I am currently renovating a terraced, victorian townhouse. I have taken some of the radiators off to plaster behind them. Now that it is getting a little cold, I want to put some of them back on but leave some of them off. Can I do this or will the central heating not work? Will the pipes that connect the radiator leak if they are not connected to a radiator?
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Ensure all your valves to your disconnected rads are well closed, the Central heating will work, no problem. Never, but NEVER use your heating without any rads at all. To give you a better idea, a CH system is like a ladder, each bit is like a rung, radiators, boiler, hot tank. all you are doing is not using one’rung’
Be sure to fully clean & inhibit your system when you finish.
If you removed some radiators, then you also removed at least some of the water.
The radiators that you will not use immediately can be left off provided you cap off both the supply and return lines. Some old systems—but not all—have valves on the supply side, integrated to the radiators; others have the valve as part of the piping. If the valves are on the piping, simply close them tightly otherwise cap them off. The return lines usually do not have valves and will need to be capped off.
Install the radiators that you want to use, refill your system, bleed the lines, check for leaks and pressure test before firing up the boiler.
Unfortunately, hot water systems are closed systems, so you will need to drain them, at least partially, when you are ready to reinstall the remaining radiators. If you expect to be done in a month or so, you might want to consider temporary heating systems. If you have good windows, look into electric heat, 1500W heaters can be plugged into regular outlets (only one per circuit breaker or fuse) and will keep a room warm through the fall. If you do not have windows, call your local tool rental centre to rent a propane space heater.
You can turn the heating on again providing that the rad valves for the rads you have taken off are fully closed, (off).