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I want to move the low hanging basement pipes for my radiant heating system. The pipes are 1.5" galvanized. I would like to move them up into the floor joists. Any tips?
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As a rule Galvanized Iron Pipe has not been used to install residential heating systems for 30 or 40 years and 1-1/2" diameter piping is rather large for a typical residential Hydronic Heating System (circulating Hot Water). I suspect what you have is an older home that was originally designed for a gravity flow Hydronic System or more likely you have either a Steam Heating system or a system that was originally designed for steam then later converted to Hydronic.
If you have a steam heating system moving the pipes can be a very complex problem because in a typical residential steam system the condensate return is by means of gravity flow and you must insure that you maintain the proper pitch and elevations all the way back to the boiler otherwise you will end up with trapped condensate blocking the flow and you simply will have no heat.
Reworking an old galvanized pipe run can be extremely labor intensive. You will need to begin by cutting the pipe at some point then take the entire run apart joint by joint. During this step you will probably find the pipe was either assembled with "Hardening Type" pipe dope or the joints may have become fused together by corrosive action. For older 1-1/2" pipe I would expect you would need a couple professional quality 48" pipe wrenches and even then it may prove difficult to get some joints apart.
During the reassemble phase you will need some means of field threading pipe to custom lengths to make it all come together. While it certainly can be done by means of a hand threader this is also a very labor intensive operation and one that takes a bit of practice to learn how to do properly. Keep in mind that galvanized pipe is not a very forgiving medium to work with. You must make very careful measurements and make allowances for fittings if you hope to end up with pieces that will fit properly. Also keep in mind that most hand threaders will only handle pipe cutting dies up to 1-1/4" so you may find it difficult to find a threader unless you opt to rent a power threader or make repeated trips back and forth to your local hardware to have them custom thread the pipe for you.
In my humble opinion you would be much better served to have a heating contractor determine the actual size of line you need and consider replacing at least that section with copper pipe.
and later you will need to thread the pipe and install a union or a right/left nipple to make the final connection.
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