Repair Warmboard Rot in Leaking Radiant System

Raymond_A

Hi All,

We love our 2 year old Warmboard radiant system that is under hardwood flooring throughout the house. We installed the system 2 year ago when we rebuilt our home in California. A few months ago we noticed a discoloration in the floor and a few weeks ago the wood floor buckled upward. We suspected a leak in the PEX Alu PEX tubing and when we removed some of the flooring we found a lot of very moist and rotted Warmboard wood. The wood is so rotten that you can press the aluminum down into the soft plywood beneath it so it is my guess that the leak has been going on for one or two years. So far we have not been able to locate the hole in the pipe (see attached photo). For you entertainment I though you would enjoy seeing the white thing in one of the photos, it is a mushroom that grew in one week under a rug that I placed on top of the hole in the floor where the hardwood was removed. I have now removed more hardwood and we still have not found the leak and all of the Warmboard in a 5 foot X 2 foot area is rotted and wet. Does anyone have any experience on this type of repair? If anyone can help me my question are:

1) How do I efficiently find the leak and once I find and fix the leak,

2) How do I repair the Warmboard,

I have the brass coupling to fix the pipe once I find the whole. The folks at Warmboard lent me a wood moisture meter (Delmhorst J-2000) and suggested that before this is over I may be taking off a lot of hardwood flooring to find the leak and once found I will most likely need to take off even more flooring before all of the dry rotted wood is found and replaced. The insurance company has a seepage clause, (that I never noticed) that exempts them from water damage caused over time (someone was looking out for the insurance companyJ).

Thanx

Ray

Ironman

Finding the Leak

Try this: isolate and drain the loop that is leaking. Then pressurize it with air to at least 50psi. Then listen for the air escaping. If you can't detect it by ear, then see if you can get your hands on an ultrasonic leak detector like we use in HVAC leak detection.



It probably has a nail in it from when the floor was installed. If that's the case, see if the contractor's liability policy will cover it.

Mark Eatherton

Shrooms???

A couple of things. The presence of mushrooms indicates to me that this is not a normal leak. It may also not even be a hydronic leak. If could be a plumbing leak coming from a nearby plumbing wall...





Perform a hydrostatic pressure test on your heating system and see if it is even breached. If not, start looking towards "other" possible water sources.



If it is in the Warmboard circuit, you are going to have to do some chisel work to accommodate the repair couplings. Keep the hole as small as possible, because you won't be able to easily rebuild that section of the floor.



The presence of the flora almost indicates to me that it is not hydronic water feeding this situation, but rather waste water. The last time I saw shrooms like that was in a situation where the shower drain was leaking water into a crawl space.



You have some home work to do. Make sure the expansion tank is completely off line when you do the hydrostatic test, or you may get a false negative.



Congratulations on your choice of Warmboard. It is THE most efficient product I've ever come across in my 30 plus years of hydronicing. It is the ONLY product I use when dealing with alternative energy on upper framed floors.



As for leak detection, I've had excellent luck with infrared, but it may not work if the leak is too small. For small leaks, there are companies that will pressurize the system with helium, and then use a helium gas detector to locate the leak. It can allegedly work through concrete, so it should work through wood.



Good luck and keep us posted.



ME

meplumber

I concur with the great Mr. Eatherton.

I would bet money that you have a leak from a waste line and not your hydronic system. The mushrooms are the "dead give-away". Follow the advice and pressure test your hydronics, but also look for water leeching to that area from a nearby drain.