Radiator plumbed in to hot water, not central heating.

[Andwarr]

Hey guys, would you be kind enough to take a look at this please?

I've had an extension to my kitchen, and there are some pretty fundamental cock-ups that I'm looking to either get fixed or compensated for. The main one is that the 'plumber' decided to hook our kitchen radiator up to the hot water supply that was feeding our WC, rather than to the central heating as per my contract with the company.

So, as everything is complete now it would be a massive nightmare to actually rip out the new walls, new wood floor, etc to fix this, so I've told the contractor I want to be compensated instead. He knows it'll be cheaper for him, and I couldn't bear to have my new kitchen pulled apart again, but I need some advice.

The images below show the route from wall mounted radiator, into the wall and down, then the pipes are in the screed under the walnut floor, then in second picture under the WC wall, and I've shown where it SHOULD be heading to meet the Vaillant boiler which is accessed via an external door/cupboard. It currently just carries on and joins the WC rad.

So, what I'd like to get an idea of is how much a pro would charge to re-route this radiator from the hot water supply, into the central heating, including all making good to full finish of walls and solid wood floor.

If anyone is able to give me a ballpark figure from the info and pics it would give me great backup to sort this out with the contractor.

Any thoughts? Thanks a million in advance.

Andy

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• Andwarr
• 29 May 2012
• 1

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• Andwarr
• 29 May 2012
• 1

 

[Phill Peck]

Are you saying its connected to the hot water pipes as in the water out if the taps or that your wc rad and now kitchen rad come on when you are heating the hot water

 

[Andwarr]

Sorry, the kitchen rad comes on when we're heating the hot water.

 

[dcawkwell]

All that is required is to tap into the pipes for the WC radiator in the WC.
there should be no need to disturb the flooring in the lounge
as the pipes already run to the radiator and they are working.

That's if I understand it right.

If you have a combi are you sure that it isn't just a fault in the combi and the diverter valve is passing into the central heating when you are running hot water??? Very unlikely the heating engineer got hot and central heating pipes
mixed up.

 

[Phill Peck]

Can you tell us what boiler you have and more info on the system

It would be more normal to connect in the airing cupboard or into the the heating pipes upstairs I'm sure there is a better option than digging up your floor

 

[doitall]

Sorry, the kitchen rad comes on when we're heating the hot water.

Do you have a cylinder, and the new rad is connected to the primary pipes.

 

[Phill Peck]

I'm assuming you have an open vented system and the wc rad is a bypass leafy hanging around from the previous system

 

[Andwarr]

Thanks for your interest fellas. I'll try and clarify as much as I can. If you look at the very rough image below it shows the kitchen and extension as it is, with the two rads, both connected to hot water system.

The boiler is a Vaillant ecoTEC 624 new installation using the existing feed pipes from a previous Potterton boiler that we replaced, which was in a similar location.

We now know plumber basically connected up the supply to the the old WC location, which was just below where the new WC is on the diagram, but on the right wall.

There's an old Megaflow system and CH control panel in the cupboard at the bottom right of the image, around 8m from the boiler.

Hope that's what you need?

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• Andwarr
• 29 May 2012
• 1

 

[Andwarr]

PS THere's no upstairs, this is a single storey extension.

 

[Phill Peck]

It would appear then that your wc rad was piped as a bypass/heat leak on the old system which is no longer required

One option would be to locate where the wc rad is piped in hopefully in the airing cupboard and re-pipe this into the CH so both rads would be on CH not HW circuit

The pipes for the rads need to be connected. After the zone valves not at the boiler

 

[picasso]

Depends where the motorised valves are located, if they (if its on an s plan) are near the boiler it wouldent be to difficult to swop over the feeds from the rads, if both the valves are close to the cylinder its gonna be expensive.

 

[Andwarr]

Looking at images of motorised valves (as this out of scope of my exceptionally basic knowledge), they are with the Megaflow system in the cupboard.

There's nothing above ground level that I can see further north that this cupboard, as you look at my diagram, other than where the pipes emerge to boiler and rads and there's nothing mechanical.

Judging by your answers, the job is by no means clear cut without a diagnosis, I assume. On that basis would I be right in saying it's not possible to give me even a wide ballpark idea of how much it might cost? Say best and worst case?

I'm not looking to get the job corrected if it's complex, just compensated for the mistake.

 

[doitall]

So when you program the hot water on, what rads get hot, just the two or does the others get hot if you turn the TRV's up

 

[Andwarr]

Just these two rads. The rest of the house works correctly via CH thermostat.

 

[doitall]

Just these two rads. The rest of the house works correctly via CH thermostat.

Just saying have you turned the TRV's on the rads up and tested to see whether they get hot, in the DWH only mode.