New Central Heating with 10mm pipe

swhyte1981 · Mar 17, 2019

Hi,

I recently purchased a cottage type bungalow and currently there is no central heating in the house only electric storage heaters.
I am in the process of removing all the storage heaters and installing the new central heating.
All the floors in the house are cement and all the exterior and internal walls are full of king span or glass wool insulation. Making it a real headache to get pipes to the radiators.

My plan at the moment is to run 22mm flow and return from the boiler into the loft space to 22 x 10mm manifolds and drop feed the radiators down behind the walls and then behind skirting boards and up to the Rads. Most of the Rads will be underneath windows. All runs of 10mm pipe will be +/- 5m flow and 5m return back to the manifold. The largest radiator in the house will be 1100 x 600 double, 8 x Rads in total.

I also plan to fit an indirect unvented cylinder in the loft space and pipe the coil in 15mm.
Central heating boiler is a Firebird enviromax outdoor oil boiler.

I know a lot of people don’t like to use 10mm for central heating but seems to be my only option without channelling the cement floors.

I have recently read that a lot of new build houses central heating systems are done a similar type way. Do you guys think what I have described will work OK with the length of runs of the 10mm pipe?

Thanks in Advance

ShaunCorbs · Mar 17, 2019

Need to be qualified to fit the cylinder also 22mm is required

And 15mm to the rads I would do

Pickwickpick · Mar 17, 2019

As above, for the safety of yourself, your family & your neighbours, please get someone who is G3 qualified to fit the unvented cylinder.

With regards to the piping, if I was in your position I would go for 15mm and channel the floor if need be. Seems a shame to go to all this effort only to stand an increased risk of blockages and issues further down the line that will be expensive & disruptive to fix.

Also as a general rule of thumb, anything that is common practice in new builds is almost certainly not best practice.

swhyte1981 · Mar 17, 2019

Appreciate the reply's.
For sure I will have qualified Plumber to fit the boiler and cylinder.
My plan to reduce cost was to rough in all the pipework and have a plumber do the final install.

Agreed 15mm would be much better than 10mm.
But do you think it is possible from what I described for the system to work OK if well maintained and plenty inhibitor?

Thanks

EvilDrPorkChop · Mar 17, 2019

Do a lot of systems like that and don't have any issues. 15mm is better and preferred, but not always ideal for the install.

king of pipes · Mar 17, 2019

It will work if executed properly alot of new builds are done that way the boiler and unvented cylinder are notifiable so will need fitted by a registered installer , any work you carry out yourself will need checking and pressure testing . Kop

ShaunCorbs · Mar 17, 2019

Will have problems later as the bore is reduced to 6mm in parts like most new builds

Rob Foster · Mar 17, 2019

swhyte1981 said:
Appreciate the reply's.
For sure I will have qualified Plumber to fit the boiler and cylinder.
My plan to reduce cost was to rough in all the pipework and have a plumber do the final install.

Agreed 15mm would be much better than 10mm.
But do you think it is possible from what I described for the system to work OK if well maintained and plenty inhibitor?

Thanks

No matter how much you ask us Mr1981 ...you will get the same general reply ...22mm main supply and 15mm to the rads. Plus the visual effect of microbore to the rads and anywhere seen ...immediately
says old, amateur , skin flint
cheap etc. if you will want to extend or sell on your plans for
microbore are plain wrong.
centralheatking

swhyte1981 · Mar 17, 2019

Thanks for the feedback.
Will take onboard and may go with channeling floors for 15mm, also good to know that the 10mm systems can work.

Cheers

Allgoode · Mar 17, 2019

Don't forget to forget to run you 15mm Hep2o or Speedfit in conduit to protect it in the floors & then have a 90 degree fitting & bring it up in 15mm copper.

Looks a lot better than other options.

Andy

Rob Foster · Mar 18, 2019

Allgoode said:
Don't forget to forget to run you 15mm Hep2o or Speedfit in conduit to protect it in the floors & then have a 90 degree fitting & bring it up in 15mm copper.

Looks a lot better than other options.

Andy

dead right 15mm copper upstands from floor up to rad valves everytime chking

king of pipes · Mar 18, 2019

15mm plastic fittings buried in the floor or walls hmmm personally I would try and avoid this , but each to their own . Kop

Jimmy18 · Mar 18, 2019

Why not just use plastic coated copper in the floor. Denso tape all the joints, will last forever.
Make sure you make up your rads and measure from centre to centre of your valves for your first fix otherwise will look carp

SimonG · Mar 18, 2019

Get your plumber on board now. Will save headache later.

