Floor heat leaks bad!!!!

[acbruno]

My floor heat sucks. I have had my 7-bay wash for over a year now and I?m into my second winter. There are 18 lines running into the floor heat manifold and 18 lines running out. When I got it there were four lines (2 in, 2 out) completely disconnected from the manifold and four others (2 in, 2 out) that had the valves turned off. Two bays iced up good last year which caused me many headaches so this year I finally got a pressure test system connected up and found out that four (2 in, 2 out) of the 18 lines don?t even come close to holding any pressure (these were the lines disconnected from the manifold). Another one drops pressure slowly about the width of the needle every 5 minutes or so. The four lines that were turned off appeared to pressure test ok at 10psi so I opened them up. Wow! That made a huge difference because those thawed the two bays I had the most troubles with. Only bad thing is after the system ran for two days, the pressure dropped enough to shut down the boiler. Looks like those four lines have some small leaks. What are my options to get these fixed? Here?s what I?m thinking:

1. Get with a local heating/air company with a thermal imaging camera and attempt to pinpoint the leaks, dig up the cement in only that spot, repair the line, then repair the concrete. Not sure how well the thermal imaging works though.

2. Is there a stop leak for floor heat? Preston stop leak worked great on my radiator in my truck when it started leaking.

3. I could add a refill tank that will keep the coolant topped off all the time and just fill it now and then. I?m not sure how to add this to a system that is pressurized though. My fill pipe connects just before the pump on the return side.

Any suggestions would be great. My guess is option 3 would be the easiest but I would like to hear from the experts.

Thanks!

 

[MEP001]

1. An infrared imager used under the right conditions will show you the leak - you may want to force hot water in with the outlet plugged, otherwise you'll just see the grid.

2. I doubt that any stop-leak would work, and it would probably cause more problems than it could cure.

3. Can the system run without being pressurized? That would minimize the leak.

 

[Ben's Car Wash]

My floor heat sucks.

Any suggestions would be great. My guess is option 3 would be the easiest but I would like to hear from the experts.

Thanks!

Wow, two years old and the plumbing in the floor heat never worked? Is that what you are saying? Did you have this built new?

Warrenty work on commercial construction is much longer than 2 years my friend.... I'd be calling your attorney and sending a letter to the contractor.

And if you bought this from a previous owner, did he "DISCLOSE" that the floor heater did not work. I would also review that. It could cost Tens of thousands to tear up concrete to repair. I'd really be looking into legal advice along with an affordable repair.

 

[mjwalsh]

acbruno,

Our 3 bay 27 year old system runs on zero pressure & still flows fast enough to keep the slabs thawed. The beginning pipe for our system is 2 branched out 2" plastic wrapped copper type L that leads to 2 manifolds to the tubing. Did you use Pex tubing or was it some other type of combination of tube, pipe, or hose? Was it damaged by the concrete workers?

 

[pitzerwm]

Another solution is to replace it by pouring 2" of new concrete. Laying new lines in it. With a little care this should work fine.

 

[acbruno]

This wash was built in 1979 so it is almost 30 years old. The floor heat was added after the place was built by adding the plastic piping and three inches of concrete to the floor. The previous owner did disclose that a couple lines were turned off but it didn't cause much trouble. He said he put down rock salt and in the morning it was thawed. I think it is worse than disclosed but he only had the place for two years and was not actively involved in maintenance. How do you run the system with none to low pressure? I think my circulating pump creates the pressure. I think the thermal imaging is the best to pinpoint exactly where the leak is and tear up only that piece of concrete and repair. I would be good for a while if I can get those four lines with a slow leak working. How could I add a constant refill tank to the system to keep the coolant topped off since it is under pressure? This would get me by for a while.

Thanks for your responses.

 

[MEP001]

You could use a FloJet dead-headed against the system to keep it full.

 

[ToFarGone20]

Been there

We were not open for a full year and all of our floor heat pipes cracked. They were splitting and breaking in two...made me want to vomit. Turns out the company we bought the pipe from sold us some stuff that wasn't made for this purpose...however they said it was...in writing too! We had to break out ALL of the cement in the bays....2 truck bays, 6 car bays, and 3 autos (this is all at one location). Needless to say off to court we went...eventually they rolled on the company the distributed for..."they told us wrong" was their arguement. I didn't care who paid for my labor, cement, and new pipe but one of them was going to. I really appreciated them offering to give me more of their tubing, to replace the old stuff...HAHAHAHA....$500,000 later and I was up and running again....was a long drawn out process and nobody won....well....I guess my lawyer made some pretty damn good cash out of the deal.