House with old radiant floor heat

Friggers

I recently received a request to change a boiler for a customer in and old house with radiant slab heating ( this was a referral by another contractor I've worked with in the past and it happens to be a friend of his) because he is having trouble finding someone to take on the job. I asked why he was having trouble and apparently every plumber told him it was illegal to change the boiler. Has anyone heard of such a thing or is it a case of them avoiding this job in fear of being responsible for old copper tubing in the slab leaking after replacing the boiler?



 I do not know if the radiant tubing is copper or not....just a guess.

Paul Pollets

Older RFH

I've worked on dozens of these systems with RFH circa 1948-1960. Most have copper tubing, some use steel pipe. There is no law that prevents boiler replacement. The issue is that older systems can and will leak. It's a matter of time. A pressure test will identify if the system is holding water.

When we contract to do a boiler replacement on these systems we have a strict exclusion for failure of the original piping. That includes a frank discussion with the owner about the life expectancy of copper or steel pipe embedded in concrete.