burying 15mm ch pipes in skirting

[Brigadier]

Hello all,

another case of goalposts moving, and making the job harder.......

In the hope of warming up a solid-brick no-cavity old house, I battened the walls down to the original skirting with 1" battens, filled the gaps with polystyrene, then had the walls plasterboarded. The plasterboard goes down about 2" below the top line of the skirting. I then fixed the new skirting onto the old.

I have fitted a rad onto the wall, and my plumbing mate is coming to plumb it in. He suggested that I remove the new skirting so that he can fix the rad pipes to the old, thus making for a neater job.

Because I only battened down to the skirting and not across it, I think that I'd need more clearance behind the new skirting than there already is. So my question is, is there such a thing like an electrician's chaser that will cut an appropriate chase along the length of the in-situ old skirting, or will I have to make do with sweating over a hammer and chisel?

 

[dextrous]

There is a fairly new thing called a router which should do the job for most of the lengths

Or even a circular saw will chop out a suitable strip.

Beware the old fixing nails though.

 

[oilman]

The skirting may warp when you have removed a channel for the pipes. and who is going to sort out the buried pipes when you get a problem. Much better to put them on the new surface and put a capping over the pipes. It looks neat enough.

 

[Brigadier]

Result!

I have removed the new skirting to find that there is just enough space for the pipes to go in, without having to chop at the old boards.

I thought that a router wouldn't fit in such a confined space, hence the chase (plus the fact that I've never seen a router in action, so have absolutely no idea as to it's modus operandi, and limitations...)

If there's a problem with the pipes, they'll be easily accessible under the screwed new skirting.

Thanks for the help!