Hi all, We have recently moved into a new but older house and was wondering if I could get a bit of advice regarding radiators, in particular the valves. I have done basic plumbing before- generally taking radiators off and on and making simple connections but it has always been replacing like for like. We are doing up a room so have taken the opportunity to take of the radiator to paper and paint behind it as well as give it a bit of a spruce up. For information we have a gravity fed heating system or to be more precise and complicated we have two very old gravity fed systems- one for downstairs and one for upstairs (it is not even that large a house so who knows why?!). We have old and I mean OLD thermostatic valves so I wanted to cap them whilst we did the work. As the valve size looked a little different to a set of new spare ones for the old house I thought I would get a range of blanking caps. So with radiator off I found the valves fit 3/4" blanking caps which is presumably the size of the radiator tails on the old one. Anyway the radiator has seen better days (prob 30-40 years old). I was wanting to replace the radiator and without having to drain the system and start with replacing valves I was hoping there would be something that I could buy that would join a new radiator with presumably metric dimensions to the old 3/4" valves? Thanks in advance.
Rip the lot out & start from scratch, you got gas, fit a Valliant combi. So, old fashion having header tanks in lofts. The valves are the old imperial sizes, new ones are slightly smaller.
We probably will do at some point but given the overall lack of cash I was hoping to just spring for a new radiator adapter fitting. The heating system is a mess but at present functions well enough.
I think that your radiators maybe the "ground in" type which do have a larger nut than the ones with cones in them although the tails are still 1/2" Ground in type http://www.screwfix.com/p/angled-radiator-valve-chrome-15mm-x/33920
They say a picture is worth a thousand words... These are the bad boys I am dealing with. The blanking cap in the picture is 3/4". I'm hoping to leave the valves in place if at all possible. The ultimate plan would be to change them over when and if we ever get round to revamping the whole setup. I was hoping there was an awesome little adaptor the would mate a modern radiator to these valves but from past experience nothing ever seems simple when imperial is involved!
Just get a key to undo the old tails(large Allen key...fits inside), put ptfe tape on and screw them into your new rads. Job done http://www.screwfix.com/p/radiator-spanner/11467?
Are the tails on most modern radiator valves 15mm? I would have thought this ancient thing would have similarly ancient tails so would not fit in a new rad but could be wrong? Just a bit hesitant in taking the current set up apart as it currently is not leaking so could in theory go back on if there are no easy solutions to installing a newer model.
The radiator tappings are 1/2" BSP, so the modern tails will still fit, as it's only trv nut gone from 3/4" to 15mm.
Thank you for the replies! Tails off old rad and on the new. Slight difficulty in getting the new rad to fit as going from imperial to metric dimensions but it is in now and working- no leaks!
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