Thermal Scan broken/Frozen in floor slab heating system with Flir Camera

Been a little nitch I have been doing for awhile. Not a lot of calls, but when I am needed, we have figured out how we can heat up the lines, scan them and find potential breaks.

This floor today had 3 separate heat runs (reason for the different colored chalk)  

The first run took over 30 minutes to get to pop up on the camera, the other 2 runs were a bit easier.

There are approximately 12 plus breaks in this floor.

Insurance company will have to figure out with the client how to proceed.  

I imagine, they are going to have the spots we discovered tore apart (Jackhammer) and spliced, then pressure test and go from there, or tear it all out.....or try to buy the clients off and install other heat source.

There is an antifreeze you can run in these (which I have in mine) that can prevent this, but the installer said it would take away from better heating (actually there is a mix ratio so you don't rob the heat)

Procedure

Our Butler Truckmount set the psi down to 10 or so psi (not over 20)

Heat was at max yet, but truckmount only on idle and only producing about 200 degrees (hose rated for about 145 degrees) but with loss of heat to entrance point, no problem.

Hook up a connector to each heat loop, put your suction on the other end.....and start the process.

We then used chalk to mark the lines, used Blue tape to mark potential spots that are broken.

We use different colored chalk for each heat loop to help separate out and also for insurance company and adjuster review.  The blue tape is areas we marked of suspected line breaks.  They are very bright on the thermal cam and like pin hole spikes.

Video shows a bit, but we bill $200 per hour....we will bill $1200 plus tax today.

Was a 2 hour drive round trip.

It took about 150 gallons of water today to heat and scan these 3 heat loops.

Mark Saiger

www.Saigers.com

"Bring on the Blue!"

There are a ton of great uses for IR Imagers and they all seem really cool to me, but I have also worried a great deal about staking my company on the images.

The most important thing with any technology is not the image, but the correct interpretation of that image. If you act on a false image, you will be in court explaining what your credentials are in interpreting those images and you do not want to be stuck with saying the "owner's manual".

There are specific courses and certifications involved with the interpretation of IR images (Snell I think is one of them) and they can be expensive to get proper training.

I sat through one years ago for looking at metal fatigue in industrial applications. It was a tough course and you would be shocked at how many things can give you a false reading....same goes for water intrusions and electrical faults. You have to be careful and correct.

When I do mold work, I will use a camera as a tool, but only one of many tools to ascertain the scope of the job. I never want to be sued by home owners or their insurance companies without a strong defense on why I concluded what I did.

Not to be overly negative Mark, but I want people to realize what the risks are before they all run off and find themselves in a bad spot like many companies have done over these tools.

So are you hooking the truckmount to the water lines that run through the floor in that room?

I thought FLIR cams could see water without having to heat the water, like with leaking pipes in walls you could just scan and see clearly where the water is. I am talking about mostly drywall/wood not concrete or ceramic tiles.


Are those the water lines connected to the hot water heater your scanning?

An IR imager will show variations in temperature signatures. By running hot water through the pipes a heat signature is given, but you could also show the lines using cold water as a negative image.

The problems are many. What else is under that floor giving off heat in this case? Electrical wiring for example can give a signature. When running hot water through the pipes, how do you know the signature is the pipe and not the water running across the floor in a different direction?

The lines look to likely be correct by the uniform pattern, no problem there. Now the insurance company is going to have people taking a jack hammer to the floor in the locations that you are telling them contain the pipes.

If wrong locations, they tear up the wrong locations and somebody is going to get a bill for that repair as the insurance company will not pay it.

Cleaver use of the imager, my hats off for that, but still there needs to be caution in my opinion. I deal with thermal cameras every day watching parking lots, wooded areas, rivers, etc. and it is wild how confusing those images can become.

Hope it works out well.

Cool deal, an interesting.

Oh so those pipes are in floor for heating? I thought it was standard plumbing so I was confused why it snaked around so much.

Here are the circumstances to this particular case.

The piping in the floor is for heating.

The unit that creates heat is an electrical heat pump that is an enclosed system (like a small boiler).

There are 3 heat loops (lines in the floor)

The electricity or heat pump unit quit.

Heat to the house went out....everything froze up (could have been avoided with use of an antifreeze in the heat loops).

A plumber was called in to access the situation and they used air to try and pressurize each heat loop to see if there were any breaks. Hooking up another heating unit would just burn that out, so the air is the first thing.

Lines would not hold air, so I was next to be called in as I am able to hook up the truckmount to generate hot water again going through the lines to thermal image the possible damage locations. This was a very remote location also.

As I always tell them (insurance, homeowner, plumber) there is nothing guaranteed that this will be totally accurate, so they are also proceeding at their own risk as well.

Running cold water through the system takes too long to see the lines and with the cold outside, it is more difficult to see as quickly. It took about 40 minutes to be able to start seeing the first heat loop we were scanning....the other 2 loops showed up a bit quicker as the slab and area was warming up.

We called the insurance company after heating the first loop and discovering a potential of 8 breaks....they said to continue knowing that we are just giving them potential information and potential break areas.

To them, they are trying to decide, do they jack hammer out all of it because there could be more damage, and potential damage in the future. I know they will start with trying to fix and area, pressure test and see again....

We know in most of these infloor slabs around here if there is electrical installed, it has to be inside conduit.....this floor had nothing but this heating loop.

Lucky for us on this one, we were also able to have pictures of the floor installed over the foam before the concrete was pored and all out lines were tracking the same in the thermal pics.

Like I tell the insurance companies and homeowners, this is never a guarantee with so many variables, but we do give them some insight into the slab so they can decide what to do next.

Either way, I am always up front and tell them, I am $200 and hour no matter what we find....they take the gamble at that point.

Mark Saiger
www.saigers.com
"Bring on the Blue!"

Mark wrote:  As I always tell them (insurance, homeowner, plumber) there is nothing guaranteed that this will be totally accurate, so they are also proceeding at their own risk as well.



That has been my approach as well, never put your neck near the blades.  Even better if you capture that in writing...I got burned once when they changed insurance adjusters mid-stream on a project.

Nice change from the standard cleaning job, one of the reasons businesses need to consider work beyond just cleaning when you have a versatile machine.  There is some easy money out there if you keep your eyes open.

milspec6 wrote:Mark wrote:  As I always tell them (insurance, homeowner, plumber) there is nothing guaranteed that this will be totally accurate, so they are also proceeding at their own risk as well.



That has been my approach as well, never put your neck near the blades.  Even better if you capture that in writing...I got burned once when they changed insurance adjusters mid-stream on a project.

Nice change from the standard cleaning job, one of the reasons businesses need to consider work beyond just cleaning when you have a versatile machine.  There is some easy money out there if you keep your eyes open.

I just sent out the Xactimate file with pics and notes, an invoice, and links to the videos....

Have dealt with this adjuster and company before....

Will see, but not really messing around as I told them could be around $1000 and it ended up coming in at $1200because it was so large, but we talked with him on the job site, so our part should be done (and we get paid )

Mark Saiger
www.saigers.com

now I get it, we dont have in floor heating systems like that here in Seattle so I was confused at first.

Some people have heated floors but its just electrical no hot water system like that