15mm plastic heating pipes behind skirting ??

[pippo]

Hi,

My kitchen with a concrete floor is proving to be a pain in the ass as I want to fit a radiator in there however it will only fit on one small wall. I have decided that I would rather not rip up the laminate and chase out concrete so i took off the skirting and chased a chanel in behind it to see what depth there was to the brick wall. see pics:

http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh22/pippo777/DSC01093.jpg
http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh22/pippo777/DSC01094.jpg

My plan was to run the barrier pipes in here from the boiler cupboard on the right, then use 90 elbows behind the skirting, drill 15mm holes in the skirting and insert copper thru the skirting and into the elbows. with soldered 90's or 90 bends taking the copper up into the radiator above. Would the heat from the pipes cause problems? Would it be hot enough to scald the skirting, movement etc?

thanks for any advice or any other ideas.

pippo

 

[powell30]

Expansion will be your biggest problem.....plastic can distort quite a bit depending on length......

 

[pippo]

powell30

Does copper expand/contract as much, would that have more chance of workong?

pippo

 

[Onetap]

http://www.pendock.co.uk/Products/P..._Systems/TK_Casing_System/default.aspx?id=482

 

[wooffy]

Might be of interest to you go on bbc iplayer and watch dragons den episode 7. There's a bloke on there that manufactures this stuff. Might not be exactly what you want but it'll be good for some ideas. His is actually inside the skirting so no need to chase back the walls.

 

[muggles]

I'd have thought there probably isn't enough room here for a sensible amount of heated skirting.

Any reason why you can't run the pipes on the surface rather than burying them behind the skirting? If you use plastic, solder the elbow onto the copper pipes first, then insert into the plastic elbow - if you try to solder that close to plastic you'll melt it. Personally I'd use copper. It won't scald the skirting, it's not going to get quite that hot!

Another potential problem with plastic - when you push the skirting back it'll probably move, inevitably into the path of the nail you're whacking in there to hold it in place. At least with well-clipped copper you know where it is Fittings are smaller too, so there'll be less wall-chasing to do.