central heating dilemma

[John Flower]

Micro bore is fine on sealed systems which have been cleaned and dosed with the correct inhibitor. To do the job properly you need to size the pipework to suit the size of the rad. Too many times have i been to jobs where there has been multiple rads on 15mm or 10mm and the system takes ages to warm ect. If you are replacing rads or fitting a new system then it pays to design the flow rates /pipe /rad sizes correctly as it cuts out any call backs at a later date. Typically the client will always say that the system worked fine before you came. So it pays to check over the system to note any design faults and point these out before you start.

 

[Plucky]

Ive fitted several systems using 10mm plastic, each rad with its own flow and return to a manifold. System works extremely well. All balancing is done on manifold.

Microbore is crap when idiots install more than one rad of a 10mm run.

 

[jpm]

only feed 1 rad off 10mm pipe,end of!Microbore is great to work with and it looks tidy too,now nearly the same price per metre as 15mm BTW!!!But you can only feed one rad per run,water takes the easiest route ALWAYS and will not flow through a rad when there is an easier option.

 

[migoplumber]

not gonna bother working out the energy you can push through a 10mm pipe, however as steve says 10mm will run most domestic rads quite happily and without a problem, also running 10mm from a manifold to individual rads is a very good system design and easy to maintain, flush, and balance!

 

[Plouasne]

10 mm microbore will be sufficient to supply a 3.5 kW rad with a head loss of 0.247 mt / mt run, its all listed nice and easy in the link

http://www.ukcopperboard.co.uk/literature/pdfs/pub-150-copper-tubes-in-domestic-heating-systems.pdf

 

[migoplumber]

good link plousanne, many thanks.