has anyone hidden radiator pipes behind skirting board?

So the pipes are fixed at a depth of 30mm from the wall..
I reckon a 25mm baton at the top and bottom of the skirting and route out 6mm from the back, and I could conceal the pipe work ok…

However the skirting would be 25mm away from the wall.

Has anyone done this to hide radiator pipes? I’ll make a mock up to see what it’s like, but would like to see real pictures if anyone has done this?

DrP

Use a taller board, remove the clips, push pipes into space at bottom of plaster/board et voilá

Done it but it was in our old house. Fine for skirting semi hidden by sofas, bath, sink etc but might stick out a bit on an open wall.

Better to get them chased in to the floor.Does Mrs Dr P enjoy dusting?

We did just that in the Farm house, hid the pipes behind a skirting board. Only problem with that kind of fix is it does stick out of the wall, ours was a 25mm gap for the pipes then 10mm skirting (MDF) with a top section covering that. Looked fine, tried our best to paint it in with the rest of the walls and TBH we don’t see it now.

Plus side is if anything goes wrong, you just pull off the skirting board and voila it’s all there, also… it’s easy to tap into the pipes if you want/need to add another junction for other rads..

What do you mean by top section?

And no, dusting is not our favorite pastime!! I appreciate if be creating lots of low level shelves!

DrP

This is in our dining room. Doesn’t make much difference as it’s the same depth as the radiator. It has to be that deep as it has flow & return, gas, cold in and DHW out in there and where they come out of the boxing in under the Combi there’s a bit of crossing over to be done.

^^
That’s the idea, but as it’s only hot/return, it would be a lot thinner.

DrP

What bodger cut those slots for the pipes? If it’s too much trouble to disconnect the radiator to feed through a hole why not make a neat join around each pipe instead of a bloody great slot?

That would have been me. If I’d thought about it I could have kept the bit from behind the pipe and glued it back in. It was all done in a bit of a rush as at the point I did that we only had a week before we moved in and the most important thing was making sure the pipes were covered. To be honest I couldn’t give a shit.

If you ever do it again try drilling a hole for the pipe then make a nice straight cut across the board so you can slot it in around the pipe. I think it would look better and really not be any more trouble to do.

Top tip , screw batton to skirting through back of batton into rear of skirting, this ensures that if floor is not level the skirting and batton will follow the floor height, if you secure baton to wall first you may well find a slope on the floor that doesnt match the height of the skirting, a few dabs of gripfill will hold it to wall.

Also when you get to a door frame youll need to make a stop end.

DrP.. Northernmatt has it although ours isn’t sticking out that far.

Don’t forget we have a 400 yr old Farm house so nothing is level/straight or in the right bloody place. So we had to make do and having done it, and seen many friends do the same thing, it’s the only solution we could find for the pipes. Of course we could have let them just sit along the wall uncovered but when we were doing it our Sister in Laws kids were crawling and we didn’t want them heading over to the pipes to grab a hold and give them a tug, certainly not whilst the heating was on.

The top section we have simply screwed every 1mtr down onto the faceplate, we may need to get at the pipes some day and rather than pinning it, we screwed it.

We also have some very odd angle steps from our kitchen into a hallway, here we chose to drill through the wall , thats nearly 500mm thick sandstone..

We have many problems like this, but we have chosen, mostly, to go the easy route. Might not be pretty to some but it’s sure practical and doesn’t look at all bad nor out of context really..

Now you say it like that RB it makes me wonder why I didn’t do what you said in the first place! Must have not been thinking straight, I had about 100ft of skirtings among many other things so wasn’t thinking straight. It’s screwed to the wall so it’s not a massive job to take off and redo. I’ll just add it to the bottom of the list and it might be done by 2025 🙂

Chasing the wall will be neater. Don’t forget that your fat skirting board may stop some doors opening fully depending on their location, hinge-side, etc

Deja vu? 😉

I’ll ask again, why would you want to hide or bury central heating pipes in a wall, behind skirting or anywhere else when they are carrying warm water around the house so you can warm up the temperature of the house? That, incidentally, has cost money in the form of either gas, oil or electricity to get to its warm state?

Each to their own as far as aesthetics and money…

Have I asked this before?! Complete lack of sleep and circulating ideas.. I probably have!

And yes, it’s purely aesthetics…
Not everything can be about value for money!

DrP

I CBA to do any maths but I’d have thought the heat transfer from your pipe work was insignificant compared to things, like, I dunno, the radiators?

You can buy lengths of plywood with a 90 degree radiused curve that you can cut down to box in pipes.

I seem to remember (Dragons Den?), a product which actually used skirting as radiators. Or should that be radiators as skirting?

i think northernmatt has demonstrated quite clearly its not about aesthetics.

Ha! I’m doing it right now!

IMAG2365 by martinddd[/url], on Flickr]null

baton is 40mm, needs pipes cut in. I’ll be swearing alot today.

Well we did that too 😆

Purely for aesthetics 😆

Am I missing something here, why wouldn’t you run the pipes under the floor then up to the rads? Been like that every house I’ve lived in…

EDIT: though I’ve only lived in old places with floorboards and a void underneath.

I have done it in my bathroom and dining room and it looks fine, definitely better than looking at the pipes.

One minor annoyance is it is a dust magnet, probably not helped by the fact it is painted white to match the skirting.

I thought of doing this, then I just chased out the floor and did it properly. Diamond blade in angle grinder did make a lot of mess – damp towels help.

Or if you have floor boards then it’s a piece of cake.

Other option is chase out the wall behind the skirting and use something like a double sided skirting as it will be hollow down at bottom and give you more room.

Flag stones in the Farm…

Couldn’t be arsed with chasing it out, too much trouble and damage. Though at some point in the future we’re thinking of putting a false floor in with heated pipes underneath. One day I hope to walk in the front room without 2 pairs of socks and slippers on..one day 😕