Taking a radiator (towel heater) off help please

Hi I have successfully (thanks to the help received from this group) removed a (plumbed) towel heater/radiator from its mountings but now I need to take the actual mountings off!

If you look at:

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I have done so far is lifted off the entire heater, leaving only the pipes emerging from the woodwork, and the valves still attached to the pipes.

My next challenge is to remove the valves themselves, leaving the bare pipes, because I need to slip some new woodwork over the pipes.

Presumably I just undo D - anything to watch out for?

What about turning off the water? The heater comes on when EITHER the CH or HW is on. Is it sufficient to just make sure that neither the CH or HW is on, or do I also have to do something else like turn off the CH water supply from its small header tank - NB water for taps comes from an unvented tank (hot) or direct from the mains (cold).

Thanks for any advice! Richard

Reply to
Richard Clay
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Nothing much apart from the murky contents of your heating system coming out backed up by fresh water from the filler tank. :-)

Yes, you need to turn off the supply in the small tank (tie up the ball valve if you like) and then drain the system at a drain point downstairs. You at least need to drain to a level below the radiator tails in the bathroom.

If the water is mucky, you might as well thoroughly flush the system while you are at it.

Now you can undo nuts (D) and take off the valves. However, this will leave nuts (D) on the pipe tails because the pipe is sealed into the fitting using a small metal ring called an olive.

If you are happy to have a hole in the piece of fitted woodwork large enough to go over nuts (D) then you are in business.

Otherwise you will have to *carefully* remove said olives followed by nuts (D). One way to do this is to cut very carefully through the olives using a junior hacksaw and finally a small screwdriver to prize them off. You must be careful not to cut into or mangle the pipe or it won't seal when you replace the olives and fittings.

When you refill, don't forget to add some corrosion inhibitor to the system. Fernox MB-1 is a good and reasonably priced product for this.

.andy

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Reply to
Andy Hall

Unless you're hoping your insurance company will buy you a new carpet, and a new ceiling below, you'll need to do a few things in addition to removing the valves from the pipes!

Although hot water is only *pumped* through the rad when the system is running, the pipes are full of water all the time. If you just take the valves off, the contents of your little header tank will flow out first - followed by fresh water which comes in to replenish it when its ball valve opens. You will thus have an endless flood!

You will have to drain enough of the system to stop this happening - and refill it when you've finished.

First, tie off the ball valve on the header tank - or turn off the tap on its mains feed pipe if there is one. If you can, block off the system feed pipe (at the bottom of the header tank, below the water line) and the up-and-over vent pipe with corks. Also turn off both valves on all upstairs radiators - noting how many turns each lockshield requires to close it.

When you've done all that, put a container under each valve in turn (from your removed radiator) and gently open the valve. Drain both pipes in this way until no more comes out. Then - and only then - can you remove the valves from the pipes. Note that the olives and backnuts will remain on the pipes - so whatever you're going to slip over them will have to have big enough holes to go over the nuts. [I would strongly recommend *not* disturbing the olives].

If your system has inhibitor in it - which hopefully it has - pour the water which you drained out back into the header tank.

After re-fitting the radiator valves, remove the corks, untie the ballvalve, open the other radiator valves to their original positions - and bleed the system.

Reply to
Set Square

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