New radiator advice?

Freebyman

I have a radiator in the bathroom that needs replacing as its gone rusty etc, bought a very similar size one the other day so all I need to do now is replace it.

My DIY skills are pretty much useless, so can anyone advise what is needed to do this and if I called in a professional what sort of ballpark cost it would be?

Ruski

1-200 notes, depending on where you are, who it is, how busy they are....
HTH

Russ

Bigphil1474

OP, if you can manage without it for a short time, wait until the weather gets warmer and it will be easier to find a good engineer - you'd want a heating engineer or good plumber with heating system experience. As Ruski says, should be under £200 - possibly a lot less if it is really a straight swap over, and you find someone local.

Freebyman

Thanks to you both, and so what do they actually do then. I dont want to get bamboozled with technical stuff so need to know what the procedure is.

Tom99

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]If your replacement rad has exactly the same distance between the pipe entry points, ie it's width, then is will be a simple case of unscrewing the old rad and mounting the new.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]However its where the pipes need to be adjusted, further apart or closer together, which will cost more. Particularly if you want that adjustment to be made below the floor level so the pipe you see does not have a kink in it.[/FONT]

Steve_xx

Freebyman wrote: »

Thanks to you both, and so what do they actually do then. I dont want to get bamboozled with technical stuff so need to know what the procedure is.

This is not as easy as you may think it is, given your languange. You sound to have no plumbing skills and so there is a real risk of flood here.

You will have to drain the system to start with, unless that is, you have isolating valves on the pipework to and from the radiator that you want to change?

Assuming that the pipework is in the correct place, aligning with the new radiator. You would likely then need to renew both copper/brass olives on the pipework feeding the radiator. It can be a devil of a job to remove an old olive and so some pipe cutting and joining may be necessary in order to replace the olives.

Then, you will need to fit the radiator valves to the radiator. You do this by wrapping PTFE tape around the threads of the valves before inserting valves into radiator with a spanner, making sure that there is resistance as you insert the valves because this resitance causes the seal so as it doesn't leak where the valve is inserted into the radiator.

Once this has been done, and the radiator is fixed to the wall, you can then connect the feed pipes, with their new olives, to either side. Tighten the nuts about a quarter turn after you get resistance from the tightening process. Do not overtighten the nuts as this may actually cause leakage. If you undertighten and they weep a little, then you can put your spanner back on the nut and tighten another quarter of a turn until it stops weeping.

Assuming it's all ok from here on, then you will have to refill your system, bleed the radiators, etc etc.

Pdbaggett

If its a straight swap its pretty easy to be fair.

Just look on youtube there are loads of videos showing you how to do it yourself . a plumber will probably charge half a day rate £180 give or take, I wouldn't dream of paying someone to do it but I'm quite handy.

Freebyman

Thanks, got all the knowledge I need now. No way am I going to attempt it myself, I know my limitations and that is more than I would want to do. Hopefully wont get ripped off by someone now that I know the procedure.