Thermal Imaging - Radiant Slab Leak

[Deleted User]

Contact the OTHER utiltity (think underground,water company) and see if they have a hydrophone you can borrow. Use this to follow up on the IR and see if you can "hear" the leak before you start your surgical jackhammer work.

To my knowledge, the tubing those internet artistes use is a poly tubing, but it is not cross linked, nor does it have an o2 barrier. IT is also extremely susceptible to kinkage, and when kinked, showed severe signs of stress.

It has also been my personal experience that most tubing ends up on the bottom of the slab.

Give them the options of an over pour versus numerous IR/Jack hammer sessions and see what they WANT to do.

THe over pour would be the ultimate decision, but it will cause other problems with finished elevation changes etc.

For an easy over pour, you can use 6X6 WWM flat steel panels, which come in 8' X 20' panels, lays flat and zip tie to it. Don't forget to whack all tails off the ties prior to pour or you may find yourself walking around looking like the hunch back of Lincoln with a turbo tourch in your hand... Been there, done that.

One of the biggest problems with IR in this situation is that the field gets soo much energy from the leak that it has a tendency to "thermally washout" the area. If you can shut the system down for a couple of days to allow it to cool down, then turn on the heat source WIThOUT the circulator running, the hot H20 will flow right to the leak, and you WILL see thermal puddling.

Also, if there is a remote chance that the floor will see sunshine, it will completely wash out the IR camera. My guy shows up at 4:00 AM to avoid any solar interference.

Good luck in your venture. It sounds like she got ahold of the right people to find her leak...

ME

Paul Rohrs_4

Radiant floor slab

I was contacted about 2-weeks ago by a HO with a radiant floor heat system. Apparently she bought this radiant "System" from an on-line company in Vermont about 10-years ago. (Think open systems- which is what this is as well)

This 10x40 building is a small metal out building that they use as a dog kennel. It is all one zone, and has 3/4" tubing - two loops. The HO showed me a sample of some tubing they had left over. It is PEX but I cannot, or presume to vouch for the integrity of this tubing.

The tubing has a leak somewhere in the slab.

Our mission should we decide to accept it: find source of leak and make recommendations to repair.

Lincoln Electric System (local utility) has a new Thermal Imaging camera they have been aching to use. LES bought a Fluke TI-30. ($10,000) They also bought a $60,000 dollar unit that is truck mounted that they can go out and look for "Hot-Spots" for their linemen to repair.

LES came out with their camera and shot some of the infloor pics to trace the source of the leak. It worked pretty well. They emailed me the thermal images in PDF format.

The water is coming out from under the building at about 1gpm. (Pretty good leak)

The tubing spacing varies from 9" to 12" to 18" and and one spot, around 24". The orange marking paint was from me tracing around the laser pointer from the thermal imaging camera. The thermal imaging cameral was in grey-scale, so hotter objects appear white. We were looking for areas where the tubing has clearly defined lines. Our thinking was that the leak would appear as an emerging greyish-white "puddle" area and would saturate a space unevenly. I think the source of the leak was around a floor drain area that settled a little bit, but it was still tough to determine.

The leak manifests itself outside at the edge of the building about 5-6 feet away from where we think the tubing broke. We dug a small hole outside and the hole filled up in less than a minute.

Matt J in our shop is one determined fellow. He thinks he can find it and repair it. I am weary of this process in that we can tear up the concrete and spot a tubing rupture, but how do we know that this is tubing rupture isn't a byproduct of us tearing out the concrete, and the actual leak is still in the slab. The other scenario that would leave me guessing is that we can find and repair this leak, but who's to say 1-month later, another leak manifests itself? What would all of you do?

I want to abandon this low-budget project and put down tubing and do an overpour. We can charge the HO and hourly "search and destroy" rate until we find and repair the leak, but that could get spendy without a successful result.


Option A : "Run Forrest Run" - (Abandon the project)

Option B : "There's my boat" - (Find the leak)

Option C : "Stupid is as Stupid Does" - (Overpour)


Regards,

PR

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hr

Could there be more than 1

leak? Either now or down the road. if so, now may be the time to start anew

If you are interested in Thermal Imaging, Flir is having a big open house event at most cities this year. www.flirthermography.com/openhouse

I think a color camera may have helped you.

Fluke bought out Infrared Solutions last October, they, as well as Flir, are introducing some cameras aimed at contractors in the under 10 grand price range. I hope to have a demo next week from a nearby Flir rep.

No question the 50 grand and up cameras show a lot more detail and can read down to 1/10 of a degree. You should be able to pinpoint exactly with that quality of camers.

But I agree, it may be time to cut losses.

hot rod

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Bill Jirik,

It appears that there are two seperate but paralell flow loops, if so I would install isolation valves on both ends of those two loops, then install a water meter on the makeup line and test eack loop for leakage, then feed the leaking loop from only one direction with hot water, the floor will be warm up to the leak, then feed it from the other direction, this generally works for me, dont forget to hydrostatic test your repair when done

Paul Pollets

Why not use

helium leak detection? the contractors here charge $300-400 for leak detection. Never had a problem locating within 6-12" of the leak. However if crappy pex was used, not much sense patching.

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N4R

infrared sensor

The best luck I have had with a similar problem was to use an infrared laser thermometer. I think isolating the loops is a good idea. Let the slab get cold the set the water temp very high and start walking and pointing the laser at the floor and take readings. In all liklihood the area of the leak will get hot quickly and spread. The thermometer is has a .1 degree sensitivity. good luck

Darin Cook_2

Paul

I just had to deal with this same problem. There were 9 breaks overall that I had to find and then expose and repair. I bought a tool called the Leak Pro. It is a extremely sensitive listening device. About $1200.00. Don't bang it against anything with the headphones on, you will be sorry. It sounds like you have options to work with, I wasn't quite so lucky. I hope you take care of the problem. Good luck, Darin

Paul Pollets

Wow!!

I've seen the setup. Does it work? How close can you pinpoint the leak?

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Darin Cook_2

Oh Yes

it works very well. You feel like a old sonar man in the navy. Listening for different sounds and tones. I found all the leaks within a inch or two. You just find the spot where the loudest hiss is. You have to be good at interpretation of sound. I ran about 100 psi of air. Well worth the investment when compared to the alternative of a useless slab.

Darin

Weezbo

The first time i opened the Jpeg...

i thought the leak pro was a picture of a jack hammer and buzzed by it ,thinking' Yeah ... that IS a method '

then i re read the post and got the full picture. i like this gizmo. i have seen something like this advertized with some high end Sewer pipe leak detection tools ... i see a phone * 1800 532 5776. is that the right # to call?

Darin Cook_2

Weez

Yes that is the right number. I believe they are located in Arizona. Look at www.leakpro.com


Darin