DIY skirting board heating - is this a viable project?

[DavidSWP]

Hi,

I was really interested in skirting board heaters but have been put off by the enormous cost. The cheapest one seems to be Thermaskirt, but its not the best one and still about £600 to do a medium sized room http://www.thermaskirt.com/products-and-prices.aspx

I was wondering what people thought of the idea of just running 15mm finned copper pipe http://www.tubefins.co.uk/l-fin-gallery around the perimeter of the room and covering it with some shaped sheet copper or aluminium.

If this is a viable idea, what would be the best approach? I was thinking something like running the pipe around the room one way from the flow outlet and then doubling back the same way, giving 2 parallel runs of pipe, one on top of the other and then finally connecting it to the return flow. I think it would have to be mounted onto the wall with some kind of flexible mounting to avoid expansion issues. Can anyone see any other problems?

 

[45yearsagasman]

Have you done a complete costing, including the bespoke covers?

 

[Agile]

I always think that it is a very good product and gives very even heating.

Only problem is getting enough heat output in older properties with a high heat loss.

I would not expect buying finned tube would be significantly cheaper!

In my view it should be used more often.

Tony Glazier

 

[DavidSWP]

Hi,

15mm finned copper tube is about £5 per meter. For our smallish modern 4 bedroom detached, I worked out about 150 meters of tube would be needed for a double run across 3 walls of the 8 rooms I would like to convert. So £750 on finned pipe. About 25 m2 of metal plate would be required for the coverings and Aluminium is about £25 a square meter so £625. Some fastenings would be required and some TRV/shutoff valves. I'm not sure what yet but will round up to £2000 total.

Thermaskirt is around £600 per room so £4800. Also the performance of what I am suggesting could be much better than Thermaskirt and is more like more expensive skirting heating such as climaboard. Obviously I would have to work out the heat calculations properly. My aim would be to be able to reduce the required boiler water temperature considerably.

Does anyone have any opinions about how to configure the pipes? Could I run into problems if the return flow temperature drops too low. The way I was thinking of doing it, the pipes would have been twice around the room before going back into the return flow so I imagine the temperature drop is going to be a lot more than with radiators. I heard that some boilers don't like big differences between flow and return temps? How would people attach the pipes to the walls?

 

[Agile]

Most of the commercial systems use 22 mm tube!

Probably need that size to get enough heat output, usually about 0.5 kW per meter run.

You have not bothered to tell us your boiler make and model.

The radiator system should be designed to match the boiler requirements.

Tony

 

[Agile]

Hi,

15mm finned copper tube is about £5 per meter.

I find that price very difficult to believe.

Its not a lot more than bare copper tube!

Tony

 

[DavidSWP]

Most of the commercial systems use 22 mm tube!

Probably need that size to get enough heat output, usually about 0.5 kW per meter run.

You have not bothered to tell us your boiler make and model.

The radiator system should be designed to match the boiler requirements.

Tony

Hi, the one I looked at was 15mm and was basically 2 parallel copper pipes running through punched aluminium slats, like a heat exchanger block. I can't remember which one it was right now, it may have been climaboard. I wondered if it's important for the 2 pipes to share the same slats/fins instead of using 2 seperately finned tubes. Thermaskirt is all aluminium moulded in one piece and does not perform as well as the ones using pipes with slats/fins and a separate cover.

The boiler is currently a Glowworm 18HX.

 

[DavidSWP]

Hi,

15mm finned copper tube is about £5 per meter.

I find that price very difficult to believe.

Its not a lot more than bare copper tube!

Tony

When I looked today I couldn't find the price I was looking at before which was from a UK site, but it still was much cheaper than using the commercially available skirting board heating offerings. The £5 per meter price is from Alibaba for a minimum order of 100 meters.

 

[DavidSWP]

Most of the commercial systems use 22 mm tube!

Tony

Thermodul is 15mm tubing: "Furnishing element in aluminium, heating core with supply and return copper piping external diameter 14.7 mm. thickness 0.6 mm, heating fins aluminium"

http://www.skirtingboardheating.co.uk/skirting-heating-technical.htm#water

 

[Andemann]

Well David did you get anywhere near installing your diy therma skirts? I'm building a natural house in Northern Ireland from field stone, straw, wood etc. as a project to see/prove you can build a homemade home, and am looking at doing what you propose but I'll be using a basic box frame with perforated wood skirting face. In my head this would be more efficient as 'fins' require airflow to disperse heat, much like a car radiator, so think alu casing would also reheat the return pipe rather than disperse heat reducing efficiency ... I think...
Anywhoo, interested to hear if you took the plunge, or still thinking about it.
Andy