Plumbers - bending 15mm copper - how tight can it be done?

True dat. I've made an offer on one nearby.

 

I didn't realise that @Merlin Cat lives that close to @Zed!!

 

oi i don't eat the biscuits

 

No disrespect to plumbers but soldering joints and using a screw fix bender ain’t difficult. My ole man’s a copper smith by trade and I’ve helped him bend pipe up to 4 inch with as tight a radius . You ram the pipe solid with sand (so it keeps its shape) then using heat you can bend it to really tight radius’s . It’s a skill that my explanation hasn’t done it justice

 

It's strange. I plumbed my bathroom in my last house from scratch with soldered joints and no failures, but when I tried in the boat every flipping join leaked. I suspect there are fittings and fittings, I got lucky with quality ones first time round and the opposite last time. Push fit plastic for the win, I don't like it but it works.

 

Deal done for £25, picking it up tomorrow.

 

if your joining anything silver solder is best

 

New career as marina plumber! How hard can it be?

 

Does the boat make your pipes flex, mebbe?

 

No, it doesn't bend, just my crap skills. I had to get the helpful Jeff to remake the whole lot, it's all copper around the back boiler/pump/header converting to plastic further away from the stove. He was here all morning and charged me £20. You can see why I like him! Still got one that weeps but I can live with it for the time being, it evaporates as fast as it leaks, maybe a mug full per month with the stove going 24/7.

 

Working on narrowboats is a PITA, I don't need the money however much was on offer. I'm only doing mine myself because I don't trust anyone else to do a thorough job.

 

Or...... You could fit a towel rad in the bathroom, not bother connecting to the back boiler at all. Fit it with a small electric element (100w) and you'll have a piping hot rad that can be used for drying towels when the main fire isn't being used! Small timer switch and the bathrooms cosy in the mornings....Ran ours like this for years.
Problem I found with our back boiler was the system doesn't hold that much water, the stove (morso squirrel) was rated at 7kw , and the whole thing would boil over! Gouts of steam spewing out of the header tank, pipes banging away as steam shot through them! That was with a large double rad in the bedroom too.
Working on boats is a large PITA....I hated it, nothing is easy!

 

^this is not a bad idea. I fitted an electric rail in quite a large bathroom. A 300W element was quite enough to take the chill off (and dry your towels). Surprised me.

 

300w will heat a large towel rad quite easily. I went for the lower wattage as the rad was only 400 x 600 I think. Took longer to warm up but nice and hot in the end, and I just left it on for longer...
Marina shore power is easily tripped so keeping the total load as low as possible prevents annoying trip outs....That always seem to happen about 9pm on really cold, wet, winters nights.....

 

I just don't want to be installing stuff that will only work with a hook up and my son will lag a towel rail with damp clothes so towel rail above radiator is better plan for us.
I've already got the back boiler feeding a couple of 500 x 600 double rads successfully with a 12v pump/pipe thermostat. I don't really need one of those so I thought add on in the bathroom so if it won't heat all three I can turn one off that's only a 6ft from the stove anyway. Bathroom only really needs heating when it's cold enough to light the stove I reckon.

Hopefully once I get a second stove installed at the rear of the boat in my son's pad the boat will be more evenly heated and that end and the bathroom are now very well insulated too. we'll see how it all works out.

My stove is no Morso but it's ok for a couple of small rads. Was yours pumped or convection?

 

Couldn't afford enough 28mm copper for a 70ft boat!! It was pumped and ran in 15mm clipped under the gunnels...stove and rad at opposite ends of boat. As we were on permanent hook up in the winter I used a standard domestic pump.