Painting radiator pipes

Discussion in 'Painters' Talk' started by laura, Aug 27, 2008.

  1. laura

    laura New Member

    Hi,

    I have just recently had central heating installed into my house (replacing the very old warm air heating sytem). I have radiator (copper) pipes in 2 places in my living room and in my opinion they do look rather ugly. So rather than boxing them in I was wondering if they can be painted?

    If they can, what type of paint can I use? Do I need to put some kind of primer on it before hand?

    Any help is much appreciated
    Thanks,
    Laura
     
  2. devil's advocate

    devil's advocate New Member

    You can buy snap-over covers in white, which are plastic sleeves split down one side and just fit over the pipes. Saves painting :)
     
  3. StinkNugget

    StinkNugget Member

    Hi. International Paints make a product called Special Paints Primer which is good for copper rad pipes & is overpaintable in about 4 hours. Readily available from B&Q, Homebase etc :)
     
  4. Captain Leaky

    Captain Leaky New Member

    Plumbers HATE painted pipes, it all has to be scraped and burnt off to do any repairs!

    Use snap on covers ...PLEASE
     
  5. hoss

    hoss New Member

    Yes you can paint them laura,but if you want to emulsion them the same as the walls you should give them a coat of oil based undercoat first,this will stop a green stain coming through from the pipes/solder
     
  6. jcts

    jcts Active Member

    Yes you can paint them laura,but if you want to emulsion them the same as the walls you should give them a coat of oil based undercoat first,this will stop a green stain coming through from the pipes/solder
    <u>_________________________________</u>

    take this advice. or if being painted the same way as rad just undercoat once and top coat until covered
     
  7. tonynoarm

    tonynoarm New Member

    What I tend to do, and works successfully, is just use gloss paints on the pipes when I do the skirtings. I know a professional decorator would probably recommend a prime, undercoat, topcoat approach but I find my way fine - although I only have approx 4" to 6" of pipe coming through the floorboards. Don't paint right up to the compression fitting in case you need to remove the radiator in future (leave about 1/8" clear)
     
  8. MRWONG006

    MRWONG006 New Member

    Use the snap ons & paint if necessary Wicks are cheaper then other diy stores.
    I wall papered a cold feed once running down the sitting room wall in the alcove
     
  9. laura

    laura New Member

    Thanks for all the advice....now I'm torn between painting them and getting the covers. Does anyone know if you can paint over the plastic covers? As the pipes run down a bright red wall and to have white covers over them I think will look awful :(

    But then again I don't want to cause any further problems to a plumber that may have to do any repairs....

    Thanks again everyone
     
  10. jcts

    jcts Active Member

    the paint will flake off the plastic as their is nothing for the paint to adhere to so it will just sit on top. to be honest i would just paint them and stop worrying about it
     
  11. tonynoarm

    tonynoarm New Member

    I had pipes running down the wall once, they were boxed off in white plastic conduit that was decorated over - that was ok.

    I just did not like the idea of pipes not being totally concealed. So I had them sunk into the plaster and smoothed over. Thats the best result possible - just remember not to put a picture hook through the pipe! :)
     
  12. StinkNugget

    StinkNugget Member

    If you don't want to use copper primer & just paint the pipes then Zinsser 123 is a wonderful primer/undercoat which will readily adhere to plastic products & can be overpainted to your preferred colour ...So you can have your painted pipes AND keep the moody plumbers happy ;)

    :)
     
  13. HOTDOG ø

    HOTDOG ø Active Member

    Wait until the plumber burns all the paint off with his gurt big smelly blowlamp, soot, flames, and the smell! :(
     
  14. hoss

    hoss New Member

    Laura,
    Trust me, painting the pipes white or plastic covers against a red wall will look horrid, your eyes will be drawn to the pipes because they will stand out like a sore thumb.
    Give them a coat of any oil based paint then paint them red same as walls, job done. Then in the future on re decs just a couple coats of the wall colour, job done.
    If the plumber has done a good job the pipes shouldn't have be touched for yonks anyway.
    And bearing in mind what plumbers charge it wouldn't be to much to ask for him to scrape a little paint off.
     
  15. HOTDOG ø

    HOTDOG ø Active Member

    Scrape ! SCRAPE!

    Bloomin' massive flame gun more like! ;)
     

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