Removing a radiator - how to cap kuterlex 10mm

[bfmonaghan]

Hello all

Last night, I removed a radiator from my kitchen, since it is going to make room for some kitchen units.

I intend to put in an under cabinet central heating kickboard radiator at some point, so wanted to keep the feed and return pipes and the valves as they were.

So, I used a decorators cap to close off the TRV valve (cap has replaced the trv) and closed the lockshield valve also and then removed the radiator and its tails. All went well, except that I needed to use a bit of force to remove the nut on the TRV side. I think this unsettled the seal between the pipe and the trv valve, since I now have a very slight leakage from the underside of the valve. The pipe is 10mm Kuterlex.

So, I'd appreciate any advice on what to do now. I tried to tighten the valve nut, but it seems to be fast and I'm concerned that any further force might make things worse. It seems that the whole valve just rotates around the pipe, rather than tightens up.

I'm not sure whether I can slacken off the nut around the 10mm Kuterlex to see if I can reposition it. ie do I need to drain the system down before I can either reposition the nut or cap off some other way.

I'm also not to sure how to cap off 10mm Kuterlex - if it became easier to just remove the valve and cap off until we have the kickboard radiator to install.

Any help or insight appreciated.

Many thanks

Brian

 

[45yearsagasman]

You can buy 10mm compression caps. If your system is open vented then bung the open vent and cold feed at the expansion tank.

 

[bfmonaghan]

Thanks 45yearsagasman

I found the 10mm compression caps just after I posted, so will get one of those.

Re the expansion tank, if I follow your instructions then I will:
1. turn off the cold feed to the tank,
2. put a bung in the tank at the exit pipe to stop any feed from the tank to the system, and
3. also bung the vent that comes back over the expansion tank.

So, that should stop the system water firing out of the 10mm pipe when I take off the remainder of the valve and replace it with a 10mm cap?

Have I got that right?

Thanks for your help.

Brian

 

[WedgeAntillesRed2]

Re the expansion tank, if I follow your instructions then I will:
1. turn off the cold feed to the tank,
2. put a bung in the tank at the exit pipe to stop any feed from the tank to the system, and
3. also bung the vent that comes back over the expansion tank.

You shouldn't need to turn off/ or tie up the ball-valve to the tank mate. That's why you bung the cold feed up. The whole idea is to create an airlock. Vent pipe is easy, but be careful with the cold feed tank connector. Sometimes (50%) those connectors have lugs inside the pipe so preventing a water-tight seal.

Personally i would solder from the 10mm copper and then use a 15mmx10mm reducer. Stick a couple of 15mm isolation valves on the pipework ready for any future work. You would have to drain down for that though.

If your lucky with airlocking your system you can still do it that way using compression fittings, a bit more expensive though

Best of British

 

[bfmonaghan]

Thanks WedgeAntillesRed2

Would it help if I also just empty out the expansion tank, so that if I don't get a tight seal at the cold feed connector, then it's not so much of a problem?

Isolation valves ound like a good idea, so I don't need to go through this again!

Thanks
Brian

 

[WedgeAntillesRed2]

If you cant get the seal on the header tank cold feed it doesnt matter how water you scoop out the tank. Air will still get into the system and thus empty the contents of it all over your kitchen floor.
An air lock is quite correctly called an airlock because air cannot get in the system.
Unlike the use of the word Radiator! Only about 5% of heat is actually radiated from an ,ummmm radiator. Should have been called convectors. Or Lageuglymetalthings!