Leak in the slab or not? Please help!

ALH_4

It sounds to me as if you have air in the system. Do you have an automatic air vent? Are there vents at any of the baseboards?

20psi was your static pressure. The static pressure has no direct effect on the flow through the pipes. 30 psi is generally the rating of the relief valve. Does the relief valve on the boiler ever drip water? How is your expansion tank? The diaphragm in the expansion tank may have ruptured and the system may have pulled in air when it cooled down.

A leak in your heating pipes will not allow dirt into the system. If you have a leak, your pressure will slowly drop if your fresh water makeup is turned off.

Djess1

Leak in the slab...or not? Please help!

Hi,

I have an old oil burner (over 15 years old)with baseboard heating. I came home to no heat however the water was hot in the tap. The oil burner was circulating the water properly however it appeared to the repairman that the pressure (20psi) was not enough pressure to send the water through the pipes. When the water does go through the pipes it sounds like a river is running through the house. He noticed that the water meter was spinning very slowly and mentioned i may have a slab leak. He thought to bleed the pipes and found that muddy water was coming out, which confirmed his theory of a slab leak.

He was able to get the water to flow through the pipes after raising the pressure to 30psi to heat the house. He left after telling me that i need to feel the concrete for hot spots and look for leaking water around the perimeter of my house inside and out. I did this and found NO LEAKS and I looked at the water meter and it is spinning VERY slowly, almost unnoticable only if you stare at it.

Based on this information, do you think I have a slab leak or just that the oil burner is old,,and do you think that 30 psi is dangerously high?

clammy

slab leaks

I have run into this a few times in the past ,what started out as reoccurring air promblems on the first floor baseboard that another service company that HO had a service contract with bleed 3 or 4 times in a 1 week period after complaining again about the noise the HO was told that they would not come to bleed again and that there was nothing wrong with her system,she switched oil co and that sunday i was called i ran a hose to a bucket and bleed the system unknowingly plenty of air rust and orange water she asked what i was doing and i told her i was bleeding her system she replyed like that i asked how did the others do it she said they would take out about 3 or 4 gallons and said they where done ,well after purging it and running the boiler i happened to notice the 1 floor zone was open and the bslab supply piping was blazing followed it out and found 2 rooms of baseboard hot 3 and 4 room cold leak on the loop under the slab ,i drain the system cut in 2 ball valves to isolate the slab zone and no more air promblems .HO asked how come all the other guys didn't do that i stated i don't know ,in the end re piped her slab zone over head with only 2 sheetrock cut outs ,split the first fl zone into 2 and sold her a nice buderus boiler with a indirect tank ,they had a not enough hot water promblem going on also .In worst case have some one isolate that zone so all that fresh water doresn't destroy your boiler peace and good luckc clammy

Djess1

Bleeding the system fully??

Okay.. thanks for the info. After checking my house visually myself and have found no evidence of a slab leak (i.e. wet carpet or hot spots), and after reading many posts regarding this same topic, I wonder if my system just needs to be fully bled out? My house has 2 loops. The one in particular which had the muddy/orange? water I believe is connected to the baseboards which are loud with running water, but I'm not sure. Is there a way I can find out for sure which line is noisy before I suggest to the plumber to bleed the line out?

I also would like your 'expertise knowledge' on if you think I could have just one of the loops repiped through the attic and down(the noisy one) if the cause turns out to be small leak in the pipe under the slab. As it may be too costly for me right now to repipe the rest of the system. Perhaps the 2nd loop could wait?

P.S. I'm planning on getting a new burner by next winter.

Thanks for your help...

clammy

finding a slab leak

It's quite hard to find a slab leak at least that's my experence and in some case you will not see water stains or a so called hot spot but the orange water indicates to me that fresh water is eating your boiler ,to really be sure that you have a leak the water feed to the boiler should be shut off and the pressure gauge on the boiler watched if the pressure drops then you have a leak ,the re occuring air promblems is not likely from all the make up water ,have some one isolate that slab loop then give your remaining loop a good purge and see how it goes ,if your boiler has a tankless coil for domestic hot water and production seems lower then before then the coil could be coated with rust and calium which will further lower your domestic water production,i would hope that your boiler has a low watercutoff so there is no semi dry fire condition peace and good luck clammy