upside down rads!

[lewislee]

hi all, my central heating was put in after my house was build and due to concrete floors downstairs i have pipe drops to the down stairs rads. i am thinking about replacing these rads with decorative stainless steel rads or similar. as im goin to all this expense i obviously want to eliminate as much unsightly pipework as possible!! is the any reason apart from akward fitting and reaching the trv that i cant turn the rad upsidedown and come straight from the ceiling into the valves???? the rads im lookin at are very tall and narrow and are only a foot or so from the ceiling. any help would be much appreciated

 

[Bahco]

Would still work but would look rather silly IMO.

 

[lewislee]

thanks bahco! id rather have two short sections of pipe coming down into the rad from the top rather than two pipes coming down the corner of the room along the skirting board and up to the valves!!! thanks again

 

[JohnD]

The "water out" pipe (at least) has to go to the bottom of the radiator, otherwise convection will allow the top of the radiator to be hot, and the bottom to stay cold.

If it is the unsightly pipes you are thinking of, it is possible to take off the skirting board, clip the pipes tightly to the wall and refix the skirting with a batten to space it out over the pipes.

 

[jobloggs]

If I read you right the inlet and the out let to the rads will be at the top of rad as fitted. You might have a problem with water circulating in rad as hot water will tend to stay at top and flow across and out rather than circulate.

Also where will the bleed valve be??

 

[lewislee]

thanks for all your comments. after more thought iv decided to batton off the whole wall 20mm!!! it needs re skimming anyway and i can also run cables from plasma tv, sky ect in this void along with the fore mentioned pipes! thanks all

 

[JPC]

whao...

batton a whole wall rather than chase out a channel.....

 

[lewislee]

the cables that run to the tv are very expensive dont really want to bury them in the wall!!!!! also the tv will now be flush to the wall!! much nicer to look at!

 

[croydoncorgi]

Depending on which 'Designer' rads you go for, you MIGHT be able to cheat and run a small-diameter tube (eg. 10mm) down inside one side of the rad , connected into the valve tail at the top and open at the bottom, so that you create (in effect) a TBOE layout.....