Heating systems get replaced in summer for the reason everybody understands, which is that being without heat in May is an inconvenience rather than a crisis. Central heating removal is unusual among the jobs we deal with because a large proportion of what comes out is worth money rather than costing money to remove. Our Litherland skip hire service covers the part that does need a container.
The gas work is not a job for anybody else
Worth stating at the outset. Disconnecting, capping and removing gas appliances is work for a Gas Safe registered engineer, and that is a legal position rather than a recommendation. The same applies to anything involving the meter or the supply.
What a householder or a general builder can reasonably do is the rest of the strip out once the appliance side has been made safe. Pipework, radiators, cylinders and tanks are ordinary plumbing once the gas is dealt with properly.
The copper is the valuable part
An old system contains a surprising amount of copper, and copper has a strong scrap value. It should not be going into a container.
The cylinder is the biggest single item. An old copper hot water cylinder is worth taking to a merchant on its own, and if the property has an unvented or indirect cylinder being replaced, that is the first thing to set aside rather than the last.
Then there is the pipework. Older properties around here often have a mix of imperial copper and microbore, and a full house strip yields a considerable weight of it. Keep it in one pile, keep it out of the skip, and it will offset a useful part of the job.
Brass fittings, valves and old taps go with it. Do not spend hours stripping insulation off pipe for the sake of neatness, but do keep the metal separate from the general waste.
Radiators are heavy and also scrap
Steel panel radiators are bulky, awkward and heavy, and they take up an absurd amount of room in a container. They are also scrap steel with a value.
Old cast iron radiators are a different proposition again. They are extremely heavy, they are a two person lift each, and the decorative ones have a genuine second hand market. Before anything goes to a merchant, it is worth establishing what you have, because a reclaimed column radiator in sound condition is worth considerably more than its weight in scrap.
Drain them properly before moving them. The water in an old system is black, it stains everything it touches permanently, and a radiator that feels empty rarely is.
What does go in the container
Once the metal is out, what remains is the genuine waste, and it is mostly building fabric rather than heating components.
Old pipe insulation and lagging. Floorboards lifted to reach pipe runs, some of which will not go back down. Plaster where walls have been chased for new pipework. Any boxing in that came off. The header tank from the loft, which is usually a plastic or galvanised tank full of forty years of sediment.
Where a back boiler is being removed from a fireplace, that phase produces rubble, because taking one out means opening up the builder’s opening behind it. That is a dense little load from a small area, and our page on skip size versus weight limits explains why that matters more than the volume does.
Any new plasterboard offcuts from making good have to be kept out of the general load, which our page on plasterboard disposal and building waste separation explains.
The things that need checking
On any system of real age there are two items worth a look before they are disturbed. Old boiler installations sometimes used rope seals and panels containing materials that would not be used now, and pipe lagging in properties of a certain period is the classic example. Our guide to hazardous waste and why it cannot go in a skip explains what needs a licensed contractor rather than a container.
The old boiler itself is an appliance and belongs in the electrical and appliance stream rather than in a skip. Our guide to how to dispose of electrical waste responsibly covers where it goes. Most installers take the old one away as part of the job, so check the quotation before assuming it is yours to deal with.
Sizing and access
With the metal separated out, a heating strip out is a modest load. A 4 tonne midi skip covers most whole house jobs. Where a back boiler is coming out or the work is part of a wider refurbishment, an 8 tonne builders skip is the safer choice.
Most of the terraced streets here have no off road parking, so the container goes on the road and needs a permit from Sefton Council at £36 per month. Get the application in before the installer starts rather than the week of the job, because a heating strip out is not something to be pausing halfway through.
Everything we take comes back to our own recycling centre for sorting rather than being handed on, and our environmental and recycling page explains how that works.
We cover this area daily, running Bootle skip hire jobs alongside Litherland and across the rest of north Merseyside.
Ring us on 0151 909 6399 and tell us whether a back boiler is involved. Our contact page is there if the installer would rather deal with us directly.
