Radiant slab ceiling cooling system

GMcD

Thought I'd share some recent results from some playing around at one of my radiant slab ceiling cooling systems - another Client was concerned about drilling into the slab and hitting the PEX tubing. We switched the system from cooling mode to heating mode for about 20 minutes to get a delta T going to see if an infrared camera would pick up the pipes cast into the slab. Pipe depth in slab was an average of 2.5 inches (65mm), pipes average about 12" (300mm) on centre, 3/4" (23mm) tubing. Infrared camera pictures attached to this post. The actual delta T at the surface of the concrete at the time of the pictures was about 1.5F (1C). These scans were taken at the now operating Fed Kaiser Building at the University of British Columbia, 60,000 SF of radiant slab heating/cooling ceiling system.

Weezbo

is the camera similar to the one that Hot Rod uses to show

thermal variations ? many of the things you see everyday are unavailable to us here and somehow i missplaced the where to get the cameras post...i visited a site to check the cameras now i havent a clue how to get back to the site....because my computer is having a mind of its own recently and keeps going on strike i would like to go to the site then mail them the check kinda deal....

back to the post .....that indeed is a remarkable delta T change....

hr

Excellent info, Geoff

I imagine you could reach into the picture and put a marker right dead nuts on the tube!

I suspect there are plenty of Flir cameras spread across the country. My local power utility now has two. One is better at outdoor shots, the other for indoor light.

I suspect a visit to www.flir.com would help you locate where dealers, reps, and possibly owners of these cameras are located.

There are other brands of this camera, also.

It's nice to have an operator with some experienced to get nice clean high res shots.

Did you try the camera with the system in the cooling mode? It should pick up the tubes if there is any delta t regardless of temperatures.

Thanks Geoff for bring this to the wall!

hot rod

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GMcD

Cooling mode

I'm going to see if we can do a cooling mode shot in a couple weeks. The weather the last couple of weeks here has been "neutral" so the slab temps have been running around 20-21C under normal daily conditions, not enough load to create a big enough delta T. The slab cooling systems are generally designed for high flow/small delta T, so depending how close we are to the main tube manifold, it can be difficult to get a big eneough delta T for the camera to pick up and be able to focus on out in the "general tube loop zone". Unfortunately I don't own the camera- but I know who does now, so we'll see what we can arrange.