Ceil-Heat radiant ceiling heat

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jcardwell

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Hello,
I'm newly registered, but I am familiar with a lot of your content. I recently had my first encounter with radiant ceiling heat, and the brand name is ceil heat. As you can assume, I cut the crap out of the wires. The job was to add can lights in a kitchen. This heat runs through the whole house and a lot of it is still in tact. After I discovered it, I ordered some splice kits through Raychem (name?). Anyway, they were quick to contact me and tell me that the brand is discontinued. I have already suggested Cadets, Baseboards, and best yet was a ductless system which the local jurisdiction pretty much pays for. I am waiting to hear back on cadets and baseboards, because the customer refused the ductless system. Do any of you have any experience with this nasty stuff, or have knowledge of a distributor that may carry the brand "ceil-heat" heating wire and shrink wrap splice kits for it?

Thanks,
Josh
 
Your post suggests that it's individual wires, like a floor heat kit?

I've seen the stuff that is embedded in the clear plastic film and gets installed as a sheet or roll to the bottom of the trusses or rafters before the sheetrock. I forget what brand I was dealing with but in my research I found that Canada had sent out a "stop use" recommendation to all its residents on the stuff. Lots of house fires I guess.

Anyway, if it's the plastic film type, I couldn't find any splice or repair kit. I doubt you will be able to find any. I forwarded the information about the fire hazards to the customer and sold them baseboard heaters instead.
 
Once you cut it, you are out of luck. There is no way to repair it, nor would I want to. That being said, you did them a favor since ceiling radiant heat is the single worse idea ever to heat a home, and I'll I've ever done with it is abandon it in place and install baseboards instead.
 
Found a pic of the stuff I ran into. It's called "Flexwatt". It was super brittle and would crack when I handled it.
 

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Ceilheat was a brand of ITE Imperial Corp, since Gould Inc bought them 41 years years ago no telling what happened to them as the parts of ITE were sold off during Gould's ownership.
 
My parents' home, built in 1961-1962, had Ceil-Heat. I recall watching as it was installed with wire fastened to one layer of sheetrock in a pattern, and another layer of sheetrock over that. They lived there with it until about 1990. We had no trouble with it. There were baseboard resistance heaters in the bathrooms. I don't know what the wire was, but it LOOKED LIKE traditional building wire, THHN type. I was only 12 years old at the time.

This was low-energy cost North Carolina, less than $0.02 / kWh at the time with an "all electric" home.
 
My boss and I installed miles of that stuff in Northern California homes in the 60's. He learned to walk on stilts, and we could heat an entire (new construction) house in a couple hours. It was single-strand wire stapled to the ceiling drywall, in a back-and-forth pattern about 3" apart. Worked like a champ. Silent. But even then, a cut strand meant pulling it all down and starting over. The wire was covered by spraying the popcorn mud over top (under) it.
 
Thanks guys. I knew it was pretty much a lost cause. I just wanted to poll the audience to double check my info before I get myself in a position where my customer can prove me wrong. To those of you who were asking, yes it is single wires ( solid). The insulation says heating wire on it, so I wasn't about to splice it with THHN or the like. I'm assuming baseboards or cadets are the route we'll be going. Thank you all for your thoughts.
 
Comfort Cove

Comfort Cove

Comfort Cove is a good alternative and far better than baseboard in my experience.
I have a house that was done with the sheetrock radiant and I am retrofitting it room by room.
If you have the clearence the Ceramics are an interesting alternative which I do not have experience with. They are said to have some superior energy and radiating characteristics relative to the cal rod style.

http://www.radiantsystemsinc.com/

http://www.radiantheatusaonline.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=9
 
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