school heating

[WOLDEN]

i need some advice about removing 2 school rads & 2 legs off heating pipe. the pipe is 2 inch tee,s to 32 mm pipe , should i freeze pipe or drain down . its a 3 story school block , old building means old iron pipe . i,m more domestic then commerical . so any help would be gratefull

 

[Winston]

Thats big to freeze, I hope you have a good freeze kit! I would play safe and drain down.

 

[WHPES]

No standard freezing kit would be reliable for this. The only way to freeze would be with a large industrial unit, but the hire of this would be costly.

Drain down.

 

[Bernie2]

Its hard to freeze pipe's in large installations. It takes ages for them to cool down and the water in the pipes has got to be still.

You also need a point at which you can check it is frozen. You can use pipe thermostats of course, one either side of the ice plug, but somehow its not the same as checking no water is passing through a valved open end.

You also, as has been said, need a good CO2 gas supply and large pipe cuffs.

But then draining down may be a long job as well.

If for instance your only going to require it frozen for a short period, I would look at time and materials costs for freezing as against the same for draining down.

At least with a drain down, your not on pins all the time wondering will it stay frozen. But then freezing means you haven't got the sometimes awkward job of refilling and removing the air and having to run all over the place venting rads.

 

[justlead1]

Hi. Its not clear to me. Is it 1" pipe you wish to freeze? What ever you choice. I do hope you have more luck than i. I managed to flood an auctioneers in Bond Street London. The guy carrying out the job froze the pipe, removed a section. It was now tea break, so he did. When he returned the obvious had happened. He never bothered to valve and plug the pipe. Good Luck

 

[WOLDEN]

i trying to freeze the 2 inch pipe , not sure on costing off this type off job , i might just change my phone number , so builder can,t get me.

 

[migoplumber]

inch and a half is the biggest i freeze down, it takes 2 hours with large freeze kit on hire from smiths. the heating was turned off the previous day along with pumps. we were lucky. 2" pipework is a drain down in any sane man's book

 

[WOLDEN]

thanks ,

 

[moogwai]

sounds like "one of those jobs" to me!!! I once flooded a block of flats from 5 floors up in birmingham when an electric freezer kit decided to pop on me...it was in the middle of a big freeze and i flooded around 7 flats and i nearly froze my self to death!!!! all good fun though!!
good luck with the job...i personally would not answer the builders calls,but if i had to do it i think i would drain it down and have 10 apprentices with me when refilling.

 

[oldplumber]

I had to freeze a 22mm cw pipe in a heads office in a school, newly decorated and carpet ready to lay!!. The caretaker refused to isolate the cw main (politics!!!) so after the staff agreed to a risk of flooding it was frozen (2 cans of co2), cut and capped, in all about 30 seconds, and the ice plug blew as I tightened up the comp union. I like to drain down now as the noise of moving ice aint good. ps i know you shouldnt freeze under pressure but needs must, and they signed a disclaimer.

 

[stevetheplumber]

i need some advice about removing 2 school rads & 2 legs off heating pipe. the pipe is 2 inch tee,s to 32 mm pipe , should i freeze pipe or drain down . its a 3 story school block , old building means old iron pipe . i,m more domestic then commerical . so any help would be gratefull

you dont say which floor the work is on might not be necessary to drain fully
have you checked theres no isolation valves where it tees of from the risers? a lot of comercial stuff will have them
or you may find valves on the bottom of each pair of risers allowing you to just drain a section
actualy youll find a lot of large bore pipe work fills easily just takes a while some times its best to leave to fill overnight before you vent
if the rads are old cast ones with top and bottom connections its often easyer to vent by cracking the unions on the top valve than trying to get vents out that have been painted in