We inherited in our kitchen a simple towel rail, hand-made from 22mm copper pipe in a ‘ladder’ arrangement (imagine an H with top and bottom rails), total length of pipe about 12ft. I need to re-plumb it into our newly configured CH system and am contemplating the best way to connect it up. It’s mounted on the side of the boiler cupboard, so various options are possible.
It wants to be hot all the time - or at least whenever the boiler fires - which points to it being placed the boiler side of any flow-control valves. I don’t fancy putting it across the flow and return as it would make a huge short-circuit (it has no stop-down valves of its own, and even if it did they’d be hard to regulate because the temperature drop is so small across it). Nor do I fancy putting it in series with either the flow or return so that all circulation is forced through it, not least because it’s fed by a stub of of 15mm pipe.
How about putting it in PARALLEL with the return? The return pipe is vertical at this point, so I guess that some hot water will find its way around the rail by drift. It doesn’t need much flow to keep it hot because its thermal loss is low. NB the shape is symmetrical, with both feed and output on the bottom (separated - imagine the lugs on a circlip) so there won't be much convection by gravity.
Is this unorthodox? Is it likely to work? What would building regs say about it, obsessed as they are with TRVs, lagged pipes etc.?
Thanks
Paul
It wants to be hot all the time - or at least whenever the boiler fires - which points to it being placed the boiler side of any flow-control valves. I don’t fancy putting it across the flow and return as it would make a huge short-circuit (it has no stop-down valves of its own, and even if it did they’d be hard to regulate because the temperature drop is so small across it). Nor do I fancy putting it in series with either the flow or return so that all circulation is forced through it, not least because it’s fed by a stub of of 15mm pipe.
How about putting it in PARALLEL with the return? The return pipe is vertical at this point, so I guess that some hot water will find its way around the rail by drift. It doesn’t need much flow to keep it hot because its thermal loss is low. NB the shape is symmetrical, with both feed and output on the bottom (separated - imagine the lugs on a circlip) so there won't be much convection by gravity.
Is this unorthodox? Is it likely to work? What would building regs say about it, obsessed as they are with TRVs, lagged pipes etc.?
Thanks
Paul
