Replacing old towel radiator - new one is narrower!

[HannibalSmith100]

Apologies if this has already been asked, I've searched through the forums but couldn't find anything. Basically my old chrome towel radiator had rusted so I bought a new white one instead. Both are 450mm wide which I stupidly thought was all I needed to measure.

I now realise that the important measurement I should have taken was the pipe centres! The old one had pipe centres of 420mm, the new one has 405mm. The problem is that there is no give in the water pipes coming up from the bathroom floor. Even though the pipes only need to move by 15mm in total, pulling them inwards is putting them under strain that I'm not comfortable with.

So now I'm a bit stuck! I'm guessing I have two options - buy a new towel radiator with pipe centres of 420mm (haven't found many of them!), or call a plumber to extend/replace the pipes so that they bend inwards slightly to match the 405mm width required. Unless there's a third option of some sort of valve extension I can buy that will give me a little more lateral movement to get the required width needed?

I have no plumbing experience so extending/replacing pipes myself isn't an option. I've attached a photo for clarity in case I'm not making much sense! Any help with this would be much appreciated, thank you.

 

[Newboy]

The best choice would be to buy a rad with the correct centres - with offsets it will just look like a fudge. (and please loose the PTFE on the rad valves!)

 

[HannibalSmith100]

Thanks for the reply. I've searched online and the cheapest towel radiator with 420mm pipe centres I could find is this one for £130: http://www.screwfix.com/p/kudox-designer-towel-radiator-900-x-450mm/72538. Any others that I found (and there really weren't many) were even more expensive! I was hoping to keep it below £100 if possible.

Have I just got strangely-spaced pipes?!

 

[Hot&Cold]

If the floor is wood,then enlarging the pipe holes to bring the pipes in a few more mm.

Also Have seen shower bar offset fittings used in conjunction with 3/4" radiator valve


but that a very diy

 

[dilalio]

Just move the pipes - floor has vinyl down so shouldn't be a huge task.

 

[motorbiking]

should only need to move one pipe assuming it's not already mounted

 

[HannibalSmith100]

Well I ended up cutting slightly bigger holes in the floor for the pipes to bring them in a bit - trouble is I think they're mounted a bit further back under the floor as they didn't move much. I eventually managed to connect the new radiator but because the pipes/radiator valves were coming in at a bit of an angle, it didn't provide a sealed connection on the radiator so they started to leak when I began to refill it.

I'm going to take up the floor now and see if I can remount the pipes to give me a bit of extra play - it's only a matter of millimetres that I need!

If I can't move the pipes, would it be possible to buy some long radiator tails and bend those inwards slightly? Or maybe make one of the connections straight and use a couple of elbow joints to bring in the width of the other connection? I realise this might look a bit weird but I'm not bothered about how it looks.

Old&Bold - I like the idea of the shower bar offset as that would be a more suitable solution, but I don't see how the connections could be made from radiator to valve when using this? I've tried searching for something similar for radiators but I can't find anything.

 

[durhamplumber]

I would of used a couple of stem elbows either side..perfect for that job

 

[HannibalSmith100]

I would of used a couple of stem elbows either side..perfect for that job

Would it be possible to post a link to the sort of stem elbows you mean please? I've searched previously but without knowing exactly what I'm looking for I'm finding it a bit difficult.

 

[Madrab]

wrong post

 

[dilalio]

They're solder fittings. To make this job look best you would need to do some soldering of pipework if there is no movement in the feeds under the floor.

 

[Agile]

An elbow and a street elbow soldered together would give an offset of about 15 mm. So just using that on one side would be pretty close to what you need.

But underfloor adjustments woul be far better.

Tony

 

[dilalio]

When piping to rads out of the wall, my local shop does some street elbows with really long sgigots - I just cut them to the desired length and pop the valves straight on; quick and looks great

 

[HannibalSmith100]

Thanks for all your replies so far. I managed to take a section of the floor up and quickly saw why I was unable to move the radiator pipes very much. The lefthand pipe is right up against the joist underneath and the righthand pipe is being hindered by the other pipes so can't be moved further to the left.

I'm guessing a plumber could easily move/extend the righthand side pipe to bring it inwards to the required width but I only want to call someone in as a last resort. This is not something I would feel comfortable attempting myself.

Therefore in terms of above-floor solutions I have just come across these: dual fuel elbows - I was thinking two of these joined together and connected to one of the radiator valves would provide enough sideways movement inward to match up with the narrower radiator pipe centres, coupled with one of these rigid valve extensions on the other valve to match the increase in height of the radiator, after the elbows had been fitted. It might not be the most aesthetically pleasing solution, but would these connections work?

 

[dilalio]

By how much does each pipe need to be moved? If it's 5mm on each then you should easily be able to do that by "noodling" them - this is an American Catfishing term which basically means get them on and done up watertight whilst applying the relevant pressure on the pipes to get them where you need them - you can slightly distort the location of a soldered copper pipe by forcing it over - the soldered joints won't fail if you do it via gently applied pressure