I have in floor boiler heat in my shop and I have a lift installed but looking at getting a bigger / wider lift but need to locate the pex to make sure I don't hit any lines in floor. What is the best way to accomplish this ? Or should I say the cheapest ? HT 175 infrared imaging cameras?
Locating pex in concrete
- Thread starter Race88
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raspy
Well-known member
With the floor cold, turn on the heat just in the zone you are interested in. Make sure your hot supply is warmer than just a maintenance temp. Get out any photos or records about tube spacing that you may have. With an infrared thermometer, begin to scan the area and look for heat lines and spacing. Begin to mark the highest temp spots and lines with a pencil. Eventually, you'll get the layout figured out, such as 12" on center and running an a certain direction, etc. Once you are sure you have the lines located, mark them more permanently with a felt pen.
This process might take an hour or so, but you'll get it figured out. Hopefully, the area you want to drill in will be where the lines are all running in a straight line and not where they are making lots of turns.
Then lay out your holes in the coolest spots, the farthest from the heat lines, the places that seem the safest. If the pipes are on 12" centers, you can find the coolest places 6" from the hottest lines.
This process might take an hour or so, but you'll get it figured out. Hopefully, the area you want to drill in will be where the lines are all running in a straight line and not where they are making lots of turns.
Then lay out your holes in the coolest spots, the farthest from the heat lines, the places that seem the safest. If the pipes are on 12" centers, you can find the coolest places 6" from the hottest lines.
Musicinabottle
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And if you hit water while drilling, stop immediately, and back out! 
Hit a line, screwed. I paid 100 bucks for a guy who does energy audits. He had a real nice flir thermal imaging camera. I had blank spots in my floor for lift, hard drive died so lost exact placement. Knew approx where they were, verified and no issues drilling. Btw I was off a foot or so in where I thought blank spots were so worth every penny
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finn
Well-known member
There are at least two vendors of IR camera attachments for your phone, Seek and Flir.
I bought the Seek, but the Flir gives a better image, probably because I picked the wrong model Seek, ie the LR model (long Range) instead of the standard model.
The Seek I have works, to a point, but my lift is straddling the tubes in a couple of places, so I won’t finish drilling the holes until the heating season is done.
Tip: put icicles or ice cubes in the baseplate holes while looking through the IR camera viewing screen. The holes then show up as intense blue cold points that contrasts with the warm red tubes.
My tubes are anchored to the foam insulation at the bottom of a six inch slab, so I should be ok, as long as they didn’t float during the pour, but i’ll Wait another 8 weeks until spring arrives to do the drilling.
One thing did happen during this adventure though. I initially had difficulty finding the tubes in the 24x34x16’ addition the lift will be located in, while the tubes in the main 32x48x16’ addition were relatively easy to locate with the camera. Ends up that the Taco circulator pimp for the lift area had a fried circuit board, and the lift room was only being heated by parasitic flow, since there were no check valves to isolate it.
New Taco pump, and I can see the tubes in the area of the lift.
I bought the Seek, but the Flir gives a better image, probably because I picked the wrong model Seek, ie the LR model (long Range) instead of the standard model.
The Seek I have works, to a point, but my lift is straddling the tubes in a couple of places, so I won’t finish drilling the holes until the heating season is done.
Tip: put icicles or ice cubes in the baseplate holes while looking through the IR camera viewing screen. The holes then show up as intense blue cold points that contrasts with the warm red tubes.
My tubes are anchored to the foam insulation at the bottom of a six inch slab, so I should be ok, as long as they didn’t float during the pour, but i’ll Wait another 8 weeks until spring arrives to do the drilling.
One thing did happen during this adventure though. I initially had difficulty finding the tubes in the 24x34x16’ addition the lift will be located in, while the tubes in the main 32x48x16’ addition were relatively easy to locate with the camera. Ends up that the Taco circulator pimp for the lift area had a fried circuit board, and the lift room was only being heated by parasitic flow, since there were no check valves to isolate it.
New Taco pump, and I can see the tubes in the area of the lift.
86turbodsl
Well-known member
slowTA
Well-known member
So since it was mentioned, is it recommended to place the PEX right on top of the insulation?
I've seen pictures with the PEX zip tied under the rebar/mesh, I'm assuming to keep the PEX from floating and the rebar from sinking.
It kind of makes sense to put the PEX in the middle from a heat transfer perspective as it would take less heat to reach the surface. However if you put the PEX on the bottom you have more room to drill.
Any opinions?
I've seen pictures with the PEX zip tied under the rebar/mesh, I'm assuming to keep the PEX from floating and the rebar from sinking.
It kind of makes sense to put the PEX in the middle from a heat transfer perspective as it would take less heat to reach the surface. However if you put the PEX on the bottom you have more room to drill.
Any opinions?
finn
Well-known member
The Seek I have is definitely inferior to the Flir my spray foam contractor had. Both were iPhone units, but his was a couple of years older.
I showed it to my hvac guy when he was replacing the shop boiler, and I think he ordered one from Amazon.
I turn the heat off for a day, then crank it up an hour or so before trying to locate the tubes. Don’t know if it’s necessary, but I figured that would give the greatest temperature gradient.
