Sanitary vs Heating Plastic Pipe

[Andrew]

I'm just in the process of sourcing some pre-insulated pipe to run DHW between our main house and garage. It's only a short run (~6m) and will be buried underground. 

 

The pipe that I'm looking at comes in two flavours, heating and sanitary. It's all fairly expensive but the sanitary pipe is more expensive than the heating pipe. I'm curious what's likely to be the difference and would it be okay to use the heating variant for hot water given that hot water isn't generally considered potable anyway. 

 

Link to the pipe - https://www.bhiveunderfloor.co.uk/watts-microflex---single-pipe---cut-to-length-1685-p.asp

[scottishjohn]

1 hour ago, Andrew said:

I'm just in the process of sourcing some pre-insulated pipe to run DHW between our main house and garage. It's only a short run (~6m) and will be buried underground. 

 

The pipe that I'm looking at comes in two flavours, heating and sanitary. It's all fairly expensive but the sanitary pipe is more expensive than the heating pipe. I'm curious what's likely to be the difference and would it be okay to use the heating variant for hot water given that hot water isn't generally considered potable anyway. 

 

Link to the pipe - https://www.bhiveunderfloor.co.uk/watts-microflex---single-pipe---cut-to-length-1685-p.asp

my guess is that sanitary is not expecting to be very hot --so heat loss and possibility of freezing is more of a problem ,so more or better insulation on the sanitary pipe 

Uponor  is probably leader in this stuff and you can get one with a trace  heat cable built in -so it will never freeze 

https://www.uponor.co.uk/products/heat-and-water-distribution

 

[Andrew]

24 minutes ago, scottishjohn said:

my guess is that sanitary is not expecting to be very hot --so heat loss and possibility of freezing is more of a problem ,so more or better insulation on the sanitary pipe

 

That makes a lot of sense. I've done some more digging and as far as I can see the only difference is that the sanitary pipe has a slightly thicker plastic in the pipe. The manufacturer actually says the heating pipe is suitable for potable applications so I'm going to use the heating pipe.

 

[scottishjohn]

10 minutes ago, Andrew said:

 

That makes a lot of sense. I've done some more digging and as far as I can see the only difference is that the sanitary pipe has a slightly thicker plastic in the pipe. The manufacturer actually says the heating pipe is suitable for potable applications so I'm going to use the heating pipe.

 

make sure you bury it deep --at least 750mm to 1m- deep-then ground should be a consistant temp in Uk

 could be cheaper+simpler just to run  uninsulated cold to garage -then an inline water heater?

[PeterW]

One will be using virgin plastic as it is a requirement for Potable water. The heating one may not be.