Boxing central heating pipes & drilling

[Carel Solomon]

Hi All,

I am planning on boxing in some central heating pipes using B&Q's treated MDF skirting board. I am ripping out the old skirting board and replacing it with new ones, hence the reason I want to use skirting board for this - so the boxing is less obscure. The current pipes are mounted off the old skirting board and I'm wondering if putting the new skirting board as close as possible to the pipes will cause it to buckle due to the heat? Does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing?

Also, I'm trying to put up some curtain poles, but when I drill the holes, the drill goes through the plaster & cement without a problem, but about 20 mm in I hit something solid and have to apply loads of presure and an extra helping of patients to get the required depth. I am using a 6 mm masonary drill bit and an old drill with a hammer action. Any suggestion on making this task easier?

Thanks! Carel

[David W.E. Roberts]

Probably drilling into a reinforced concrete lintel

Return the patients to the hospital and beg/borrow/steal/buy an SDS drill.

HTH Dave R

[Christian McArdle]

Put some "economy" insulation on the pipes. This will have the twin effects of making your central heating more efficient and, more importantly in your case, will reduce the leakage of heat into the boxing arrangements. The economy pipe insulation is much thinner than the proper stuff, so might fit into the space available. If you have more space, then use thick Part L compliant stuff.

Use an SDS drill. Be grateful that you have hard brick, rather than the cottage cheese mine are made from.

Christian.

[Broadback]

After updating my property which is built of Staffordshire brick and spending hours drilling in them and concrete lintels I bought an SDS. Now it is akin to drilling through cheese.

[Carel Solomon]

Nice one! Thanks Christian (and others). BTW, do you have any experience with MDF actually wobling, or is the chances of that actually happening very slim? From looking at it and doing some reading, it sounds like MDF is quite stable, but would be good to get some confirmation on that.

Thanks! Carel

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It won't warp with the sort of heat you're talking about. Get it wet, though...

[N. Thornton]

So what would be a decent material for bathroom boxing? It would have to survive a lot of wetness, and have an easily cleaned surface... I cant think of anything!

Regards, NT

[Christian McArdle]

Tiled aquapanel. I tend to go for 100% when tiling a bathroom.

Christian.

[nemo]

In the UK at least, there are some building regulations on boxing-in central heating pipes. Might be worth checking if it's the same where you are. Nemo

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Interesting. Care to explain?