House renovation, remove heating

[Randommoose]

Hi,

I've been reading this forum for a while but now could do with some input so I've joined up - Hello!

I've just bought a house, total renovation project, some diy, some trades. It is having all the expected rewire, plaster etc. and a complete new heating system. I've got someone coming in a couple of weeks to put the new system in and he was going to remove the old system. However, the electrician coming next week needs access to certain areas where the old system is currently in the way and the plumber can't get here sooner to do it himself. So I need to learn what everything is to work out the order to dismantle it myself (obviously will gas cut off by gas safe plumber).

I've had a search around and got photos of the bits and so far have found out the following:
1. Baxi Bermuda (401? 552?) back boiler with a gas fire in front. Had a gas safety certificate done 2 weeks ago and is currently working but making a lot of bangs, clanks and hisses. Ideally I would like to keep the heating going as long as possible to make working in the house easier. Don't need the hot water though.
Q. Can this boiler run heating only, not hot water?

2. Copper hot water tank. Has a Creda Redhead immersion heater plugged in but turned off and we haven't used that at all.
Q. There don't appear to be any other cables to the cylinder so does this mean it doesn't have its own thermostat and is running off the boiler thermostat? Might explain the random water heating on and off that is happening.

3. Cold water loft tank. Hot water and expansion tank both have overflow pipes into this. It has an overflow to outside. Mains feed. Cold water outlet down to hot water tank.

4. Expansion tank. Has mains cold, water tank expansion and something else (I presume heating expansion) piped to it.

5. Pump with a corroded stoptap type thing next to it. There is a big water stain in the room below but it is dry below. I haven't been near enough to the pump yet to see if it is wet around it. A couple of feet away there is a vent(?) poking out of the insulation.
Q. What is the corroded stoptap thing next to it? A valve/stop tap/drain?

6. Heating is all on microbore dropped from the ceiling. I haven't yet uncovered the manifold.

7. I've opened the side access panel of the chimney breast and can see and access the main pipes and boiler from here. There is pumped flow, gravity flow, pumped return (those 3 go up to the loft) and gravity return (from under the floor). One of these has what I presume is a drain valve but it is so corroded I can't tell. The gas supply is on the other side of the chimney breast.

I'll add some photos and can you have a look to see if I have identified these all correctly? Thanks!
Moose

 

[Randommoose]

Stuff in the loft

 

[Randommoose]

Side access panel to the boiler

 

[flameport]

1 - no, you can't have heating only with that. Boiler on - hot water cylinder boiling up the entire time.

As for the rest - given the dreadful state of pretty much every part of the system and the evidence of leaks all over the place, your best option is to have the gas disconnected, drain out all the water and then rip out anything that's in the way of the electrician or anyone else.

Ideally I would like to keep the heating going as long as possible to make working in the house easier

Get some portable heaters. Or a coat.

Your choice is between being a bit cold for a week or two - or arriving one morning to find the entire place totally flooded which will cost £1000s to repair and months to dry out.
Then there is the risk of fire and explosion to consider.

 

[Gasguru]

Get the meter outlet capped off and rip the lot out....it's not worth keeping.
The boiler MUST not be run with the panel removed from the chimney.
Get some electric heaters for now.
Having renovated many properties it's nice to have a small oversink electric water heater...especially this time of year.

 

[Randommoose]

1 - no, you can't have heating only with that. Boiler on - hot water cylinder boiling up the entire time.

As for the rest - given the dreadful state of pretty much every part of the system and the evidence of leaks all over the place, your best option is to have the gas disconnected, drain out all the water and then rip out anything that's in the way of the electrician or anyone else.

Thanks, I suspected that may be the case with the hot water. It is ridiculously hot (steaming) so we haven't been using any as it is just too hot.

Yes, the whole house is full of poor workmanship (the electrics are also very... interesting) and lack of maintenance. I'll post about draining and removing in a moment.

Get the meter outlet capped off and rip the lot out....it's not worth keeping.
The boiler MUST not be run with the panel removed from the chimney.
Get some electric heaters for now.
Having renovated many properties it's nice to have a small oversink electric water heater...especially this time of year.

I will sort out the meter being capped.
Thank you for letting me know about not running the boiler with the panel off. The boiler hasn't been turned on since I took the panel off. Unfortunately the panel is slate (is this normal?) and was already cracked and broke into pieces when it came off so it seems I am boilerless sooner than expected!
I've got two electric heaters and some coats...

 

[Gasguru]

It's not common to have an access panel to the boiler.
Sadly it looks like the old Ariston Eureka water heater is no longer available.

 

[Randommoose]

I've never done anything on a vented system before so want to check how to drain it down correctly. Is this correct?

