In floor heat cable repair

[c2500]

lightitup,

I had an install (one of two in a house) go bad. Turned out it was a bad factory end on the matt. The manufacturer paid me for the repair. This was a case that the loudmouth would not have helped. The readings were fine, and it took the leveling compound's curing action to slightly shift the end of the mat. The next morning I about went crazy isolating the problem because any vibration (aka walking) altered the resistance level.

After finding the bad end, repaired it, had a better reading than the initial one, and all is well, and it has been plugging along for over a year now.

c2500

 

[LarryFine]

Larry,

Where do you get a Variac?

Well, you're welcome to drive down here and borrow mine, but you gotta bring it back. grin Otherwise, you might find one at a place that sells or rents theatrical equipment, or they may have an idea.

I did a check and found 150 on eBay. You just need to match your voltage and at least equal the current. Don't forget to monitor the current as you adjust by using a clamp-on or built-in ammeter.

 

[ishium 80439]

I encountered a similiar situation last year. After weighing the options I decided that I would sub out to the factory trained tech in the area. It was well worth it.

This particular problem was multi layered and took an entire day to figure out that the floor was trashed. It turns out that the yumyum who laid the floor (we only provided power) drilled screws into the floor after the cable was down. To this day I'm still trying to figure out why he did this. The only possible reason I have come up with is that he was putting them in there as "levelers" so he knew who thick to put on the thin set. There were at least faults of this type and we decided to stop because we had no idea if there could be many more.

My point in this is that it took a trained tech 8 hours to find these first two faults. Seeing what he went through made me decided that it would have taken me three days and I still would have been guessing. Granted this was a unique problem that was throwing unusual results that were hard to interpret but still I'm glad I had someone else running the equipment.

 

[rodneee]

warm tiles

warm tiles

we have used this product with great success over the years....what i still don't like is that no matter how hard you try to be careful during the install; your fate still lies in the hands of the tile guy.

 

[Article 90.1]

I'm curious what this mystery piece of test equipment from the factory is, have you tried to find out? It just might be a megger or circuit tracer.

FWIW, I just installed the EZ heat in my own master bath. I'm glad to have tried the install on my own house before installing it for a customer. The install was not that difficult and now that I know the moves I can cut my install time in half. It was difficult to resist banging the trowel when setting tiles, however, I almost messed up there more than once!

 

[360Youth]

We had the same problem last year. I did my tests after install and results were fine (my problem was I did not record them properly and had no data to back me ). We hired an IR camera to locate faults. There was at least 2, I think three. With no way of proving whether it was us, tile guy, or another sub, the repair cost was split between us, tile, and GC (minus what we did charge for troubleshooting). The tile guy put in a matt system and we supplied power. I have put in the cable style one other time, about 3 years ago, and never had the first problem. Next time will be a matt system, probably subbed out to tile guy. Not worth the headache. Especially when manufacurer will do everything to put the fault on install.

 

[lightitup]

We had the same problem last year. I did my tests after install and results were fine (my problem was I did not record them properly and had no data to back me ). We hired an IR camera to locate faults. There was at least 2, I think three. With no way of proving whether it was us, tile guy, or another sub, the repair cost was split between us, tile, and GC (minus what we did charge for troubleshooting). The tile guy put in a matt system and we supplied power. I have put in the cable style one other time, about 3 years ago, and never had the first problem. Next time will be a matt system, probably subbed out to tile guy. Not worth the headache. Especially when manufacurer will do everything to put the fault on install.

I too did not record my readings. I have digital pictures of install though, not sure they will be much use.

A follow up - I called EZ Heat yesterday - left a voice message and forwarded my email from customer where he threatened lawyers. I received a phone call a half hour later "though there are still 15 ahead you on the list, we are moving you to the top of list and will be test kit and repair kits this week. You should have it by early next week"

So I guess my FUN will be next week. I just hope repair is successful.

 

[kwired]

Don't know what to say about fixing your problem cable, but for future reference the only time I have seen this done the tile guy installed the cables and I ran power to the thermostat.

He cut grooves in the backer material placed the cable in it and put some type of epoxy over it. Before tiling he was able to test it to make sure it was working. There was no chance of nicking cable with trowel because it was under the epoxy coating. You had to do some damage to the cement board to damage the cable.

I think I will never install one of these myself unless done in this type of manner.

 

[Den]

I have used dynatel and radiotech fault finders with the A-frame's and they will pick up a break in the signal that is still insulated or one that goes to ground, either way. They will also work on concrete as well as dirt or wood. It might be worth trying.