Cast Iron radiators removing old valves and fittings

We have eight old cast iron radiators, unfortunately all need adapting to 15mm, the old fittings are from a bygone era, however they have been in place for a long time, they have come outof Holy Trinity Convent, Sundridge Bromley.

We bought a new set of pipe wrenches from screwfix, £29.99 a cut down scaffold pole and a 3/4 wrench with a 35mm bit £20 to remove the stop ends, and a butane/propane blow torch.

There is a video as we couldn't find one of the actual process, a new set of pipe wrenches, strong teeth, laying the radiator on it's side the scaffold pole and heat were the deciding factors and someone else standing on the radiator for the really awkward valves.

The bleed valves

Port holes, natural light and sore hands

As previously stated one of the major issues in the bedrooms is natural light, there are no windows and we have no intention in putting any double glazed units in soon.... however we do have two port holes in the main bedroom ceiling/deck and three in Finley's bedroom ceiling/deck,  the front room floor is divided into three sections, the original mahogany open deck is hidden under these, the port holes need to come out and be sunk into the living room floor allowing natural light in, to finish we are going to use the stainless steel sheeting originally in the kitchen, measure from the original floor the the floor above, cut it to size, fold it cylindrical and make a light tunnel, we could do with sourcing some old port hole liners, I saw some for sale on Ebay last summer.

Alot of the bolts surprisingly loosened with no problem the rest needed to be ground of, patience and a swear box for every time you hit your knuckles on the supporting beams needed but worth the end result.

Natural light from roof light cut into old hatch

We are almost ready to lay the Mahogany parquet in the living room, just the slight matter of adapting the old cast iron radiators to 15mm reducers, we have kept them up stairs so we can can the right torque to loosen the 50 year old valves, there will be alot of old rust and crust in them better done now then we can get them in place and lay the floor routering the port holes into the floor.

Dividing walls the final layout

Original drawings