Aged heating system

[Pete2277]

Hi guys

Could do with picking some brains.
I am currently stripping out a bathroom which will involve moving some radiators around.
I pulled the bath out today and found that both the main flow/return pipework has been looped together via reducers at the end of the line and tucked away behind the bath.

My question being why? I was not expecting this, thinking the spured radiators would allow enough flow.
Could this be a throwback to a previous immersion system.

Thoughts

 

[oldbuffer]

1. They may have been looped together, but assuming one or both valves (the one with the white plastic knob or the chrome isolation valve) are closed, there will be little or no water circulation.
2. I can think of only two reasons for the setup:
2a. It is being used as a bypass loop for the heating system. In which case I would expect to find the isolation valve fully open and the other valve almost closed.
2b. There used to be a radiator there. It was removed by someone lazy, someone who didn't know what they were doing, someone expecting another radiator to be fitted there.
3. Provided you are absolutely sure this bridges the central heating flow and return, then it won't be anything to do with hot water / immersion heater.
4. If it is being used as a bypass fit an automatic bypass somewhere else, remove the pipes back to the tees on flow / return, and replace the tees with elbows.
5. If it is not being used as a bypass, as 4. above without the automatic bypass.

 

[ericmark]

Many years ago the water was piped in series not parallel, and each radiator had a restriction in parallel to it so if turned off water would still flow, there were some good points with the system, but it resulted in the last radiators not getting very warm, I remember it in my old school.

Not seen it in a domestic but that does not mean it was never used, or some one thought it was plumbed that way in the past.

 

[Pete2277]

Thanks guys.
must admit, my first thought was the lazy radiator removal.
after all I have found that the original lead pipes are still running under the floors dispite being redundant.

just checked out the valve positions. The chrome valve is fully open with the capped valve fully closed, in line with it being a bypass system. (No idea how he intended reaching it as it was completely blocked off)

I am going to have to remove a lot of the pipework from this area before remodelling it. I think to be safe I will be looking for an automatic bypass.