I am having an outhouse bit of my house turned into a livable space at the moment and i am going to be putting a radiator in there.
It needs a new concrete floor laying and i want to put the pipes in the floor.
I know that concrete can have some pretty strong corosive properties so should i cover the copper pipes with anything prior to having the floor poured
over them?
If so whats best?
Thanks
you can get copper pipe with a plastic covering .not sure if you buy it already fitted or if you buy it separate,sure someone else will know
why not use this new plastic stuff ?
I already have the copper pipe
can you not make a channel with a cover? I often wonder about this and what one would do if the pipe springs a leak. (if you do put the pipe dwon first, fill with water to test for leaks prior to putting the concrete)
You must cover with a protective lagging, normally a PVC.
Can get it from plumbers merchants
or use plastic water pipe 20/25mm dia and run the pipes in that.
Look for Denso tape.
It is a horrible sticky bandage, but will protect your pipes.
Wrap the pipes in "Denzo" tape
You beat me to it and spelt it correctly too LOL
You will need some room for thermal expansion. We had to get floor dug up because someone had laid CH pipes directly into concrete and they had
fractured.
I would probably use the closed cell insulating material and then cover with PVC.
- Jim
I'd put them inside a plastic pipe as mentioned... If you use a big-ish pipe you might even have room left in case you wanted to put some wire / optic fibre etc into the outbuilding later on (though trying to fish it through would be fun!!!)
I'd lay them in a narrow channel and backfill with sand before putting a 50mm concrete screed above. This should protect them and allow
relatively easy access to them in the future if need be.
Phil
[Edited on 5-4-07 by Hellfire]
quote:
Originally posted by BenB
I'd put them inside a plastic pipe as mentioned... If you use a big-ish pipe you might even have room left in case you wanted to put some wire / optic fibre etc into the outbuilding later on (though trying to fish it through would be fun!!!)
I had this issue a while back. Basically when the extension to my house was built the cowboys just laid the copper pipes intoi the concrete and over a
period of 15 years they had corroded until the pipes finally gave way.
when i chipped away the concrete I found loads of pin prick holes in the pipe
I have since had the whole lot replaced by a plumber who aso used copper pipe butwrapped it all in hessian sacking before recovering with concrete,
apparently this is accepted practice these days....
HTH
Put some plastic pipes in the concrete with the copper ones inside.
I buried mine in the concrete with sand around the pipe then had to chisel the floor up when I had a leak
All of the pipes i have seen encased in concrete were plastic wrapped and then covered with sand. In last house no sand but they did have some insulation type material around them (as well as plastic wrapped).Plumbers merchants will probs be able to advise and supply correct stuff. Maybe even a chat to building regs officer to find out what he would recommend (there are probs some latest regs you may need to conform to).
i know when i had to put somepipe in for my brother he got the copper pipes with the plastic coating, trouble is they do not fit pipe benders so had to resort to pipe springs.
Put the pipe in purpose made insulation, tape up the seam and concrete over. The insulation will protect the pipe and will stop heat loss into the floor.
If the floor is going to be covered it's probably worth marking out the location of the pipes on top of the concrete for future reference. A
friend of mine managed to nail through a copper gas pipe layed into his concrete floor whilst fitting gripper strips for a carpet
quote:
can you not make a channel with a cover? I often wonder about this and what one would do if the pipe springs a leak. (if you do put the pipe dwon first, fill with water to test for leaks prior to putting the concrete)