Plastic pipes in CH
 

Hello all you DIY Sages!

I've just dug all the central heating pipes out of my concrete floors in my
bungalow ~ the joints were not protected from the cement & were leaking all
over the place. I now need to replace them all & was wondering whether or
not to use plastic pipes & pushfit connections.

Obviously they won't suffer the same fate as soldered copper joints but how
do they compare with respect to their performance & reliability?

I have also discovered that I have 2 pumps in the heating circuit (11 rads)
~ currently only one is powered, the other looks pretty defunct. How much
resistance to the flow of water would this non working pump add? Do you guys
think I should whip it out whiilst the system is drained, replace it or
leave alone?

Thanks for the anticipated help
Mike J

"mj" wrote in message
...
Hello all you DIY Sages!

I've just dug all the central heating pipes out of my concrete floors in
my
bungalow ~ the joints were not protected from the cement & were leaking
all
over the place. I now need to replace them all & was wondering whether or
not to use plastic pipes & pushfit connections.

Obviously they won't suffer the same fate as soldered copper joints but
how
do they compare with respect to their performance & reliability?

They are fine. All problems were solved years ago.



I have also discovered that I have 2 pumps in the heating circuit (11
rads)
~ currently only one is powered, the other looks pretty defunct. How much
resistance to the flow of water would this non working pump add? Do you
guys
think I should whip it out whiilst the system is drained, replace it or
leave alone?

Take it out. And if you can afford it take the other one out as well and
put in a Grundfos Alpha.

mj wrote:
Hello all you DIY Sages!

I've just dug all the central heating pipes out of my concrete floors in my
bungalow ~ the joints were not protected from the cement & were leaking all
over the place. I now need to replace them all & was wondering whether or
not to use plastic pipes & pushfit connections.

Obviously they won't suffer the same fate as soldered copper joints but how
do they compare with respect to their performance & reliability?

In the real world you should be OK burying PB or PEX (Hep2O etc or
Speedfit) directly in your floor, but the BS (rather bolting the stable
door IMO) says that you should install them so that they can be removed
and replaced (without digging up the floor) later. For that purpose you
can buy corrugated plastic pipe (like the stuff used behind sinks and
baths for overflow, but a bit bigger) from BES etc (you run your Hep2O
etc in it)


I have also discovered that I have 2 pumps in the heating circuit (11 rads)
~ currently only one is powered, the other looks pretty defunct. How much
resistance to the flow of water would this non working pump add? Do you guys
think I should whip it out whiilst the system is drained, replace it or
leave alone?

If it's really not doing anything I'd take it out.

On Fri, 15 Oct 2004 23:54:13 +0000, John Stumbles wrote:

mj wrote:
Hello all you DIY Sages!

I've just dug all the central heating pipes out of my concrete floors in my
bungalow ~ the joints were not protected from the cement & were leaking all
over the place. I now need to replace them all & was wondering whether or
not to use plastic pipes & pushfit connections.

Obviously they won't suffer the same fate as soldered copper joints but how
do they compare with respect to their performance & reliability?

In the real world you should be OK burying PB or PEX (Hep2O etc or
Speedfit) directly in your floor, but the BS (rather bolting the stable
door IMO) says that you should install them so that they can be removed
and replaced (without digging up the floor) later. For that purpose you
can buy corrugated plastic pipe (like the stuff used behind sinks and
baths for overflow, but a bit bigger) from BES etc (you run your Hep2O
etc in it)


Sounds like the BSI committee was loaded from people from the CDA?


--
Ed Sirett - Property maintainer and registered gas fitter.
The FAQ for uk.diy is at www.diyfaq.org.uk
Gas fitting FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/GasFitting.html
Sealed CH FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/SealedCH.html