We went to commission an in slab hydronic heating system in Brighton when we noticed the system wasn’t under pressure anymore. Read on to discover more about slab heating systems.

Whenever we install an in slab hydronic heating system we firstly lay all of our pipework on the steel form work before the slab is poured. Once the pipework is run we fill the system with water and pressurize it to ensure there are no leaks.

There is rarely a problem with the slab being poured. The danger comes after when tradesmen are sawing or nailing. Of course once they hit one of our pipes water will come squirting out for about 10 minutes – its very hard to miss.

However the job in Brighton we attended to last week – no one owned up to the fact they cut through the pipe! Have a look at the pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

getting to the suspected leaking pipe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

someone has sawed right through it ! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making access around the pipe so we can repair it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cut has now been repaired – all is fine now

As you can see – two tiles had to be damaged to gain access – its pretty obvious to us who cut our pipe 🙂 – because after we repaired that pipe and pressurized the system another leak was detected on the other side of the door frame. What is the world coming to when someone makes a mistake – twice! – and doesn’t even say anything.

Nevertheless – a leaking pipe within an in slab hydronic heating system is not impossible to solve. It does get a little uglier if you have polished concrete – but if all the tradesmen do their work properly you normally wont run into any problems.