Replies

1. 
   Notchman | Jan 26, 2006 02:40am | #1

   A "short" or an "open?"  In other words, if the system is not heating and no overloads are kicking, there's probably a severed wire somewhere.

   Did you make any splices?  If Easy Heat is like one I installed sometime back, the wires are like tiny shielded coax and splices can be a culprit.  In my case, I knew "about" where a splice was, but ended up chiseling out 5 sq. ft. of travertine to find and fix it.  A real pain, to say the least!

   And I should add, since the cables are shielded, it's difficult to locate problems.  I had a telephone tech come out with a locator....his ring tone showed up all over the floor....

    

   
   

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   Edited 1/25/2006 6:44 pm by Notchman

1. 
   zydecosarge | Jan 26, 2006 03:39am | #5

   Notchman,

   Thanks for the input, I did not splice or cross wires anywhere and the installation went smooth.  I installed a layer of thinset to cover the wire prior to tiling.  I spread it with a metal float.  At most I could have scraped across the wire with the float edge.  During tiling,  the wire was imbedded in the thinset so the potential for damage was next to nothing.   I take it the telephone guy was not able to locate the splice - you located it from memory.

   Zydecosarge

1. 
   Notchman | Jan 26, 2006 05:51am | #6

   I located it "sorta" from memory.....the tiles were 12 X 12 and I had to remove 5 to find it....and grind and chip out the thinset so the new tile would lay flush.

   Used an air chisel so removal went pretty smooth.....not damaging the wire was the trick....

   The ring tone just lit up all the loops of cable.  The open circuit was in the wire, and since the shield loop was still continuous, the splice couldn't be located.....PITA!  Spent two nights on my knees finding and fixing....I was the G/C on the house and had other work to do during the day.

   I've layed a few of the precut heat mats in the past; piece of cake!....But I wasn't too thrilled with the Warmly Yours.....it works fine, but was not always easy to get the wire and scrim to lay flat.  I mudded it in first like you did, but the bathroom was large and odd shaped, thus the need to remove some wire from the scrim, shorten it up and splice it.

   Works fine now though;  HO is happy. All's well that ends well!

1. 
   zydecosarge | Jan 26, 2006 05:50pm | #7

   Thanks notchman

   Nice to know there is hope of fixing it.

   I am definetly concerned.  I was very careful in the installation.  If the wire was damaged during the installation process, where the most damage could come from the float dragging thinset over the cable, I wonder how  I can prevent more damage when I pull up tile and remove the thinset to fix the damage. I guess the answer is to be very very careful. I have a good hammer drill that will take care of the thinset easy enough.

   Frankly I am not to happy with Warmly yours.  I have used nu heat mats twice in the past with success.  But this was a large odd shaped room so the cable fit better.  I contacted warmly yours and the have some kind of tester to find cable damage, but it is back order and will take a long time to get - a bad sign.

   zydecosarge

2. 
   zak | Jan 26, 2006 02:47am | #2

   You could use a non-contact voltage sensor where you can see the wire, but it's going to be tough to test the wire underneath the tile unless you know exactly where the wire goes.
   On an ounce of prevention note- I think one of the electric radiant companies makes a device that lets you know if you cut wires or short them together when you're setting the wire and the tile. I just installed a radiant floor, and I checked with a multimeter pretty often.
   zak

1. 
   TGNY | Jan 26, 2006 02:49am | #3

   Warmly yours ships there mats with an alarm that triggers if there are any shorts or severed wires. I installed both Warmly Yours and Warm Tiles and I much prefer Warmly Yours.

2. 
   zydecosarge | Jan 26, 2006 03:21am | #4

   Zak,

   Thanks for your reply.  Mistakes are a great educator, I should have checked the ohmmeter readings more often during the process. I will look into locating a detector

   Ken