Help! Contradicting comments from two builders, who is right?

StopRobbing

Dear all,

We've just had two builders around to quote on the house we just bought. There are two things that the two builder have made controdicting comments on:

First, the thermostatic radiator valves have been fitted to the top of the radiators. One builder said that he had never seen this before, that it must have been done because the person living there before had mobility problems and that it was very inefficient because hot water rises and so it wont heat the bottom half well. This builder said we should move them all to be fitted to the bottom of the radiators.

The other builder said that it doesn't matter where it is fitted in terms of efficiency because the hot water gets pushed down to the bottom through a tube. When we asked him why the bottom of our radiators weren't heating up he said that this was because the air needed to be released through a valve.

Second, the first builder said that our inlet pipe is lead as soon as he saw it (although the pipes were covered in paint). The building surveyor also mentioned that it was a lead pipe. The second builder scraped the paint off and then said that it was a copper pipe (it looked to us like it was copper coloured on the outside). Does anyone know if a lead pipe can look like copper from the outside?

Could anybody help us tell who really knows what he is talking about (both of them claimed that they are very experienced in the building industry)?

DVardysShadow

Gaah!

The only thing you can be certain that a builder is expert in, it is expressing opinions about things they know nothing about with total confidence.

Get a proper plumber or heating fitter in to express more useful opinions.

With total confidence, never having seen your installation., I would say that there is nothing unusual about having thermostatic valves connected to the top boss of a radiator, but if this was done, the flow should be in at the top and the return out at the bottom. The valve must be of a type which will operate in the flow pipe.

As for the bottom of the rads being cold, this can happen if they are sludged up - or if the flow is going in the wrong direction, with the thermostatic valves in the return. But it won't be air in the rads unless the top of the rads are cold.

So both builders talking rubbish.

As for the inlet pipe, what inlet pipe are we talking about?

slipperyshoe

Hi- on your first point I would suggest you talk to a plumber and not a builder as it seems they may not be quite as knowledgeable as they think. As far as the lead vs copper goes it should be pretty easy to tell the difference; Copper is gold coloured (obviously copper coloured for anyone being pedantic but trying to explain in Lehmans terms). As it oxidises it forms copper oxide which will be a green or possibly blue colour. Lead is silver coloured and lead oxide is white (interestingly lead oxide was used as a make-up to paint womens faces white in previous centuries!). Lastly lead will be softer than copper, you will literally be able to form deep scratches in it with a nail or screw, doing this should also reveal its true colour!

Hope this helps

StopRobbing

Thanks guys for your quick replies. Actually we found them both under plumbing/bathroom fitting category when we were looking for someone to put in a modern bathroom. They both claim their own personal expertise is in plumbing although they both have a small team that are able to carry out other work outside of bathrooms for us, that's why I called them 'builders' in my first post.

We now know how difficult it is to find a trade we can trust. They are both heighly rated on these builder sourcing websites. As everybody says that personal recommendations would be best but we don't have these.

robatwork

If you let me know whereabouts you are I will check Which Local for you - maybe not perfect but possibly better than the "builders websites" you are using...

southcoastrgi

1st point, most modern trv's are duo flow meaning that the water can flow through either way without a prob (so either flow or return), the older ones could only be fitted one way round (there will be an arrow on the body of the valve) because if they were fitted with the water flow wrong they made a noise when they closed, if the valves are fitted to the top this is generally for disabled or people that can't bend down to alter them, the rads will still work but not as efficiencently as if the valves were on the bott, there is no pipe inside the rads to direct the water it will just flow from one valve to the other which is prob why the corner is cold (although it could be sludge build up as well).

2nd point, there is no real danger to your health from an old lead main supply pipe as this would have coated itself internally years ago so the water isn't actually touching the lead, a lead pipe is fairly soft if you can see it or pick it up say under the floor it will bend in your hand & yes if you give it a scrape bits will come off of it, if it's copper it will be really firm, if you can afford to get this replaced from your stop tap to the stop tap outside then do it, the new pipe is a blue plastic & comes in either 20mm or 25mm on a roll it's quite cheap to buy but not so cheap to install as it will need to go underground to the outside stop tap & then of course you have the added cost of getting the water board to connect it to their stop tap.

Leif

StopRobbing wrote: »

We now know how difficult it is to find a trade we can trust. They are both heighly rated on these builder sourcing websites. As everybody says that personal recommendations would be best but we don't have these.

Do be aware that these web sites are no more than directories. If you search online, you'll find a lot of people - including members - suggesting that reviews are easily faked, and that it can be hard to post a negative review. I used one from CheckATrade that had 47 glowing reviews. They were cowboys who did not know the basics of their trade (fitting bathrooms, although they also claim to fit kitchen, decorate and so on). Perhaps your neighbours can recommend someone?

grizzly1911

keithgillyon wrote: »

2nd point, there is no real danger to your health from an old lead main supply pipe as this would have coated itself internally years ago so the water isn't actually touching the lead,

Sorry to hijack, but can you clarify what you mean by this?
A friend has just moved in to a1930s property and had a water meter installed, which the WB had trouble connecting to the lead pipe. it wasn't picked up on survey and was just wondering if it was a problem.

southcoastrgi

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Sorry to hijack, but can you clarify what you mean by this?
A friend has just moved in to a1930s property and had a water meter installed, which the WB had trouble connecting to the lead pipe. it wasn't picked up on survey and was just wondering if it was a problem.

after a number of years the internal bore of a lead pipe will be coated by a thin film of minerals within the water, if anyone has ever cut a lead pipe you will see the coating, the water board still has an awful lot of lead mains in this country & alot of supplies into people houses are iron as well, the prob reason the water board had trouble connecting the new meter is that they are designed to be installed onto new plastic pipes & would have needed adaptors to connect onto the lead pipe, these adaptors are readily availible, alot of the prob with sizing lead pipe is that it's not measured in sizes it's done by weight, for example plastic water mains for domestic use is either 20mm or 25mm, copper pipe is 15mm or 22mm, iron pipe is 1/2" or 3/4", lead is 6lb, 7lb, 8lb, 9lb the size of lead is not immediatly noticeable so unless you know the size/weight it can be trial & error to get the right size fitting.

Canucklehead

Hi.

Depends if you live in a hard or soft water area.

For example.


Plenty of technical info available as to the fitting of TRVs and their location

GSR.