CENTRAL HEATING PIPE RUNS
 

Hi, Can anyone advise me on Pipe Runs in a Central Heating System.
My Boiler is downstairs under the stairs in an alcove, the main Flow
and Return pipes in 22m will go from the Boiler up and under the
floorboards on the first floor, I intend to T off these 22m pipes in
15m to Radiators, my question is if I drop a flow and return pipe in
15m to a Radiator in the Hall can the same 15m pipes then go to a
Radiator in my Front room or do I have to install another Flow and
Return pipe from the 22m to that Radiator.

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
wrote:

Hi, Can anyone advise me on Pipe Runs in a Central Heating System.
My Boiler is downstairs under the stairs in an alcove, the main Flow
and Return pipes in 22m will go from the Boiler up and under the
floorboards on the first floor, I intend to T off these 22m pipes in
15m to Radiators, my question is if I drop a flow and return pipe in
15m to a Radiator in the Hall can the same 15m pipes then go to a
Radiator in my Front room or do I have to install another Flow and
Return pipe from the 22m to that Radiator.

It's ok as long as the total heat output of the radiators on your 15mm drop
doesn't exceed about 6kW. The radiators need to be connected in parallel -
not in series - of course.
--
Cheers,
Set Square
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Dont want to appear thick but "The radiators need to be connected in
parallel -
not in series - of course." What does that mean?.

Thanks Set Square and also GymRatz for the reply.

wrote in message
oups.com...
Dont want to appear thick but "The radiators need to be connected in
parallel -
not in series - of course." What does that mean?.

Thanks Set Square and also GymRatz for the reply.


In a conventional modern two pipe system, you have a 'flow' (from the
boiler) and a 'return' (back to the boiler) pipe and all your
radiators connect from one to the other and thus are in parallel.

Years ago it was not uncommomon to have a 'one pipe' system, where a
single pipe ran arround the area to be heated from the output to the
input of the boiler, and each radiator was in parallel with a short
section of this pipe (usually the length of the radiator) - this is
the system often found in schools and municiple buildings - the pipe
often being 2" black iron. Here effectively the radiators are in
series with each other.

AWEM

In message ,
"Andrew Mawson" wrote:


wrote in message
oups.com...
Dont want to appear thick but "The radiators need to be connected in
parallel -
not in series - of course." What does that mean?.

Thanks Set Square and also GymRatz for the reply.


In a conventional modern two pipe system, you have a 'flow' (from the
boiler) and a 'return' (back to the boiler) pipe and all your
radiators connect from one to the other and thus are in parallel.

Years ago it was not uncommomon to have a 'one pipe' system, where a
single pipe ran arround the area to be heated from the output to the
input of the boiler, and each radiator was in parallel with a short
section of this pipe (usually the length of the radiator) - this is
the system often found in schools and municiple buildings - the pipe
often being 2" black iron. Here effectively the radiators are in
series with each other.


My mother-in-law has a really odd system that seems to have been
originally a DIY install, probably 30 or 40 years ago. Some aspects are
rather good - curved radiators in the bay windows for example - but
others are decidedly silly; there is no room thermostat and she
regulates the house temperature by adjusting the boiler thermostat.

The layout of the pipework is rather complicated too and appears to be a
mixture of three different systems thus:

+-rad-+
-------+-----+----+-----rad----+
Boiler rad |
------------------+------------+

The leftmost radiator is in the standard single-pipe layout, the middle
one is in what is commonly used these days ("parallel") and the last one
appears to be in series, though shutting it off doesn't seem to affect
other radiators in the house so it may not be (I know it wouldn't affect
them in the diagram above, but the house obviously has rather more
than three radiators and the rad in question is near the boiler so is
hardly likely to be at the end of a run).

All pipework is in half inch (probably).

I'm sure it could be improved but "it works fine for me" so it isn't
likely to be any time soon :-)

Hwyl!

M.

--
Martin Angove: http://www.tridwr.demon.co.uk/
Two free issues: http://www.livtech.co.uk/ Living With Technology
.... All you folks do not exist. My sysop types all this stuff in.

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
wrote:

Dont want to appear thick but "The radiators need to be connected in
parallel -
not in series - of course." What does that mean?.

Thanks Set Square and also GymRatz for the reply.

Series would be if the feed pipe went to one rad and the output from that
rad fed the other one - so that the *same* water flows first through one
then through the other. Parallel is where the feed pipe splits and goes to
one side of each rad, and similarly with the return pipe - so there is an
independant path through each rad - so that you can turn one off wthout
affecting the other.

Same as the electrical analogy of wiring resistors in series or parallel,
really.
--
Cheers,
Set Square
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