I purchased the radiators from the same company that supplied the pellet boiler. To be perfectly honest I didn't do any fancy calculations to work out the thermal load of each space/room that I wanted to heat. I just made a reasonable guess based on what I've seen installed in other buildings etc .... Naturally to some extent the radiator size is governed by the physical location, under windows etc ... so I used double panel radiators to ensure that I had enough heating output range - I figure that I can always reduce the flow if the room gets too hot!
So I labored for 7 days, installing all 10 radiators; I had most of the pipework already in place during the initial house construction but I had to make some modifications and additions to accommodate the new location of the boiler and several other radiators - it took me longer than I expected and I'm shocked at how expensive copper is these days! No wonder PVC is now used.
On Tuesday afternoon the heating engineers finally turned up to install and setup the pellet boiler. It took them a day and a half to plumb everything in and setup the system parameters. Then came the moment of truth - to fill the system. Consider the fact that most of the pipe-work was soldered together several years ago and that 90% of the system is no longer easily accessible you can imagine my apprehension and concern for possible leaks! It was also quite late 9:30pm, so even less keen to potentially flood the house! but the installers were eager to finish the job so I reluctantly agreed to continue. As the water rushed around the pipes I held my breath and listened for the worst. As the pressure reached 1 bar I began the process of purging the system of air by 'bleeding' each radiator. So far so good! When the boiler reached its operating temperature the circulation pump kicked-in and sent hot water through the system - pisssssshhhhh oh! Water sprayed out of several joints in the laundry - sh#* - part of the pipework that I had modified that day (because the original routing created a potential air trap) had not taken the solder properly - this is what happens when you move/reuse joints; you have to be especially careful to re-join everything with plenty of solder. So the clean-up pretty much killed the rest of the evening.
The next day, the system had to be drained of fluid in order to repair the leaking joints. This took a couple of hours and yet another trip to Villarrica to purchase more anti-freeze. That's one of the downsides to living in the 'campo', you don't have a DIY store around the corner to buy parts. So once again the system was filled, purged of air and brought up to temperature. Success! no visible leaks, but not all the radiators were getting hot. To remedy this, radiators that were hot were closed to increase the flow to those that were cool; after a second round of purging air this did this trick - all 10 radiators were now hot - fantastic my central heating project is finally complete!
So I labored for 7 days, installing all 10 radiators; I had most of the pipework already in place during the initial house construction but I had to make some modifications and additions to accommodate the new location of the boiler and several other radiators - it took me longer than I expected and I'm shocked at how expensive copper is these days! No wonder PVC is now used.
On Tuesday afternoon the heating engineers finally turned up to install and setup the pellet boiler. It took them a day and a half to plumb everything in and setup the system parameters. Then came the moment of truth - to fill the system. Consider the fact that most of the pipe-work was soldered together several years ago and that 90% of the system is no longer easily accessible you can imagine my apprehension and concern for possible leaks! It was also quite late 9:30pm, so even less keen to potentially flood the house! but the installers were eager to finish the job so I reluctantly agreed to continue. As the water rushed around the pipes I held my breath and listened for the worst. As the pressure reached 1 bar I began the process of purging the system of air by 'bleeding' each radiator. So far so good! When the boiler reached its operating temperature the circulation pump kicked-in and sent hot water through the system - pisssssshhhhh oh! Water sprayed out of several joints in the laundry - sh#* - part of the pipework that I had modified that day (because the original routing created a potential air trap) had not taken the solder properly - this is what happens when you move/reuse joints; you have to be especially careful to re-join everything with plenty of solder. So the clean-up pretty much killed the rest of the evening.
The next day, the system had to be drained of fluid in order to repair the leaking joints. This took a couple of hours and yet another trip to Villarrica to purchase more anti-freeze. That's one of the downsides to living in the 'campo', you don't have a DIY store around the corner to buy parts. So once again the system was filled, purged of air and brought up to temperature. Success! no visible leaks, but not all the radiators were getting hot. To remedy this, radiators that were hot were closed to increase the flow to those that were cool; after a second round of purging air this did this trick - all 10 radiators were now hot - fantastic my central heating project is finally complete!
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