Removing a Radiator

[Nigel Heather]

I have a ground floor radiator that I want to permanently remove and make good the wall as if it were never there.

I have a modern house so the raditor its attached to a dry cavity wall and uses 10mm microbore pipes.

I currently considering whether to do the work myself or just pay a plumber so I recently got a quote and it is this that has raised the questions.

The plumber said two things that seem to contradict each other.

(i) As the radiator in question has a drain valve he said that he could remove the radiator and then seal the feed and return by just draining that radiator rather than the whole system.

(ii) The quote includes quite a hefty amount for rust inhibitor.

What I don't understand is

(a) How can you remove a radiator without draining the whole system. Surely as soon as the feed and return are disconnected water is going to gush from them especially as this is a ground floor radiator.

(b) If he only needs to drain the radiator itself why do I need all the rust inhibtor (given the system already has this).

Can anyone shed any light on this - is he telling porkies one way or another.

Cheers,

Nigel

[Nigel Heather]

Firstly, most sorry if this has appeared twice. I sent it yesterday, its in my 'Sent Items' sent to the right place but I cannot see it in the newsgroup so I am resubmitting.

I have a ground floor radiator that I want to permanently remove and make good the wall as if it were never there.

I have a modern house so the raditor its attached to a dry cavity wall and uses 10mm microbore pipes.

I currently considering whether to do the work myself or just pay a plumber so I recently got a quote and it is this that has raised the questions.

The plumber said two things that seem to contradict each other.

(i) As the radiator in question has a drain valve he said that he could remove the radiator and then seal the feed and return by just draining that radiator rather than the whole system.

(ii) The quote includes quite a hefty amount for rust inhibitor.

What I don't understand is

(a) How can you remove a radiator without draining the whole system. Surely as soon as the feed and return are disconnected water is going to gush from them especially as this is a ground floor radiator.

(b) If he only needs to drain the radiator itself why do I need all the rust inhibtor (given the system already has this).

Can anyone shed any light on this - is he telling porkies one way or another.

Cheers,

Nigel

[Lobster]

Not quite - he'll shut off the supply and return valves at the ends of the radiator, then remove the radiator, at which point the radiator contents need collecting in a bowl or something. That leaves the two radiator tails still sticking up through the floor, which need removing. That can be done by using a pipe-freezing kit like

then removing the valves, cutting off the tails and capping them off below the floor.

Given that it's microbore, he might even do a bit of a bodge and just squash the piping to block it, rather than freezing the pipes.

If he was replacing the radiator, the existing inhibitor would be diluted by a proportion equivalent to the volume of the radiator and in theory, would need topping up. But he's 'forgotten' he's not replacing the rad, so no more inhibitor is needed. He won't have forgotten the nice mark-up he will make on the inhibitor though. What was the quote for that? (Presumably you did tell him you already have inhibitor in?).

Avoiding having to replace the inhibitor is the main benefit of not draining down the whole system, I would have thought!

He might tell you that you should put new inhibitor in every X years, and while he's there... but if so, he should flush out the old first!

David

[Nigel Heather]

Thanks for the feedback.

Crimping or freezing the microbore was the only way I could see it possibly working but even then doesn't seem practical.

The pipes come out of the wall, not the floor. He would have to remove a lot plasterboard to reveal sufficient pipe to freeze or crimp before the capping point (and that will leave me with a big decourating job). Also I assume he would have to freeze it a long way back to stop it from melting when he solders the end cap on.

As for prices:

£130 total £100 labour £30 for inhibitor, end caps and solder (note that this does not include anything to make good the wall afterwards)

I appreciate he's got to make a living but it's a lot more than I was expecting - if he'd said £80 he would have got the job but as it is I'm going to have a go myself.

Cheers,

Nigel

[bigcat]

questions.

draining that

CH rust inhibitor is =A33-4 from screwfix.com

NT

[Lobster]

OK, is this on a stud partition (plasterboard/timber) or a dry-lined solid (brick/stone) wall? If the former, you might be able to cap off the the pipes and poke them back into the partition, to avoid damaging the wall surface.

Where do the pipes go next? Presumably either downwards and then below the floorboards, or upwards and under the upstairs floorboards? Either way your best bet would be to lift floorboards in either location, and isolate the pipes there: that also avoids leaving live 'wet' pipes with the stud partition.

If you're going to diy it (and it's not a difficult job)... if you've never done anything like this before, don't even think about trying the pipe freezing trick: it adds a whole new element to the game! Just drain it down as need be and refil afterwards.

You can do this without soldering if you don't want to: you can buy 10mm compression-fitting stop-ends.

David

[John Stumbles]

Or c. £12 if you want some that works :-)

[John Stumbles]

If I were giving you a fixed price quote I probably would put it at £100 or so to allow a bit of insurance for myself against the gotchas that can occur on a job. It _should_ be a matter of carrot-&-spudding the header tank (or letting off the pressure on a sealed system) and draining enough water out of the pipework to solder on end caps (after draining & removing the rad itself, natch) then pushing the capped ends back into the plasterboard & patching up. It _could_ end up needing to drain the whole system to get the pipework dry enough to solder up, and then it could be a pig with airlocks/crud inthe system to get to fill up again. I normally do small jobs like this on a price-per-hour basis which means the cost to the client would be less if everything goes to plan, but if problems occur due to no fault of my own I don't lose out. How do you pay for your dental treatment, car repairs etc? :-)

Bit steep on materials: I usually charge £15 for inhibitor which allows me a few quid up on what I pay for it. As others have pointed out inhibitor might not be required. End caps & solder would be peanuts (£5 in bill terms :-)

Welcome to uk.d-i-y :-)

[bigcat]

Good. Make sure youve got a camera to hand - well, just in case, ya never know :) Seriously, the solution to cockups is fairly simple: know they occasionally happen, and just regard them as one more job to do if they do.

Removing a rad isnt hard really. Ahem, I havent done it myself, but... its what they say :)

I mean, what can go wrong? (grinning & thinking of the FAQ self uninstalling water heater...)

I missed the best photo opportunity one time. An outside drain was flooded near where I live, and for some mysterious reason there was a bog seat lying amid the flooding, with a note taped to it saying 'out of order'.

NT

[zymurgy]

Oh .. rats :-/

BTW, When's the next uk.d-i-y M3 corridor drinkup ?=20

Cheers

Paul.

[John Stumbles]

M3 - wheressat? ;-)

BTW if anyone's in Rdg on the 2nd wednesday of a month they might find me at the Back of Beyond with this lot

Maybe we could have an interesting cross-fertilisation meeting (given that most of the uk.d-i-y pubbers seem to be geeks, though I'm not sure the reverse is true :-)

[Andy Wade]

In between M2.5 and M3.5 of course ;-)

[zymurgy]

Well, I know you're M4 direction, but it's a long way cross country for me ;-)

Just waiting to see if any of the other regulars will crop up on this thread.

Whatever happened to Pop ?

Cheers,

Paul.

[John Stumbles]

Ah yes ... don't deal with anything less than 1/2" BSP these days ;-)

[John Stumbles]

lurking elsewhere IIRC

I'm sure his arm's still twistable in the direction of a little pinting tho' :-)

[zymurgy]

pinting

Ah, good, is his business still going ok then ? his website's down and everything .. !

Cheers,

Paul.

[John Stumbles]

Haven't looked at it lately, but I know he's working: he's got me lined up to do a bit of gas work for a job he's doing!