Changing a radiator for a towel heater

Ok firstly let me start by saying i'm an enthusastic DIYer and not a plumber so please keep it simple.

I've taken the radiator off in my bathroom and want to swap it for one of these towel radiators. The towel radiator is slimmer by about 15cm so i need to bring the pipes in and turn the valves into inline rather than side fed. All of this I think i could do if i could turn the water off in the appropriate place however my issue is i don't know how. The water is currently sealed by the inlet and outlet valves so if i took them off to replace them i'd get drowned and empty the system (combi boiler system).

I'm guessing i could turn the water off at the mains and drain the inlet which would stop the inlet valve flow. Could i turn the next radiator off in series and then drain that down to seal the other end? or am i going about the process completely wrong and need to seal the system.

I'm basically seeing if i can do this myself rather than pay a plumber - which i'm expecting to cost me circa £200 (any ideas).

Thanks in anticipation of your replies!!

You don't need to turn the water supply off, as there is no permanent mains water supply to your radiator circuit from your boiler, the same water circulates around the radiators and is only connected to the main supply when you open up the filling loop at the boiler manually to repressurise it. You will need to drain the radiators though, or at least the upstairs radiators if you live in a house (not a bungalow) and your bathroom is upstairs. A 'drain off' valve will have been installed in the lowest section of the radiator pipes somewhere. The boiler electrical supply should also be switched off.

I'm not sure what you mean by "next radiator in series" radiators are not normally connected in series, if they were, when one was turned off they would all go off. They are usually connected in 'parallel'.

When you refill, don't forget to replenish the corrosion inhibitor.

But before you do any of this, beware! The heat output from a towel rail is a small fraction of what a same sized radiator emits and this can be reduced to almost nothing when it's covered with towels, so you might end up with warm towels, but a cold bathroom.

As stem says, you may be surprised by the pitiful output of most towel warmers/rails.

You need to calculate the heat requirements of your bathroom, and then see if your new rail is up to it.

http://www.radcalcs.com/

In all honesty, as you don't seem very conversant with the workings of a ch system, employing a plumber for a couple of hours (recommended by family, neighbours or colleagues) may be some of the best money you ever spend.

stem said:

But before you do any of this, beware! The heat output from a towel rail is a small fraction of what a same sized radiator emits and this can be reduced to almost nothing when it's covered with towels, so you might end up with warm towels, but a cold bathroom.

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Thats particularly relevant.

I would expect most plumbers would charge about £80-£120 to fit and connect your new towel rad.

If you fitted it to the wall yourself that would reduce the price a bit to say £60-£100

Tony

If you are going to dry towels in the bathroom, be sure to have plenty of ventilation (switch on extractor) or you could end up with unhealthy black mould on walls and ceiling.

Thanks folks for all your input. I think i've convinced myself that i need to let the plumber do it. As someone correctly points out i'm not that conversant and it might not actually cost me that much less.

I acccept the output challenge of the towel heater but its only a small downstairs toilet so thats not too much of an issue really (I only had the previous small radiator on low most of the time),


Thanks Again.

spdavies said:

I acccept the output challenge of the towel heater but its only a small downstairs toilet so thats not too much of an issue really.

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Great, that's a different matter. That's exactly what I've done and it works fine. Because there is only a hand towel on the rail, the remaining exposed metal is more than sufficient to heat my downstairs loo.