I'm doing a bungalow to house conversion. Bungalow had E7 heating but there is now gas in the village so I'm going to put in gas CH with radiators. I need to decide how I plumb the downstairs rads. Do I carve out channels in the scree and then run pipes there? Or do I run 10mm pipes down the wall? The walls are all being plasterboarded so there is space to run the pipes. The outside walls are getting insulated plasterboard to lower the wall U value. The inside walls will be just plain plasterboard on dabs.
Running down the wall is less work but then I need a drain at each rad and also to keep the pipe work higher than the drains. I was thinking of running down the wall (inside) and then behind the skirting before coming up to the rad (so almost like a floor exit). But if I did that and had drain taps on the rad I wouldn't be able to drain that bit of pipework (but do I need to?). BTW I do know to use a metal tape over plastic pipe (on back of plasterboard so glue doesn't affect pipes) so that pipes are detectable under the wall.
Chasing the floor is more work and the scree is ~50mm so not really as deep as it needs to be for 50mm cover over pipes. And I think these days you need to put the pipe in trunking or some such don't you so it can be replaced. The advantage is that I can drain the entire system from one point but is that worth the hassle?
Thoughts?
Running down the wall is less work but then I need a drain at each rad and also to keep the pipe work higher than the drains. I was thinking of running down the wall (inside) and then behind the skirting before coming up to the rad (so almost like a floor exit). But if I did that and had drain taps on the rad I wouldn't be able to drain that bit of pipework (but do I need to?). BTW I do know to use a metal tape over plastic pipe (on back of plasterboard so glue doesn't affect pipes) so that pipes are detectable under the wall.
Chasing the floor is more work and the scree is ~50mm so not really as deep as it needs to be for 50mm cover over pipes. And I think these days you need to put the pipe in trunking or some such don't you so it can be replaced. The advantage is that I can drain the entire system from one point but is that worth the hassle?
Thoughts?
