, I've had an 8mm system for 18 years and ther ehave been no problems other than the original installer having used it for a couple of radiators where the required flow rate would normally require 15mm pipe. Thirdly, the more important issue is whether inhibitor has been used and maintained properly. There is less tolerance to blockage by sludge for obvious reasons.
There isn't any fundamental difference in the correct design of a microbore system vs. anything else. Tube is tube. If the design is done as it should be around maximum flow rates, I see no reason why a microbore system would heat more quickly since the rate of transfer of heat is not going to be greater. I suppose one could say that one is more likely to use a larger number of smaller radiators and that therefore the heat is being delivered into the house across a larger number of emitters, but that is it.....
.andy
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I suspect he is referring to the lower water content, hence the lower heat capacity of the system components that may lead to radiator surface temperatures rising more quickly. Much like using 15mm pipe instead of 22mm pipe in your hot water piping gets hot water to the tap quicker.
Christian.
The only thing that you can say is that they are likely to be installed in pairs on the flow and return pipes. It *may* be that the pipes to a given radiator are of equal length to one another, but that is no big deal since the flow resistance depends on the total pipe length from one manifold through the radiator and back to the other manifold. It is quite unlikely that the pipe pairs to different radiators are equal to one another and it is also unlikely that the radiators in different rooms are of equal size or heat output. So in reality the manifolds are no more than a plumbing convenience.
I could accept that there is local fashion and misunderstanding, but I don't see that the dH of the water has anything to do with it, or that sealing or not has an impact either.
.andy
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I did say may in quotes.
In a sealed system you can get away with no inhibitor for a long time. Not so with an open microbore system.
Less water in the distribution pipework for one. All rads take their flow off a manifold only fed by the boiler. No snaking around the house with the last in line taking an age to warm up.
I think you should get to know more about manifolds; pretty well constant pressure/flow, neutral points, etc.
That's because there isn't a requirement.
The more likely scenario, if there has been a problem in a microbore system is because it was not dosed with inhibitor. There should be no need for repeated flushing.
.. and looked after properly as any heating system should be. The only thing that one can say is that a 15mm system may run for longer with sludge than a microbore system, but there is no reason why sludging should happen in the first place.
.andy
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Not in this (nor the neighbours places) it wasn't. Straight up through the floorboards, about half an inch from the skirting. Can't comment on the force used to dent it like this, wasn't me ;-)
Velvet
Yup - but even if I didn't, I'm not going to be financially worse off whether I believe it exists or not :-)
Velvet
Poor installation.
Possibly, but if you do the sums needed to size for whether additional pressure vessel is needed, the water content in the pipes is small compared with that of the radiators.
If you size pipes according to the CDA recommendations it is based around a max flow rate in metres per second, and the rate of heat delivery should not be any different. If you think about it, you want the temperature drops to be the same either way.......
.andy
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Why? you have never been so it must not be there or people are telling you lies.
You would not be financially worse off installing a mocrobore system.
But why would you do that unless you're an idiot? It's like running a car and not being bothered to change or top up the oil. You'll get away with it for a while and then have an expensive repair.
Do the sums. There is relatively little (typically All rads take their flow
That depends on the shape and layout of the pipework. Whether it is microbore or not is not the issue. The only minor point is bringing the pipes to common points, but if a distributed system is done in
22mm with 15mm branches, as long as sizing is done properly there should be no difference..andy
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I do, and there is no magic in the way that you are trying to imply. The water is not sentient and does not think to itself "Ah, a manifold, I had better behave in a different way to when I am in a system with 15mm tube."
Any form of constant pressure or flow would depend on equalities of distance and radiator size and houses like this are featured only in Play School.
.andy
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I recall an experiment we did over 30 years ago. What restricts the heat deliver to a radiators is the pump speed. Above a certain flow rate noise is a problem. We used mainly 1/16 and 1/8" soft copper pipe to rads from splayed manifolds and a high pressure pump. All calculated to get the heat to the rads. To lessen noise no elbows would have to be used in the system whatsoever. Noise was further reduced when equal sized pipes were used for rads and straight rad valves were used, not the elbow type. The return pipe did not have a rad valve. The pump had to be mounted with a flexible connecting pipes and rubber mounted brass clips (a method I still recommend today using pieces of plastic pipe or full braided connectors). It was acceptable and the heat up times were zippo from cold. To improve efficiency simple shelves were fitted over the rads. these diverted heat into the room rather than it climbing up and warming the walls. Thermometers on the outside walls proved this.
The problems were getting the installer to not use elbows in the 22mm runs to the manifolds, which is very difficult in practice, and the ugliness of the pipes entering the rads using straight rad valves. Some pipe clips would be better being rubber mounted to reduce noise.
Things have moved on. Using plastic pipes, an auto variable speed pump and rad valves in a U formation to direct the pipe behind the rads (and improve looks) would make this system workable today. It is still easy to do by having two auto variable speed pumps, one upstairs and one down making a natural zoning system as well.
However, there are some advantages to the manifold. In particular, there will be the same pressure across each radiator/pipework combination. This would make it harder for one radiator to steal all the pressure, particularly if you have a low resistance radiator near the beginning of the main 22mm run, meaning that the pressure drops substantially for subsequent radiators.
It's not the manifold itself, or the microbore that causes this, but having independent pipes to each radiator from a common point. There are disadvantages too, such as the much greater quantity of pipework required. The microbore would provide an element of self balancing in that it will ensure that there is always some pressure drop, so you don't short circuit the system. The same effect could be had on a manifold 15mm based system by simply having every lockshield open about a third. Indeed, it would probably be better balanced than the microbore, as the resistance would be similar for all radiators, rather than being dependent on pipe lengths.
Personally, I object to microbore, as in Reading, such a system would last about 15 minutes before sludging to extinction. I think I would actually quite like a star/manifold based system with no pipework sharing, though. It would make implementing a seriously upgraded S-Plan system very appealing. I wonder if you could get a discount for buying 8 zone valves and 8 programmable room stats? I would probably implement this way, if I was installing my system from scratch and had all the floorboards up. Neither applies to me, so I'll stick with one zone valve per floor (plus a blank space for one more when I build the conservatory).
Christian.
I'm not saying do it. I am pointing out a fact.
Good analogy.
I know. Christian gave a good analogy.
On a small bore system, very few rads have equal distribution, even after balancing. On a microbore, as Christian gleened, full boiler temp is directed to each of the rads.
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