Replacing small radiator with large towel rail

[Rick Sanchez]

Hi

I'm decorating the bathroom in our new house and I have purchased this towel rail to replace the small radiator which was in there. I went for a larger size as I have read they do not give out as much heat, hopefully this will do the trick.

I could use a couple of points of advice.

Can I just re-bend the 10mm pipes into position to fir the towel rail? The will more or less need to be inline with the old rad brackets which you can see in this picture

I also cant decide whether to have the pipes coming straight up from the floor to the base of the towel rail, or channel them in. Its a solid brick wall on a Victorian terrace, there's only a very thin layer of plaster there, maybe 15mm. Will channelling even be possible?

last question, I think the feed and flow are 22mm, the connections from them to the rad are 10mm. Will 10mm be enough for a towel rail this size, or should I look at upgrading to 15mm? The website states it has a BTU of 2279 which seems a bit optimistic to me.

Pic of the pipes connect to the feed

Thanks in advance

 

[Madrab]

Yes the original pipes could be repositioned by bending the microbore. Just be careful as it's easy to kink the pipe and use large radius bends.

668W from that size of towel rad would be about right but it doesn't heat the space as efficiently as a standard rad would, especially with towels on it.

 

[Agile]

Your new 668 W towel rail is probably far less than the rad you are replacing. And that is before you lower the output with towels !

Channeling is hard work and looks bad where the tube has to come out of the wall at the towel rad.

I would use 15 mm for the vertical part as it is stronger and 10 mm will look awful.

Tony

 

[rules&rulers]

Them pipes will probably spring into the required position with a little hand bending,as what madrab said ^^^ large radius.dont kink/snap them.

To get a professional looking install,use new chrome straight radiator valves,then 15mm chrome pipe to under the floor.then adapt to the 10mm and see how it works.

The flow/return pipes in 15mm to the towel rail would be best practice but we dont know how good the existing system is,so see how the 10mm pipes work. Check if the towel rail has dedicated flow/return connections the instructions (if any) will tell you or ask VP via email.

good luck,

 

[Rick Sanchez]

Great advice from all thanks. I think I will bend the 10mm pipes and cover with chrome piping as suggested, best solution all round.

 

[rules&rulers]

Use chrome pipe upstands,something like these.(not advertising) https://www.victorianplumbing.co.uk/tissino-hugo2-pipe-finishing-kit-chrome

Not a cover,proper 15mm pipes (i hope) with floor hole cover up.

 

[Rick Sanchez]

Looks good. Probably going to mount it 30cm from the floor so will make sure I get pipes which will go down below the floorboards.