Radiant floor tubing leaks

jdesante

Customer buys newly renovated home. After several months a light fixture mounted on the wall starts to fall off. Electrician finds that there is moisture building up inside this partition wall between 2 studs. Another contractor opens wall to find mildew building up from floor plate toward ceiling. No water or moisture stains were coming from above. He had contractor cut the dryway at floor level and install a small return grill in this stud bay to relieve moisture from building up inside again.
This customer has old copper tubing in concrete floor for radiant heat. He suspects maybe leaking copper pipe in floor. Floor is custom tile and area has built-in furniture.
I told him finding leak and making repairs would be costly at best, if even possible.
We think best option at moment is that we should be able to isolate and cap-off this one circuit (4 total for this zone) in boiler room, leaving him 3 good circuits for heating.
Customer wants to know if it is possible to add some type of treatment into boiler to stop small pin-hole leaks, sorta like radiator stop-leak for cars.
I said I would not suggest it, but maybe it could work, so I would ask someone.
System has Weil-McLain CG-8-pidn gas boiler, 1- Plus 40 indirect water heater, 2-zones radant old copper in concrete, 2-zones fin-tube baseboard, and 2-zones pex piping staple-up wood floor and tile floor.
Anyone with suggetions?
Thank you.

GMcD

Epoxy pipe re-lining

While it may be a long shot, there are a few firms who do epoxy pipe lining for copper tube potable water systems that might be able to help. I am aware of some of this work on the West Coast here, and they can shoot epoxy through a 1/2" pipe and coat the inside of it, plugging pinhole leaks. Here's a weblink to one site that explains the process: http://www.pipeproblems.com/about-pipelining/index.cfm

Steve Kelly

Old Copper

You are better of isolating the leak from the system. The average copper system instaled correctly has a life span of about 40 years. the system is failing from the inside out. it will develop more leaks. If the system does not have a mixing valve, I suggest adding one. This will limit the expansion and contraction of the sytem. It will add life. Tell the customer to prepare to replace this system in the future. There are other leaks, they have not yet appeared. I have fixed and maintained many of these old systems.