Pressure testing UFH prior to screed....

[r6deano]

Good evening guys n gals....

Can't find a recent thread on this matter, wondered if someone could shed some light on the matter....

I'm laying my 7 loops of UFH this week prior to the screed being laid next week.....I want to pressure test the pipe work, and I'm finding conflicting advice out there on the WWW....my plumber has gone AWOL too....!

I was under the impression I could hook all the loops up to the manifold and dry pressure test from that....thoughts please?

I've contacted the supplier of the pipes to get recommended test pressures.

Tia guys

Dean

 

[John D v2.0]

Should be a wet pressure test for safety reasons. There's a huge amount of energy in compressed air.

 

[r6deano]

Should be a wet pressure test for safety reasons. There's a huge amount of energy in compressed air.

Thanks for the reply John....suggestions on best method ...can I hire a tester ? Some say test for a week ?

 

[John D v2.0]

Week sounds excessive, from memory it's air to something nominal like 0.5 bar then wet to 3 bar for 10 minutes then 10 bar for half an hour.
You need to leave it at a bar or two when you pour the screed anyway.
You can hire a pressure testing pump with a handle and a guage built in to the bucket.

 

[muggles]

Connect everything to the manifold, completely fill the pipes with water and then use a wet testing pump to increase pressure to 5 bar. Leave on test until screeding is complete

 

[r6deano]

Thanks gents. I'm going to hire a rothenberger rp50 , wet test defo seems worth it, with around 350+m of pipe prior to screening, the water will prove much easier to locate a potential leak.