Home DIY

Our towel rails are on the CH circuit only.

Oil filled electric towel rad?

Yeah mine too.

Have you misread?

A video I just watched had the guy using 12 wraps

No, read it and thought WTF.

You can use too much, ptfe is used to aid the thread by adding lubrication not sealing. That is done by the fibre washer or oring.

There was no flat for a fibre washer or O ring to sit when I plumbed in my towel rail/radiator in the bathroom. Had to do at least 20 turns of ptfe before it would seal.

Count me in the WTF crew. A decent compression joint usually seals by tightening with a spanner. I use a tiny dab of LSX but I've had plumbers chastise me for it.

LSX is really handy ;)

Where are you putting the tape?

Anyone got a Vailant boiler?

Do you have a woo based hard water doobry fitted to it?

I’ve got something with magnets fitted to mine. Maybe it catches the bits of rust that come off the inside of radiators.

@Howard Ive got a vailant thermocompact system boiler, had it 20 years. Had issues with what I assume is the black gunk from rads blocking various little pipes inside the boiler.
Had a Magnaclean fitted and its been fine since. The Magnaclean cleared a lot of sh*t out on the first few cleans.
I've looked at water softeners but have never been convinced but I didn't look that hard.
My quooker hot tap suffers really badly from scale and filled up almost completely in about two years. I have an inline scale/softener for this alone.

I think it's now recommended to have scale device and magnaclean fitted to every new boiler?

Yeah that’s for the central heating circuit.

This is for the cold water input.

I think it's now recommended to have scale device and magnaclean fitted to every new boiler?

Nice little earner for the fitters I guess.

I've been told by a fitter that Vailant will not honor their warranty because I don't have an inline hard water doobry fitted, despite the fact the same fitter admitted they do nothing.

Why not ask Vailant what they recommend.

The chap on the you tube wrapped it on the exposed thread. The tails?

@Howard that's what I've been told to. You only get 2 two years without the doobry but with the magna, the doobry, a vailant registered fitter and yearly "service" you can get up to between 7 - 10.
I'd say its worth it if you're thinking of staying that long maybe not if you're selling and potential punters just see "new boiler" in the details

Are my planned steps more or less correct?

You’d think their competent persons install guide or guarantee conditions as published would answer such a question - so maybe the absence of any mention of this stuff in either of those sources is their answer.

you rad replacement plan depends on

• getting a replacement of very nearly the same width and
  
• having some flexibility in the pipework to pull away from existing rad / squeeze into new one (edit: see comment below)
  
  

Forget the mass of PTFE tape, the tapered ends are best sealed using plumbers hemp and jointing compound - it works surprisingly well. When re-tightening joint between tail and valve a bit of jointing compound can help.

... more thoughts about that ^^^^ overnight. You can drain most of the rad before disconnecting, put a hose and bucket on a drain point below the rad open the bleed valve and drain some water.
The realy big problem is that most towel rads connect vertically from below while standard rads connect horizontally. It may be possible to build connections from the valves to rad but draining or blocking the system to reposition the valves will be neater and might be easier. (I just remembered why I haven't replaced a small flat rad in my bathroom).

I thought towel rails are heated from the hot water circuit?

This is only so that they still get warm when the CH is off - kinda up to you I guess, but if you're on a combi you have no hot water loop anyway.

Also, if your tank's well lagged and you don't use much hot water I'm not sure how often the hot water loop will heat up anyway.

Towel rads used to be connected as 'always open' links between flow and return to protect the boiler from over pressure when valves closed. Now you have to fit a by-pass valve instead.

Ooh I missed this. Good shout. I have a Vaillant.

This is something I had noticed from searches. I am not inclined to move the pipes or change the valves to if I cannot get one with side entry for a straight swap, I won't bother. It's not an urgent thing. mrs_com wanted a rail above to hang towels instead of on the back of the door. I suggested a towel rad replacement. If it is not easy, I won't do it and will revert to plan A of some sort of wooden ladder/rail/rack to fit to the wall above.