Painting Behind Water Pipes

[niall Y]

Just sat down with a cup of tea, after having struggled with filling and painting behind a double run of wall-mounted, central-heating pipes. Which leads to the question - " How does one paint behind them?". I can see bare pipe, but I can't get at it with a brush.

I've resorted to using strips of 'chammy' leather, coated in paint to do the backs, but it is really messy. I would be interested to know how others tackle this task, as I have lots more to paint.

 

[Spectric]

Box them in .

 

[niall Y]

Ah, funny you should say that, but part of the boxing would have required very tall skirting to disguise the existing one that has twin 22mm pipes on top. This whole arrangement would have been a bit 'in-your-face' on, what is a fairly small wall,

I have successfully painted a pair of the pipes, that come down from the attic, the same colour as the wall behind. These look fairly unobtrusive, so I am happy with the look. It is just a really fiddly task, given the number of coats of paint needed. Especially as the wall , the pipes and the skirting, were all unfinished. And, I need to cut-in between the skirting and the wall

 

[Terry - Somerset]

Paint skirting + half an inch of wall. Wait for it to properly dry. Tape on skirting to allow clean edge. Then paint wall/pipes. No need to carefully cut in.

 

[eribaMotters]

Try a radiator roller to get to the back of the pipes. I'm guessing the walls and pipes are the same colour so that they blend in.

Colin

 

[Bingy man]

Small paint sprayer or paint wall 1st ignoring pipes but wipe off any paint from pipes before it drys . Once dry and your happy eg 1 or 2 or 3 coats then paint pipes using a sheet of newspaper to protect wall - I’m assuming your using gloss on the pipes and emulsion for the walls- tbh either way is time consuming, finicky and a pita type of job

 

[ChaiLatte]

I was thinking that a foam brush might work (newspaper on wall). Then I thought if you put a bit of stiff wire in the foam to form it into a curve (like underwiring a bra), it might work even better.

The mark III version would have a flap at the back of the brush so you flip it up when dipping into the tin and let it drop down, to protect the wall, when painting. Would only work with gravity in its favour though.

 

[HamsterJam]

I usually use small brush but on a couple of occasions used a ‘rattle can’ to get a specific colour.
Hold a piece of newspaper or better still, thin cardboard (cereal packets are ideal) against the wall to protect it.

 

[niall Y]

Thanks for all the suggestion. I have a lot of this painting to do as we have recently had insulated plasterboard applied to the outside walls in our property, along with new
skirting. In the normal course of events ,I would have been able to finish the paintwork before the central -heating pipes were installed. However, because of the plumbers schedule, this was not possible. Since this affects most of the rooms in the house, only a small amount of decoration was carried out beforehand.

I've been looking at paint-pad refills, with a view to fixing these to some shaped aluminium sheet to get a better finish on the wall behind, as I've had some success using sections of sheet to make sanding profiles to get at the tops of the skirting.
I might even use strips of the pad instead of the chammy leather I've been using, as I'm hoping it will hold more paint. It's all going to be a bit of a marathon - though I should know what I should be doing, by the time I get to the end.

 

[Agent_zed]

If it is the pipe you are looking to paint then an alternative is clip over plastic covers. This company does them 15mm & 22mm Snappit

Should be a lot faster, will be a better finish and allows you to paint the wall and not worry about getting it on the pipe as it will be covered.

 

[niall Y]

If it is the pipe you are looking to paint then an alternative is clip over plastic covers. This company does them 15mm & 22mm Snappit

Should be a lot faster, will be a better finish and allows you to paint the wall and not worry about getting it on the pipe as it will be covered.

Thanks, an interesting link............ I have used this before for some pipe tails between radiators and floor and it proved to be a very tidy solution.

I have so far, painted about half the pipes in the house. And , painting them the colour of the wall, has helped them recede into the background - which is what was required.

Following on from my last post, I didn't have much success with the material from the paint pad refills, so reverted to using strips of 'chammy' leather, along with a 1" brush. This has proved to be, by far ,the best solution, along ,of course, with copious amounts of masking-tape.