Is it better to leave visible central heating pipes (copper) unpainted? Leaving them unpainted would certainly make mods of the system easier. I am thinking of modifying the system (installing bigger rads etc.).
TIA
Al
If you're just talking about a few inches of straight pipe under the valves, clip-on sleeving is the way to go.
Mike Barnes wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:
Mike, Thanks for the suggestion. Are there any clip-on sleeves that cater for right angle bends? The average amount of visible pipe in each room is a few feet, with at last one right-angle bend.
Al
Yes most paint changes colour with the heat or falls off. They have painted the pipes in an office we rent and it looks terrible. Brian
I used plasti-kote chrome (looks more like brushed stainless steel) on the pipes leading to the SS towel rad in the bathroom - straight on, no primer, just cleaned as you'd do for soldering. Still looks good as new several years down the line. They are curved pipes, so clip on wouldn't work.
What is wrong with bare copper - unless there is a pd of 230V on it?
The wife of one of Dad's friends kept all the copper pipes in the house polished and gleaming, very 70's ... but then this was in the 70's
Unless it's a gents urinal than there should be very little copper on show.
Small vertical copper stab up to the rad is all I have on show.
Depends on the decorations near them. In a kitchen with a red tiled floor and half uptiled skirting, I left them to do dark brown copper colour, and they;ve effectively merged into the background.
If they're going past a gloss white skirting, I paint them gloss white. Gloss pain tends to make them look smaller because the sides of the pipe as it curves around out of view tend to reflect the colour behind the pipes.
The clip-on things are really intended to cover a few inches of straight pipe coming up through the floor to the valves, and wouldn't be suitable for your purposes.
Painted pipes probably look better than un-painted - particularly when the copper starts to tarnish. But then if you do need to modify the pipework, it can be a pain to have to remove the paint in order to make new joints.
The alternatives are: a) Make a feature of the pipes by buffing them up, and regularly cleaning them to keep them shiny, or b) Construct a box round them, and paint that
I've boxed in all my exposed pipework. It's relatively easy to remove the boxes, modify the pipework to suit, and then adapt the boxes.
Could you use a lacquer to keep them shiny, but would allow soldering through, as used on PCBs?
Servisol Plastic Seal perhaps?
Owain
Retired Marine Engineers often had that habit which they found difficult to drop after years working in ships engine rooms where bright work was polished . It wasn't done just to make the place look pretty, in the days before everything had a sensor it showed the watch coming on duty that the previous ones had gone around checking things. A pipe that had lost its shine may not have been looked at for a while.
G.Harman
If you are going to paint the radiator tails then I suppose radiator enamel is probably your best seems to resist yellowing despite being subjected to heat. IME domestic management manages to do a pretty good job of chipping paint off the pipes with the vacuum cleaner.
Richard
Dulux satinwood is very good for painting radiators. It doesn't yellow much when it gets hot and doesn't flake easily.
Cheap install. I route mine behind the skirting boards. ;-)
Older installations, and those in buildings with solid floors are more likely to have more of the pipes on show.
Ours is an older installation (1970's?) in an in some places awkward Victorian house. we have visible pipes all over the place
When parents' house was built in '68 they couldn't afford to have C/H fitted, but dad being in the gas trade meant he fitted all the pipes himself ready for rads and boiler later, before downstairs was screeded and upstairs floorboarded - can't imagine an estate builder letting you do that yourself during the build nowadays.
My own house, a few years younger than theirs has solid(ish!) floors and C/H was retrofitted before I bought it ... this meant the upstairs floorboards are hacked to bits, and there were three pairs of exposed pipe drops downstairs, which I've since moved into less conspicuous positions and boxed in.
Where there's more than 6" of pipe on display I've used chrome.
Depending on design, Victorian houses can be easier than many to conceal stuff - suspended wood floors, and internal stud walls.
But it all depend on how much time you want to spend concealing things. Many simply don't bother. Mine had pipes (gas water conduit) and cables showing all over the place when I bought it. Not anymore.
Looks very nice with a coat of clear lacquer, I think.
snipped-for-privacy@cucumber.demon.co.uk (Andrew Gabriel) wrote in news:mqo2a4$mdp$1 @dont-email.me:
That's an interesting observation - thanks. So with my white-painted walls, I might do well to spray-paint the pipes with rediator enamel, after a quick rub over with wire wool. Does this sound sensible? (I hope it's not nexessary to remove all the patina before painting, is it?
TIA
Al
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.