Best · Mar 18, 2019

Jimmy18 said:
Why not just use plastic coated copper in the floor. Denso tape all the joints, will last forever.
Make sure you make up your rads and measure from centre to centre of your valves for your first fix otherwise will look carp

Or better to have the rads screwed to walls first and pipe to them, if possible

Allgoode · Mar 18, 2019

I always make/purchase a conduit box for any joint in floor as putting joints into concrete is bonkers, will always bite you on the arse later on

ggman · Mar 19, 2019

swhyte1981 said:
Thanks for the feedback.
Will take onboard and may go with channeling floors for 15mm, also good to know that the 10mm systems can work.

Cheers

Why not using 12mm coiled copper (internal diameter 10mm) you can run it easily behind the skirting board, maybe a bit hard but not impossible to find it.
I used even 15mm behind skirting board and soldered just under the radiators 30-35 cm of 10mm und run it all in one piece trough chased wall to the valve as you can see in the pic

swhyte1981 · Mar 19, 2019

ggman said:
Why not using 12mm coiled copper (internal diameter 10mm) you can run it easily behind the skirting board, maybe a bit hard but not impossible to find it.
I used even 15mm behind skirting board and soldered just under the radiators 30-35 cm of 10mm und run it all in one piece trough chased wall to the valve as you can see in the pic

View attachment 37763

Looks good.

Cheers

Rob Foster · Mar 20, 2019

Best said:
Or better to have the rads screwed to walls first and pipe to them, if possible

normally, floor in , then walls on, then us (and them ) come next, so what do you fix rads to ? Rob Foster aka centralheatking

Best · Mar 20, 2019

Rob Foster said:
normally, floor in , then walls on, then us (and them ) come next, so what do you fix rads to ? Rob Foster aka centralheatking

That is why I said, if possible.
On the OPs job it would be no problem to fix rads to existing walls.

Roy_66 · Mar 21, 2019

I've got a house with 10mm radiator feeds. Have had blockages in the past, and change the corrosion inhibitor regularly. If I was building from scratch I would follow everyone's advice here and go 15mm. Think about what you want down the line, in 10, 20 years time.

Gasinspect · Mar 23, 2019

Used 10mm a lot, never had problems. Our house is 8mm, 20 years plus, (remember Servowarm?) works a treat.

lazza · Mar 23, 2019

Gasinspect said:
Used 10mm a lot, never had problems. Our house is 8mm, 20 years plus, (remember Servowarm?) works a treat.

Lot of old local authority houses still got 8mm in and working, obviously not the best like

Rob Foster · Mar 23, 2019

Gasinspect said:
Used 10mm a lot, never had problems. Our house is 8mm, 20 years plus, (remember Servowarm?) works a treat.

oohh Servowarm ...gasinspect,
thats a blast from the past...
for the younger ones on here
it was a well promoted Ng central heating system in the 70's. about 15kw no mains connection just a top,up bottle
and the ...Master Radiator ..which was in fact the boiler which fed the rest of the system
but looked just like a radiator and was hinged to allow access to the boiler...yes my dad had one instalked in about 1968
remeber it well
centralheatking

Honey · Mar 23, 2019

Rob Foster said:
oohh Servowarm ...gasinspect,
thats a blast from the past...
for the younger ones on here
it was a well promoted Ng central heating system in the 70's. about 15kw no mains connection just a top,up bottle
and the ...Master Radiator ..which was in fact the boiler which fed the rest of the system
but looked just like a radiator and was hinged to allow access to the boiler...yes my dad had one instalked in about 1968
remeber it well
centralheatking

Good: Doesn't allow fluids to mix.

Bad: Forces and empty gap between pipes.

Solution: Automatically use Flow Control's directed pipes to keep pipes pointed away even when next to each other.

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New Central Heating with 10mm pipe

swhyte1981

ShaunCorbs

Super Moderator

Pickwickpick

swhyte1981

EvilDrPorkChop

king of pipes

ShaunCorbs

Super Moderator

Rob Foster

swhyte1981

Allgoode

Rob Foster

king of pipes

Jimmy18

SimonG

Best

Allgoode

ggman

swhyte1981

Rob Foster

Best

Roy_66

Gasinspect

lazza

Rob Foster

Honey

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