Do I lag all my pipes?

[jack]

31 minutes ago, scottishjohn said:

I can see far more better immediate  uses in the motor industry for it .

make smaller units in hundreds of thousands and price will drop 

instant heating of car in the morning ,with very little energy usage ,only a circulation pump

 

You know they're doing this, right?

[Onoff]

How long before you can back the car into a docking station in the garage and offload a fully charged Sunamp module to supplement the home energy requirements? I've been thinking on those lines for years in order to capture waste heat. 

 

X showers per mile!

[Ferdinand]

22 hours ago, Triassic said:

I'm about to start 1st fix plumbing and wondered if I should be lagging all the pipes, both hot and cold?

 

I also recall someone posting about using pre-lagged 15mm barrier pipe, has anyone used it and is it more cost effective? Who is the supplier?

 

Manifolds - Which one is the best and most competitively priced?

 

Not convinced that we have a full answer to this yet.

 

We have the Building Regs saying lag all main distribution pipes.

 

i would say that inside the heated envelope you should lag hot pipes when you don’t want them to cool, and cold pipes where you o not want them to become lukewarm in warm environments.

 

If your bath hot water is losing a couple for degrees, then the temperature at the boiler or whatever end will need to be higher.

 

I would lag cold pipes if they are eg in your heated slab. A drink of cold water would be cold and not require extra water to be run out of the pipe. My predecessor did not lag cold in te slab, and it is annoying.

 

One more question .. has anyone calculated any impact on heating system controllability of having uninsulated hot pipes?

 

There is a lot more pipe in a ufh system, but if that is running at say 30C, then a smaller volume of pipe running at 55C for a time may be material in boosting the temperature.

 

F

Edited February 6, 2019 by Ferdinand

[CC45]

Ive lagged the lot. Not that expensive or time consuming so why not.

[scottishjohn]

4 hours ago, jack said:

 

You know they're doing this, right?

no

, but it was an obvious use --I just watch the posts on here on sunamp -

not looked at their site for months

not on my shopping list till the pricing comes down  a good chunk

[jack]

41 minutes ago, scottishjohn said:

no

, but it was an obvious use --I just watch the posts on here on sunamp -

not looked at their site for months

not on my shopping list till the pricing comes down  a good chunk

 

You're welcome.

[Dan F]

Today I asked plumber to:

 

1) Not bother lagging most 12mm MLP hot/cold. 

2) To lag (in same insulation) the 12mm flow/return for 3 basins with radial recirculation as @Nickfromwales suggests)

3) Lag all other hot runs (kitchen sink, showers, bath), even though there is no recirculation.

4) Only lag cold pipes where they are:

    - Copper (in plant room)

    - 20/26mm MLP (used between plant room and satellite cold manfolds)

 

Sensible approach? Sufficient?

 

Edited January 20, 2021 by Dan F

[AliG]

Lag everything.

 

Hot pipes should all be lagged if possible, I think that is in the regs.

 

I find that the standing water in our cold pipes gets warmed up by the hot pipes close by.

 

Pipe insulation is very cheap.

[JFDIY]

Definitely lag the cold to kitchen, nice to have cool(er) water when making a glass of juice/water in the summer

[Dan F]

1 hour ago, AliG said:

I find that the standing water in our cold pipes gets warmed up by the hot pipes close by.

 

Good point, need to watch out for that.  Hot/cold routes are different as hot is fully radial and cold isn't, but will look out for this under sinks and add lagging if they get close.

 

The argument for not needing to lag the 12mm hot runs was because they only have 300-350ml hot water in them which means:

- Only 3-4 seconds to get hot water from tank.

- Only 14Wh of energy lost to the house as pipe cools from 55C to 21C, which is nothing and certainly not going to contribute to overheating

 

4 minutes ago, JFDIY said:

Definitely lag the cold to kitchen, nice to have cool(er) water when making a glass of juice/water in the summer

 

Good point.  Was already planning to lag a 20mm MLP cold to kitchen unit run. Will add some insulation to 15mm branch to sink too, especially as the budget will probably run out before we get a chance to look at a fancy fridge or cooling/sparking tap thingie.   A house we went to visit prior to starting on our self-build (not someone on forum) I remember them having to wait 10/15+ seconds for the cold kitchen tap to run cool to being able to serve us a glass of water..

 

Thanks!

 

 

[AliG]

3 minutes ago, Dan F said:

especially as the budget will probably run out before we get a chance to look at a fancy fridge or cooling/sparking tap thingie

 

In our last house we had a fridge with ice and cooled water. The cooled water was often warmer than water from the tap, especially in winter.

 

We just have ice now and it is inside the freezer as visitors also constantly played with it when it was on the fridge door and it drove me mad.

[TonyT]

I would insulate every pipe.

 

cold pipes to minimise condensation, hot pipes to keep the energy in the pipe.

 

if I want to heat a room, I will design a heating system not rely on uninsulated pipes.

 

i will also have pipes running parallel and suitably spaced off the wall to allow for insulation and the time of installation.

Edited January 20, 2021 by TonyT

[tonyshouse]

Hot water pipes will loose all their heat to the house insulated or not, 

 

heating pipes in the house will only loose heat to the house during the heating season 

 

boiler pipes should be insulated to reduce summer overheating load 

[TonyT]

Agree but good installation practices are to insulate pipework