[Closed] Bathroom Track World - rad fitting clearance to tiles, am I being unreasonable?

Messaged the fitters, they said it was tight because of the pipes and you would always reuse the olives.

Looks to have a fair bit of space, so not sure where that bit came from really.

Checked and it’s <5mm, concern is it has to be broken up to replace a rad valve, olive needs changing, different radiator in the future. Also need to mention the bare pipes as they should have been insulated as well.

Did you specify future proofing in your scope for the works? Or radiator/towel rail height?

Why would you insulate the radiator pipes? Any heat "lost" from the pipes heats your home, doesn't it? So isn't actually lost heat/energy. Did you specify insulated pipes in the scope for the works?

@Wibble89 - they took off and refitted the existing radiator after I painted rather than replacing with new. Old pipe work and hangers were reused, boxed in previously but about 4cm lower height that allowed maintenance.

I didn’t specify maintenance access for the radiator, but had stressed in all the other areas everything has to be simple to maintain and accessible. Accessible isolation point for toilet, easy maintenance position for bath taps and easily serviceable taps.

It was insulating the hot and cold tap feeds running in the same space, both to keep the heat in and prevent condensation etc. Edit - insulating it was in the scope of the works and fixing any loose pipes they found.

If you've photo under the floor is the same tail as above the tiles, can't you just lift it slightly? Or is the issue that the rad is already bolted to the wall but could have been bolted 20mm higher?

if the fitters did the tiling but to existing pipework then I don't really see how this could have been avoided and as they said - if the valve fails it can be replaced using the same nut and olive more than likely.  Its not ideal but it shouldn't cause any great issues

I don't like it...2 reasons
1...if you get a leak from the olive, you won't know and it'll drip though the hole onto the ceiling....
2....you can't seal around the pipe to stop the above from happening or water from the rest of the bathroom going sown that hole...I would get it raised...its mot hard to do
It's the little things that make a great tradesman

If the trv is on the floor the radiator will be as well. There are 2 potential issues:

1. No access under the rad to clean it
2. If the rad is touching the floor it may rust due to standing in water

@spooky_b329 - The second pic is inside the boxing, it’s above floor level. Vertical pipes are the radiator tails that go up in the first pics. Tried lifting the rad valves and there is no upward lift in them at all.

@tjagain - Might not be explaining it well here so please bear with me. They took off the old above floor level boxing under the radiator first, after tiling the wall the new boxing they made is a lot higher than the old one was.

Concern is I don’t think there is actually enough room under the nut to get it off even reusing the existing olive. Also the radiator bottom is even closer to the tiles, it was pretty rusty in the old set up and this is just going to speed up the process. No way to spot small leaks or drips.

Sent the pics and details to a member of my old kettlebell group, he is a plumber and said he would not be happy with the spacing as it is too tight.

@cheekyget - Ground floor bathroom in an extension, agree on not spotting drips. We had to get all the valves replaced on moving in due to small leaks.

@cheddarchallenged - Agree with you on the water, not on the floor but practically touching the tile boxed in surface. Condensation on the tiles wasn’t exactly kind to it previously and that was with a larger gap at the bottom.

https://flic.kr/p/2n5iM45

They took it out and put in a much lower one which matches the height on the other side of the bathroom.

Happy with the result, only down side is they ran out of time to plumb the loo back on after grouting the tiles.

https://flic.kr/p/2n5h3wC