Radiant Heating in Ceiling - Copper Sheets??

JLHillmann

I have a home (built in '52) with a hot water radiant heating system. The pipes are contained within the gypsum/plaster, works like a dream (except when I hit a pipe, that's a different story).

Today, we were trying to switch out a ceiling light with a ceiling light/fan. So to re-run the wiring, we had to make one penetration into the plaster. I have an IR camera to locate the pipes, normally works like a dream.

Except today we discovered that the ceiling in that bedroom isn't plaster, it's drywall. We knocked a small hole in, and discovered a sheet of copper immediately above the drywall. Has anyone ever seen this before? I'm hoping that this was a standard practice, and not something they came up with on the fly.

Best I can tell, at some point the entire ceiling was dropped (maybe for a pipe leak) and replaced with drywall. If that's the case, I assume this copper sheeting was added to help dissipate the heat, and then new pipes were somehow installed top of the sheeting.

I should also point out that this ceiling vaulted and is on the second floor, so I can't get to it from above to take a look without going through the roof.

Any help/info/advice would be appreciated before we go further!
John

hot_rod

good question, sounds like a custom site built application. You can buy ThermaFin which is a copper tube with copper flashing, used in solar collectors. Maybe someone retro fitted some of that.