I also turn the boiler outlet temperature up.
You may be sol with solar.
I showed it to my hvac guy when he was replacing the shop boiler, and I think he ordered one from Amazon.
I turn the heat off for a day, then crank it up an hour or so before trying to locate the tubes. Don’t know if it’s necessary, but I figured that would give the greatest temperature gradient.
I also turn the boiler outlet temperature up.
You may be sol with solar.
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raspy
Well-known member
No need to re-invent the wheel. The infrared thermometer works perfectly well. I've actually located far more lines by crawling around and noticing the warm lines with my hands. The lines are not hard to find.
koditten
Well-known member
I invited the local fire department over for a couple of beers. They got to show off the cool IFR camera. I took a picture of the camera view of my floor. Worked amazingly well.
I sat on my roll around stool with a heavy marker. I was directed where the tubes where, since the camera had no storage feature.
I had all sorts of pictures with my tube location including tape measurements. I just could not get the guts to drill into my floor. The pictures helped hugely.
I sat on my roll around stool with a heavy marker. I was directed where the tubes where, since the camera had no storage feature.
I had all sorts of pictures with my tube location including tape measurements. I just could not get the guts to drill into my floor. The pictures helped hugely.
my FLIR is a gen1 iphone unit. the MSX overlay makes the images easier to see objects (edge detection layer stuck on top of the thermal image) - makes it feel higher res than it is, and it takes VERY little delta T to see an object. here you can see the garage circuit breaker panel (with thinner insulation behind it) through the outside wall.
I would imagine that would work for low temp in-floor. it also has a "high contrast" mode that uses the whole color wheel to make things more obvious. less pleasing to look at but it helps with low deltas.
I would imagine that would work for low temp in-floor. it also has a "high contrast" mode that uses the whole color wheel to make things more obvious. less pleasing to look at but it helps with low deltas.
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I invited the local fire department over for a couple of beers. They got to show off the cool IFR camera. I took a picture of the camera view of my floor. Worked amazingly well.
I sat on my roll around stool with a heavy marker. I was directed where the tubes where, since the camera had no storage feature.
I had all sorts of pictures with my tube location including tape measurements. I just could not get the guts to drill into my floor. The pictures helped hugely.
I did the same thing and I was amazed glad they came out for training/helping me locate them
rburke65
Well-known member
slowTA......any opinions? Buy he hundreds. How much variation can ya have in an average 4" floor? You certainly want to avoid the upper third as you are really close to the surface at that point.
charliebiker
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- Aug 29, 2021
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Guys here is another suggestion. I have 1/2" pex for heating that I installed in the cement in my garage addition a few years back. Back then all of the lifts were to tall for my 10' ceiling height. Recently I purchased a MaxJax car lift that can be used with low ceiling. To locate my tubing I used a wire tracer MS6818 (don't purchase a cheap one they don't work) this one is about $200 and it can come in handy for locating wires and circuits all over the house. The method is a bit time consuming but it worked very well for me. Shut the system down and close any hand valves from the heat source to the distribution header. Drain out the tubing loops. I hooked up a drain hose to my return header into a 5 gallon bucket. The supply side I made up fittings to get my air hose from my compressor to hook up to it. By running compressed air through the tubing it dried it out well enough. Next I made a bullet shape from 1/2" dowel about 1 1/2" long. Put it in a drill and use a file or sandpaper to shape it. The final O.D. to fit in the tubing will be about 7/16" (you don't want it to tight) . The back of it drill a pilot hole for a sheet metal screw that goes in an inch or so into it. The screw head needs to smaller than the end of the wood piece. Then you'll have to make up a 1/2" tee fitting. One end will need to fit into the pex tubes ( a barb fitting to the 1/2" INPT tee). The side of the tee set up with a quick connect to your compressor (a hand valve here is helpful) The other straight end of the tee I fit with a 1/4" tubing fitting, adapted to the 1/2" INPT. 1/8" fitting here would have worked better but, it was a little tight for the 16 gauge wire to go through that I had (18 gauge would work better). Set up a roll of 18 gauge wire threaded through the 1/8" fitting, through the tee and out through the barb end. Strip back 1" of insulation. Wrap it around the screw on the plug you made up. Solder the wire to the screw. Slide the dowel into the tubing, turn on the air, and feed wire into the pex. Pulsing the air will help move the doweling if it gets stuck. I only needed to get 150' of wire into the tubing to locate the area where I was going to drill the 7/8" x 5" deep holes for my lift installation. I traced out two of the three tubes in the floor where the lift was going to be mounted. If you can get the dowel to go through the entire loop great but, it may not be needed. Cut the wire leaving a pigtail of ten feet of wire from the fittings. Strip the insulation back, hook up the tracer transmitter between the wire and a good electrical ground. I used and Allen wrench in the ground of a duplex. The signal decreases the farther you get down the wire. But, the receiver was able to trace out to 150' and my tubing is tied to the 6"x6" grate with over 5" of concrete covering it. Colored chalk worked well for sketching the line paths. I can take some pics and upload them if anyone wants to see them.