Central Heating and Plumbing in Kenley (CR8)
Kenley houses were built with room in them, and they lend themselves to adding more of it — a loft brought into use, a rear extension, rooms opened up. The heating system is the easiest thing to leave until last, and by then the plasterer has been and the floors are down.
Will the system you have carry the rooms you are adding
Adding radiators is easy. Adding radiators to a system that was already at its limit is how you end up with a house that heats badly everywhere instead of one room that is cold. Two things want checking before anything is added: what the boiler can actually put out against the total the radiators now demand, and whether the pipework will carry it. That second one catches people, because a lot of retrofitted heating was run in microbore, and a long new leg off a small-bore circuit will always be the last thing in the house to get hot. The answer is a heat loss figure for the new rooms, an honest look at the existing circuit, and a decision taken before the ceiling goes up rather than after somebody notices in November.
Do the pipework while the floor is open
On the large Edwardian and interwar houses here, the building work is the cheap moment for everything underneath it. Floors are up, walls are open, the ceiling below is coming down anyway. Running new heating legs, moving a radiator off the wall you are about to knock through, taking a supply up for a new bathroom and putting a waste in while there is somewhere for it to go — all of that costs a fraction of what it costs once the room is finished. It also means the pipework ends up where it should be rather than where it can still be squeezed. That is the practical argument for one firm holding the programme. We survey and price the job, bring in and manage the gas and heating engineers, and run them alongside our own bricklayers, carpenters and plasterers, so trades arrive in the order that suits the building rather than the order they happen to be free.
What happens at the end
The part that gets skipped on a rushed job is the end of it.
A system with new radiators on it needs balancing, which means each radiator adjusted so the flow is shared properly instead of the nearest ones taking most of it. Without that you get a warm hall and a cold back bedroom, and no boiler on the market will fix that for you. It is worth asking who is coming back to do it and when, because it is the half hour that decides how the house feels for the next ten winters.
More in Kenley
Everything we do in Kenley is on the Kenley area sheet, and the full detail of how we approach this trade is on the heating & plumbing page.
Common questions
Q.01Can I put radiators into a loft conversion?
Usually, but it depends on what the boiler and the existing pipework can carry. We work out the heat loss for the new rooms and check the circuit before the work starts rather than adding and hoping.
Q.02Will I need a bigger boiler if I extend?
Sometimes, and often not. It depends on the output you already have against what the extended house needs. It is a calculation, not a rule of thumb.
Q.03Some radiators never get properly hot. Why?
Most often the system has never been balanced, or the circuit feeding them is undersized or partly blocked. Balancing is quick, whereas an undersized leg means re-piping that run.
Q.04Should heating work wait until the building work is finished?
No. The first fix wants doing while floors and walls are open, which is far cheaper and puts the pipework where it belongs. The second fix and commissioning come at the end.
Thinking about heating & plumbing in Kenley?
Tell us what you are planning. We come out, look at the job properly and give you a price for it.