2 Rip out or not 2 Rip out?

[luggagewarrior]

I have an old gravity system thats possibly 20 years old, the gloworm boiler is in the garage and the hot water tank / diverter is in the airing cupboard at the top of the stairs.
Moving with the times, I'm going to change it to a condensing system and incorporate evacuated tubes for solar gen'd hot water.

The problem is (one of them) the rads need bleeding almost daily (upstairs only) and I'm not sure wether it is a leak allowing air in or corrosion producing the gas.
The pipes to the rads are steel, not copper and just a fraction too big for olives (when fitting TRVs a couple of years ago). I had to reduce to outside diameter with emery cloth untill the olive slid on.

So the steel (I'm told was used in the 70s due to a copper shortage) could be a source of the problem, (Would it stand up to the pressure of a sealed combi system?) however there were leaks on some joints downstairs about 6 years ago that have since cured themselves. So it may be air suction. I tried tying up the ballcock in the f/e tank, to see if the 15cm of water dropped due to corrosion consumption, but the valve kept leaking and I couldnt be certain if it was being permanently topped up, so no go there.

If I take out the steel, is plastic or copper recommended. I'm quite partial to both, for different reasons, but doing it would be a hell of a job.

Back to the question to rip out the steel or not??

Thanks in advance
LW

 

[adlplumbing]

i think may be time to start a fresh
i prefare copper but pastic is okay

 

[Bahco]

If you are planning on stayng in the same property I would rip the lot out and start anew as already suggested.

An old system won't do your new boiler any good.