old steel in floor heating has a leak

[partonken]

This past week one of our bays sprung a leak in the floor heat in the old steel 1 or 1 1/4" piping. I think it is a leak with in 15' of the boiler. If i can chop out all the concrete were the leak is and run a new pipe from the boiler to the leak and somehow attach it i will save thousands. Anyone had success repairing old steel piping in the infloor heat. thanks ken from Ontario

 

[wash4me]

How bad is the leak? Some here have had success with some stop leak type products. fixaleak.com

 

[partonken]

How bad is the leak? Some here have had success with some stop leak type products. fixaleak.com

it was going down about 4 litres a day. that seems like alot to me?

 

[wash4me]

How much pressure does the state operate at?

 

[partonken]

it was going down about 4 litres a day. that seems like alot to me?

town pressure is 60 psi but completely separate from the floor heat boiler

 

[wash4me]

How much pressure is the glycol under? Some are under pressure with a bladder type tank or a makeup system and some run at 0 pressure from an open tank with a site glass.

 

[partonken]

How much pressure is the glycol under? Some are under pressure with a bladder type tank or a makeup system and some run at 0 pressure from an open tank with a site glass.

yes, our system is open with 0 pressure, gravity, with only pressure from the armstrong pump pumping it through.

 

[wash4me]

How have you figured out where the leak is? Are you sure you know?

 

[partonken]

The fire department came over yesterday with a thermal imaging unit and i think we found the leak. All the good lines were a bright white with lots of heat but in one area near the north end there was 2 pipes were there was no heat showing or no flow, or maybe the flow was going downward not revealing the heat signature to the thermal machine. I lost 11 litres in 75 minutes of running so i shut it off right after the thermal pics were taken. As soon as the winter is over and we get into late spring i will be breakinig up the concrete to see what ive got in there. Now i need to figure out a way to fix up what ever steel piping needs fixing, which is 30 years old. I will find a way to fix it because it will save us thousands of $$. Beats putting in a brand new floor!

 

[mjwalsh]

This past week one of our bays sprung a leak in the floor heat in the old steel 1 or 1 1/4" piping. I think it is a leak with in 15' of the boiler. If i can chop out all the concrete were the leak is and run a new pipe from the boiler to the leak and somehow attach it i will save thousands. Anyone had success repairing old steel piping in the infloor heat. thanks ken from Ontario

Ken,

When we put in our header pipes we used Type K Copper wrapped in plastic film as recommended when put in concrete. Ours is a zero pressure Huron Valley System with a large TACO pump.

mike walsh www.kingkoin.com

 

[partonken]

copper

mike, I like the sound of copper. What is type K and wrapped in what kind of plastic? Ours also is 0 pressure. We tore out one bay 2 years ago a completely gutted it and put in plastic piping which i dont like at all. The heat transfer from plastic in not as good as steel and probably not as good as copper. thanks for the input! Ken P Stayner car wash ontario

Ken,

When we put in our header pipes we used Type K Copper wrapped in plastic film as recommended when put in concrete. Ours is a zero pressure Huron Valley System with a large TACO pump.

mike walsh www.kingkoin.com

 

[mjwalsh]

Ken,

I probably should have described the lengths of pipes more as feeder pipes to more strategically located distribution boxes. I remember browsing through some documents 10 years after our install inside an engineer friends office & Raypak's detailed layouts of various de-icer systems kind of blew me away. Considering that I was so anxious before we put our system that I went to the ICA convention when it was Detroit that year mainly because Huron Valley was located in Detroit area & had a booth.

One of your local plumbing-piping wholesalers should either stock type K or can get it pretty soon. Type L would be the next lighter wall. Type M is the thinnest wall. As far as the plastic ... just think of plastic sheeting you buy at any hardware or home improvement store. Just enough over the pipe so there is a least some barrier between the fresh concrete & the copper itself.

mike walsh www.kingkoin.com

 

[partonken]

We used a thermal imaging machine and found an area which looked like a break in the steel pipe. All the other piping looked ok so this spring i will be chopping out that area and see what ive got underneigh.