Pressure test necessary when retiling (Radiant heat) ?
Hi,
I hope someone who has done this before can help us out with the following
question. -- I have done a search on this forum and can not find a direct
answer.
We are re-tiling our bathroom floor. Our contractors are careful to chip
the old tiles away without effecting serious impact on the concrete
underneath. Also I have run the pump (setting the thermostat high enough)
and no leak is seen. Now I wonder if I still need to have a professional to
do a pressure test. Or am I too paranoid?
Thanks a lot in advance.
Kai
p.s., Our pump is a Grundfos UPS 20-42. The hydronics boiler is Teledyne
Laars. The gauge on the boiler shows pressure at 12 psi and temperature 85 F.
Well, it's more about your personal risk tolerance. Everybody is different so you might make a different choice than someone else when faced with exactly the same data.
I think most would agree that if you are doing a large floor area and you have not had a pressure/leak test done in a while, you probably should. It's faster and cheaper to find a leak then than after you've installed your expensive floor.
If you are talking about smaller areas where there are no indications of a pressure problem (cleared slab is dry and pressure is holding), then it's less cut and dried. Depending on the cost, I'm one of the ones who would probably have it done anyway.
Like any flooring project, DO make sure that you order and keep extra grout and tiles. Each dye lot is different and even if you write the dye lot number down there's no guarantee the manufacturer won't have run out of that lot by the time you need it.
Just my 2 cents.
Jake
P.S. A professional pressure test is run at a much higher level than the system would normally be under .
Hello Kai,
I had my radiant heating tested and inspected when I bought the house and besides doing a visual inspection the only other thing done was to turn up the thermostat to get it running, turn off the water supply after getting a 20psi rating and then just let it run for a few minutes. If the system holds the 20psi with the water supply off then there should be no leaks. At least that's what I was told. Good luck with your bathroom remodel.
E.
Special thanks to Jake and eec007 for the advices and suggestions.
My contractor, while not knowledgeable in radiant heating, made
some observations when he worked around the tub area, where the floor sinks
in. He told me that in the around 3" thick cement for radiant heating, there
are two layers. The bottom layer is about 2/3 and the top is 1/3. The two are
separated by some thin plastic-like layer. He hypothesizes that the water
pipes are in the bottom layer. Thus, it is very unlikely a normal operation on
the tile would affect the pipes at all.
After this rationalization, I am sort of relaxed. I might still get a
pressure test soon when we remodel the kitchen. But that would be mainly for
the maintenance of the heating system as a whole than the pipes in a
speficic area.
Kai
p.s., My pressure reading, as mentioned in my previous msg, is 12. This
might be quite different from what eec007 got. If I read eec007's msg
correctly, in his case, the pressure was either 20 psi from the beginning or
reached 20 psi after some period of heating. Mine is 12 psi and remains so
for the several hours in which the water temperature is kept at 85 F.
Kai,
Glad you're feeling better about your remodel. I'm sure many people were reticent to answer your question directly because I think you're asking about a potential liability issue.
In any event, I'm no contractor, but a good rule of thumb (and you can search on previous posts about this) is that if you're doing major flooring rework (meaning your slab is exposed) it is a good OPPORTUNITY to have your radiant system pressure tested - because if there is a leak, they'll have to go into your slab to get at it and fix it. Before anyone buys an Eichler (even on an as-is purchase) they should look for a pressure test in the disclosures.
I think you were asking specifically because you were having your bathroom retiled, whether or not you should also have a pressure test done to ensure that before/after your contractor did not impact your radiant heat system. My $0.02 is that unless they are having to jackhammer INTO your slab, they should be able to remove existing flooring (even tile) without damaging your radiant pipes.
Good luck. I think Jake's point was the same. The time to do repairs (if necessary is when you're floors are gone!), but if nothing is required, then don't bother.
mine was raised to 20 psi for the test. the inspector (one that advertises here) mentions that he likes to have it higher to make sure that the pipes are "full" of water instead of only partially full.
in the end i think the important thing is that the radiant heat system can keep a constant pressure for a long period of time.