1. Get someone Gas Safe to cap off gas at the meter.
2. Stop cold mains supply (to where? Cold tank, expansion tank, anywhere else?). Easy access near the stopcock as I've taken the bathroom out already. In the pictures the mains comes from the stopcock goes left (right is toilet), around the left wall (alongside hot pipe) and up through the airing cupboard to the tanks above.
3. Drain hot water system (drain valve on hot tank (near floor) didn't do anything when we tried before. The gravity flow valve next to the boiler is a lump of corrosion. Any suggestions?)
4. Drain heating system (need to find a drain point)

 

[Randommoose]

It's not common to have an access panel to the boiler.

I didn't know that. Our last house also had an access panel (though metal) but the back boiler was long gone. I was surprised when this turned out to be slate as it looked like metal!

 

[flameport]

Stop cold mains supply (to where? Cold tank, expansion tank, anywhere else?).

All of the tanks in the roof.

Drain hot water system (drain valve on hot tank (near floor) didn't do anything when we tried before.

Drain what can be got through the hot & cold taps, cut the pipe going into the top of the cylinder, shove a hosepipe inside so it reaches the bottom of the cylinder, siphon out as much as possible.
Or screwdriver through the side near the bottom, several buckets nearby and somewhere to empty them quickly.

As for the heating - undo any radiator valve, and once that's done on all of the rads, cut through one or more pipes to get the rest.

 

[Gasguru]

Fill the hose with water first...then shove one end into the cylinder, it saves sucking your lungs out getting it to syphon.
I normally use a length of 15mm copper with the hose jammed on...that way you can get to the cylinder base.

 

[Randommoose]

Hi,
This afternoon the plumber came round and capped off the gas at the meter outlet. Then I cut the mains feed and capped it.
It turns out there is another drain valve which is for the tank so after having run the hot until it ran out (hot tank and cold tank) then the tank drain valve gota fair bit more out.
What I thought was tank drain before is a heating drain but isn't doing anything other than a few drips. The seal was off and up the pipe but even with that pulled out nothing happened. Opening a radiator bleed valve didn't start the drain working either.
So tomorrow or Saturday will be time to drain from a radiator instead. I have a wet vac too so can use that if needed.

My electric heater turns out to be really effective! It was heating 4 rooms to normal temperature no problem so I won't be cold!

Moose

 

[Randommoose]

Today I arrived at the house this afternoon and found a leak from the heating side of the system (off and gas capped). Luckily not as bad as @flameport warned it could be. It one of the pipes to/from the expansion tank - either the expansion pipe or the one that feeds the water back into the heating system (probably the second one as that would be more likely to have water in?). The pipe is tight up against and over the cold loft tank (it is the one cut into the side and blue with corrosion in the photo) and it is leaking through the side of the pipe where is corroded. I didn't know that would be possible but the pipe is dry above and below but water coming from where it touches the loft tank plastic (the rest of the loft tank is dry around there). So maybe with the draining the loft tank yesterday it shifted position and the plastic moved some of the pipe corrosion and exposed a hole in the pipe?

I got the drain valve open ... drip drip drip but gradually emptying, even taking the drain valve off didn't get water out any faster. I took a radiator off and drained it (black water!) and its microbore pipes into the toilet. That did the trick and the leak above stopped. There will be a bit of drying to do but most of the water actually got caught in the plastic bag of the cold tank insulation jacket, just a bit had dripped out of there and through the loft hatch. Tomorrow I will put a fan on the one wet bit of wood up there to dry it out.

My brother gave me some spring loaded pipe cutters and they are so much better than the adjustable one I was using! So I've cut up some of the hot water pipework now and will continue tomorrow.

 

[Randommoose]

Hi,
Another update - since having the gas capped on Thursday I've got all the hot and cold water side of the plumbing out (I've left mains to kitchen sink and a toilet), removed all three tanks and removed some of the heating. The main focus has been on removing the bits that needed to go before the electrician comes tomorrow and all that is done now.

The pipe that was leaking in my last post was the feed from expansion tank back into heating. It had been bent wrongly originally so the installer had cut away a section of the cold loft tank for it to run through. That edge had rubbed at the copper pipe over the decades and managed to crease and cut it making a slight leak. I expect the vibration of me draining the cold tank the day before was enough to start it leaking.

The gravity fed return runs under the floor from the hot tank to the boiler, crossing most of the width of the house. For some reason (insulation?) this has been boxed in using spare floorboards. This has blocked the front-to-back sub floor ventilation across 2/3 of the house...

At some point soon I will remove the remaining heating pipes, radiators, gas fire and boiler and the new system is being installed in a couple of weeks so then there will be heating again!

Moose

 

[Gasguru]

Get that copper down to the scrap yard asap..you'll need ID to get your cheque.