Burying heating pipes.

[westfire32]

I need to bury some heating pipes under Tiles on a kitchen floor.

I am almost certain that these tiles are NOT laid onto a wooden floor (worst Luck), and my questions are based upon the assumption that I will need to lay them into concrete/solid material.

For various logistic reasons I have to make joints in the pipework (bends/tees/reducers). Obviously I would not cover any joint until I was CERTAIN that there was no leak.

Bearing in mind that i will also need to put in reducers

A) what type of joint should I use.?
B) what type of pipe should I use.?
C) based on the type of pipe used what do I need to protect the pipe from any corrosive action, and also expansion/contraction.?
D) depth??
E) anything else?

I know that pipes in concrete is not ideal, but I also know that in this instance there is no other option.

Thanks in Advance.

 

[Bon]

The only way I would be comfortable attempting this would be to construct a sleeve from PVC which you can sink in the concrete and use a single length of flexible plastic pipework such as Hep2o. This will give your heating pipes some support too and this way if you do ever have a leak, it doesn't mean ripping your floor up to replace the pipes.

Recently did this in a kitchen where we had to get gas to an island and the only way was across the floor (we used tracpipe for the gas, not Hep2o!)

 

[westfire32]

Thanks for that advice, unfortunately I need to put a tee on both flow & return pipes (obviously both) . The only way to avoid a tee under the floor, would be to lift a much larger area of tiles, which i would be very reluctant to do.

thanks for the Hep2o advice though.

 

[roboughton]

how deep can you go with the hole? could you fit trunking in? can you lay the pipes and then pressure test them before covering it all back up? A bottle of Nitrogen and a pressure gage for 24/48 hours standing pressure should do it at say 1.5 bar.

I have seen pipes in the floor put in trunking a few times or the other option i suppose is plastic pipe and put the copper inside it.

 

[hi-spec plumbing heating]

you can buy proper ducting for pipework in concrete floors with a removable lid.

 

[bengasman]

Any pipe that is buried and has a need for joints should be soldered copper