IS THIS ENTRAN PIPING

Glen3157

My daughter recently purchased a home that is 23 years old. It has under slab / concrete heating. The product used in concrete is a red/orange rubber piping or tubing connected to copper manifolds. The piping is failing big time and we have to abandon the existing heating system and retro fit with a new one possibly forced air. Her first house purchase is almost shattered. I am her dad trying to find answers as to how to proceed and to figure out if someone should be liable. Your responses will greatly valued. Thanks

kcopp

Are there...

any markings? I am going to say no... not entran. When you say failing please explain.... What are you having for iisues? Where is this home? who said failing?

Glen3157

Entran piping or Other ?????????

No Markings. The lines are bursting in some locations and to close to the concrete to repair, Location Canada

nicholas bonham-carter

Failing tubing

What is the pressure in the system?

Was an inspection made of the house before purchase?--NBC

Zman

Frozen

I think your tubing froze and burst. I don't know what type it is. It may be pex-b. It does not look like entran. I would have someone chip the concrete and spice onto the tube. You can then pressurize them individually and see what you have. If the seller did not disclose the issue you may have recourse. The inspector also may bear responsibility.

Carl

heatpro02920

Sorry to hear

about you daughters heating issues. One of the down falls of radiant heat is covered tube repairs are almost impossible. I fear there isn't much you can legally do, but I would start by contacting the real estate agent and her finance institution and request their advice. They should know who if anyone could be held responsible, such as the previous owner, material manufacurer, or the company that did the home inspection.



How long ago did they close on the property? Was this a foreclosure or private sale? Did the seller sign a disclosure statement?



Another option would be your daughters home owners insurance, its worth reading through the policy to see if the damage can be worded to be covered, sometimes they will cover the repairs if it was caused by freezing, flooding, impact damage, ect. I had a customer that had a leaking chlorine container ruin his radiant tubing {5 ga bucket of pool chemical}, the insurance paid over $10K for it to be ripped up and repaired.



Hope this info helps Glen, I hope your daughters luck changes for the better...

heatpro02920

...

...

Steamhead

Do you take

venting clearances- windows, doors, snow line- into account for those condensing units?



Not sure where you are, but here in Baltimore when we have a real winter we've been known to get up to three feet of snow. Yet I frequently see PVC vent pipes sticking out maybe a foot above grade. If these things get blocked and the unit doesn't shut down, the results could be tragic. You can't fix stupid............

icesailor

Entran:

That does not look like any Heatway Entran that I ever saw or installed. It was EPDM tube and more like car radiator hose. The Orange stuff had the orange on the outside and the inside was black. I never saw any connectors like the ones shown in the middle photos.

The leaks were usually at the connections where the rubber tube connected to a brass connector on the manifold. It had a spring clamp that clamped around the tube. Those are compression sleeves and nuts that connect that. Heatway was not connected that way as I remember.

The really bad tube has markings on the tube that will say "Heatway" and "Entran" on it with a date code. The really bad stuff has a date code of manufacturing of the summer/fall of 1991 to 1993. I can't remember which year but it is in that period.

That looks like red PE tube of some type. I think it was caused by one of two things, the first being the most likely.

The boiler or heat source was way to high and way over 180 degrees. The pressure in the system was way too high and the pipe burst. The pipe coming out of the manifold is the weakest place and going through the concrete is fully supported.

The other is freezing. I doubt that because there is enough room for swelling in the tube to keep it from splitting like that. And the split id there was one would be so small, it would be hard to find. That "blow out" split can only be caused by the tube being softened and blown out bu heat and pressure. Because it was deformed by heat, it kept the deformity. If it froze, I would personally expect the manifold to be split of a copper soldered fitting to be pushed out. The copper wasn't expand and the PE would. In my opinion.

Something happened to the heating system that someone knew about.  There is a cover-up.

I've been dealing with some old failed PE underground water services. The only way you can find the leaks is with water or air. Once I cut the bad piece out, I can not EVER find the split. I end up replacing the whole service.

I don't think that that is Entran EPDM because it is not black in the center.

icesailor

What is the tempreture:

What is the temperature of the water going into the floor?

It should be going through a mixer to drop the temperature as it flows through the floor.

Is the mixer failing or failed?

heatpro02920

Sorry steamhead

I moved that post to its own topic, I goofed by putting it in here..

icesailor

X

RobG

Burst Tubing

I'm with Ice on this one. What temperature and pressure is the system operating at? The fact that two of the failures happened within four days of on another tells you something is wrong with the system. Freezing is an option, but I think temp and pressure to be more likely. I'm also not a fan of any product that the manufacturer will not put their name on. Could you post some pictures of the boiler and piping?

Rob 

SWEI

freeze bursting

would probably affect copper and brass long before you'd see it in PEX.

hot_rod

it sure looks like

a rubber tube product with the web between them. I have not seen that fitting used on rubber tube before?



There was a short period of time when Goodyear offered a red rubber tube product when the Heatway/ Goodyear issues were underway. I'm not sure if any was ever installed, I think it was on display at one of the RPA events, maybe an early Denver show.



There was some other rubber tube sold by the greenhouse industry as a root zone heating system that was a rubber or EPDM tube, came out of California as I recall. Crop King or something like that sold it out of Ohio maybe.



Regardless, failures like that pretty much leave you with few options.

icesailor

Entran Tube:

HR,

What you say may be true. But I have never seen any type of rubber or EPDM hold a new shape after "exploding" like that. The fact that it shows what appears to be a "Burst Open" leads me to believe that it is some form of flexible plastic tubing that was heated and took a new shape while cooling. I don't think that any rubber, flexible hose has that ability.

I'll bet that the only breaks in the system are where these splits are.

IMO (and usually worthless)

icesailor

Weird Tube:

HR,

I looked at that tube again and I think that what is first shown isn't what the rest of it is.

Someone made some parallel flow rubber tube for radiant use but there was so little water in it that you needed a ton of it. That tube has THREE tubes in the roll. What would you do with the third tube? The pictures of the three tube pieces and rolls show a solid plastic tube. The pictures of one of the split didn't seem to show the same tube. I wonder if the poster has found something that appears to be what they think is there but it is something else.

The tube may still be OK if the only failures are in the boiler room. I think it would take an inquisitive eye to properly decide where this problem came from. I think that more information is needed.

All may not appear to what it appears to be.