Broken Radiant Floor Fixed with Old Water Radiators???

[Mitch Walma]

We bought our house knowing that the basement and Garage radiant floor heat were broken. (some jerk let the garage freeze) ;) I'm thinking that I can patch into the tubing and run water into two refurbished radiators one in the garage and one in the basement room. The thermostat is in the basement not in the garage so heat to the garage would be minimal but would take it up a degree or two. The basement room is about 180sq feet and shares a closet with the solar storage tank and pumps and plumbing for the upstairs radiant floor. So, we are getting some heat from it anyway. The pumps and thermostat haven't run since the valves for the floor was shut off.
My end dream is to have the lower level (garage and basement) radiant floor disconnected and two sweet looking old radiators pumping out some heat downstairs.
Does anyone have experience doing this sort of conversion?

I changed the avatar but haven't figured out how to change my name yet so I just inserted it underneath. I hope that works. :cool:

[Paul Bailey]

Hi Mitch >: What is your primary source of heat ( a boiler ???) that is /or was used to heat the radiant.?? what is the solar tank for?? DHW ( Domestic Hot Water ) or is it integrated with the radiant Loops??? Is the rest of the house Rads Or radiant or just the garage and basement section??? More info Please and I'll comment with some design considerations..Paul:)

[Mitch Walma]

the solar and natural gas hot water heater work in tandem so on cloudy days we still have heat.
the broken tube in the radiant in the garage is in the poured floor. this would mean breaking up the entire garage to repair the leak or pouring another layer of concrete over the existing with new piping installed in it.
the main floor is radiant heat and the upstairs is never used baseboard electric uggh.
because the garage and the only other room are on the same piping for the radiant floor niether of them have functioned since we bought the house.
The downstairs room isn't to bad because it houses the storage tank and hot water heater. It would be nice though to have some more heat in the garage and in that room.
So my thought was since I have the valve for the radiant floor heat which are not used (The upstairs are on different lines.)I would tap into that and use those existing water supply lines and existing thermostat to run the new radiators.
My dad has a Tarm wood fired unit that operates much the same way. heats big water tank water circulates to house radiators. Solar is not so hot on the South side of lake Superior especially in the lake effect zones so he went with the Tarm.
I was thinking with some of the same tubing and a few fancy adaptors it just might work.
The key is to find two reasonably priced radiators that look good and have lots of life left in them.

[Ralph Day]

Mitch,
Is there a Habitat for Humanity Recycling store somewhere near you? Or something similar...recycled building materials depot or store? They may have some radiators taken out of demolition or reno jobs. Only other place might be a "salvage"/junk/scrap yard. The wieght of radiators taken out of demo/reno jobs would be $$$ to somone somewhere, you just have to find them before they're melted down and sent to China.

ralph

[Rob Beckers]

Why would you have to break up the entire floor to fix a leak? I would think that if you can locate the spot, you'd only have to break up that part and fix the pipe, then poor a bit of concrete to fill up the hole (with concrete bonding agent so it doesn't crack at the edge). If memory serves me I've seen pictures of at least one occasion where the same problem was solved just like that.

If it's a small leak, the problem would be to find the location. Being an electrical engineer I tend to turn to electrons for this :D; flush the pipe with water plus a little salt to make it conductive, let it sit for a while (pressurized), then measure the point of lowest resistance from the pipe inlet to the floor (assuming it's PEX inside the floor). Maybe there are better or easier ways though.

-RoB-

[Mitch Walma]

Rob, how soon can you get to Colorado? i have a few engineer aquaintences though.....

[Rob Beckers]

In summer I might have taken you up on that Mitch. As it is, we got enough snow of our own, so I'll stick to Ontario. :) As a matter of fact, we're snowed in right now. About 1 foot of snow on the driveway, and 3 feet where the plow created a wall of snow. Even with snow tires the car won't get through that. So, until my buddy with his big tractor-mounted-snowblower blows me out we're stuck in the house.

I have dug up where I read about fixing an in-floor leak. It's a blog from a straw-bale house builder that I read years ago (http://www.glenhunter.ca/2003/01/) (the whole building process makes an interesting story b.t.w.). Scroll down to the "leak" part.

-RoB-