Radiator pipes go into concrete floor advice sought

Something else to factor in is that the pipes themselves may easily be corroded and weakened at the floor boundary. Liquid spills an floor cleaning tends to leave at least a bead of liquid, often containing chemicals, at this point. As they evaporate, the chemical concentration increases. Even when dry, the chemicals tend to absorb moisture and start etching away again. None of this may be apparent by visual inspection. *Any* handling, let alone rough handling, may result in failure.

The standard answer is to not remove such a radiator unless it really has to be removed. There are special paint brushes.

Recovery of course depends on removing enough material to expose sound pipe. Which, if corrosion products have been travelling along the outside of the pipe due to a combination of wicking and differential expansion, could mean removing a lot of floor..

Of course, if there is a cold-worked bend in the pipe nearby under the concrete, all sorts of new corrosion possibilities exist, due to the stress concentrations.

Good luck..

-- Sue

What is the pipe? I have found that 15mm copper pipe is pretty resilient. Only problem I have ever had with it is one house where it had been laid unwrapped in concrete floors and corroded until water started coming up through the floor. Apparently a feature of the development where a lot of houses had already had their CH systems re-plumbed above floor level.

It's copper piping and I am assuming that it is not in any sort of protective sheath.

The problem also is that I don't know which direction the pipes go away from the radiator so digging up the floor may become a major job.

I have just taken off the skirting and after a struggle I managed to remove from behind the radiator whilst it is position.

The more I think about it the less attractive it becomes to try and take off the radiator. I don't like doing jobs in a work-around way, but on this occasion I think I will play safe.

Thanks to you both for comments.

km

i had some building work down which required a copper pipe from the gas meter to the main house pipe being run through the brick work, but the builder covered the copper pipe with brick work, when the plumber turned to do the central heatingup he wasnt best pleased as the copper pipe should have been wrapped or covered up to stop the cement corroding the copper pipe.

"km" wrote

If you have other jobs to do on the heating system, like adding new inhibitor, you could drain the system and lift the kitchen rad off complete with valves. I had to do this with a lounge rad as all my ground floor is concrete and the tail pipe length was only 3" (no spring in the pipes whatsoever).

HTH

Phil