Hi. I've been asked to remove a radiator from one of the rooms in a local community centre. I'm OK at plumbing when it comes to copper and plastic, but I've never worked on Black Iron before.
The in/out pipes run parallel to each other and it's the last radiator in the system, so it loops back via this last radiator. So when I remove the radiator, I need to put something in it's place to maintain the loop - I can't just cap it off.
I'd ususally just pop on a couple of elbows and a bit of pipe in a 'C' config to join the two pipes together - easy with copper, but this stuff seems like it needs to be threaded. trouble is, it's very close to the wall and I don't have the kit to put new threads on, even if I could get the clearance - That, AND I'd need a union type peice in the middle of both elbows, so i could tighten them both at the same time.
I've seem some Primofit connections which look promising, and some conflicting stories about using regular olive compression elbows (Mostly saying 'no' to be fair).
My thinking is that I might be able to clean up the pipes close to where they come out of the wall (they've been painted a million times by the look of it), cut the pipes at this position with a hacksaw, and de-burr them, remove the remaining pipe and radiator, then join the pipes back together using the Primofit connections.
Does this seem reasonable?
Also, would you recomend draining the system to do this, or freezing the water a little further back from where I'm making the cut.... add a little time pressure to the job...
Edit: More research needed to determine if it's a 1 or 2 pipe system - if 2, then I think I can just cap it off... (fingers crossed). As it's the last rad in the system, I don;t know until I can look at one of the other rads - if it's tapped into the 2 seperate pipes (as oppose to just the 'hot' one), then it's 2, right?
The in/out pipes run parallel to each other and it's the last radiator in the system, so it loops back via this last radiator. So when I remove the radiator, I need to put something in it's place to maintain the loop - I can't just cap it off.
I'd ususally just pop on a couple of elbows and a bit of pipe in a 'C' config to join the two pipes together - easy with copper, but this stuff seems like it needs to be threaded. trouble is, it's very close to the wall and I don't have the kit to put new threads on, even if I could get the clearance - That, AND I'd need a union type peice in the middle of both elbows, so i could tighten them both at the same time.
I've seem some Primofit connections which look promising, and some conflicting stories about using regular olive compression elbows (Mostly saying 'no' to be fair).
My thinking is that I might be able to clean up the pipes close to where they come out of the wall (they've been painted a million times by the look of it), cut the pipes at this position with a hacksaw, and de-burr them, remove the remaining pipe and radiator, then join the pipes back together using the Primofit connections.
Does this seem reasonable?
Also, would you recomend draining the system to do this, or freezing the water a little further back from where I'm making the cut.... add a little time pressure to the job...
Edit: More research needed to determine if it's a 1 or 2 pipe system - if 2, then I think I can just cap it off... (fingers crossed). As it's the last rad in the system, I don;t know until I can look at one of the other rads - if it's tapped into the 2 seperate pipes (as oppose to just the 'hot' one), then it's 2, right?
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