Hello,
I have a nice old in-slab radiant heating system with 8 circuits in ~5000 sf that works great... until I sprung a leak last season. From what I can tell the system is actually in really good shape for its age. Anyway, my plumber used his infrared camera to help me locate the leak and I isolated that circuit. Since then I have cut open my slab and removed a rusted out section of the pipe. It looks as if there was a butt weld and just next to it on the underside the pipe rusted out over time. In the course of pulling out this section I got a look at an adjacent pipe and it looks fine. I also cut back far enough (about 18" to either side and found good solid pipe. So I cut out the rusted section, threaded both sides and am trying to join it back together.
Problem is that the pipes have absolutely zero give to them, either longitudinally or angularly. In order to make it up, I needed to use a length of iron pipe and two unions. It was not possible to use a coupling and one union. To do so I had to make the new section almost .6" shorter than actually required just top be able to install it over the rounded portion of the union fittings. I tried to then back off all 4 nuts each a little bit tpo make up the section, but alas it's not up to my standards. I can get it to hold 10 psi or so, but I can tell that it's just too fragile. I had to back the nuts too far away and each of them is leaking a tiny bit.
Question is what to do? I would prefer to stick with iron pipe, but can't think of a way to join it short of welding. That would work but will probably require more diging, of which I have had enough. I could go to 1" PEX, but I am afraid of burying those brass fittings into the new cement which I will have to pour. Do any of you pros have any suggestions? I suppose the PEX connection wil probably last 10 years or so, but I do not think it's good practice to bury that in concrete. I could figure out a way to encase it in a protective shroud, I guess. I could also go to copper somehow, but that is going to face similar problems with inflexibility of this situation as I ran into with iron.
Would appreciate any good ideas. Have photos if u want to see them.
Thanks a million,
Michael Baltay
I have a nice old in-slab radiant heating system with 8 circuits in ~5000 sf that works great... until I sprung a leak last season. From what I can tell the system is actually in really good shape for its age. Anyway, my plumber used his infrared camera to help me locate the leak and I isolated that circuit. Since then I have cut open my slab and removed a rusted out section of the pipe. It looks as if there was a butt weld and just next to it on the underside the pipe rusted out over time. In the course of pulling out this section I got a look at an adjacent pipe and it looks fine. I also cut back far enough (about 18" to either side and found good solid pipe. So I cut out the rusted section, threaded both sides and am trying to join it back together.
Problem is that the pipes have absolutely zero give to them, either longitudinally or angularly. In order to make it up, I needed to use a length of iron pipe and two unions. It was not possible to use a coupling and one union. To do so I had to make the new section almost .6" shorter than actually required just top be able to install it over the rounded portion of the union fittings. I tried to then back off all 4 nuts each a little bit tpo make up the section, but alas it's not up to my standards. I can get it to hold 10 psi or so, but I can tell that it's just too fragile. I had to back the nuts too far away and each of them is leaking a tiny bit.
Question is what to do? I would prefer to stick with iron pipe, but can't think of a way to join it short of welding. That would work but will probably require more diging, of which I have had enough. I could go to 1" PEX, but I am afraid of burying those brass fittings into the new cement which I will have to pour. Do any of you pros have any suggestions? I suppose the PEX connection wil probably last 10 years or so, but I do not think it's good practice to bury that in concrete. I could figure out a way to encase it in a protective shroud, I guess. I could also go to copper somehow, but that is going to face similar problems with inflexibility of this situation as I ran into with iron.
Would appreciate any good ideas. Have photos if u want to see them.
Thanks a million,
Michael Baltay