I have a costomer who called me about a water leak in her house. After investigating the situation, it is apparent that the leak is coming from a copper line that was run under a cement slab under an extention that was added on to the original house. The extention/concrete slab is approximately 60 feet long and 25 feet wide. The water line supplies the hot water for a bathroom at the far end of the house. Water is obviously leaking somewhere under this large slab but it hard to find because the water does not pool anywhere, even after leaving it on for a few hours. Instead of breaking anymore holes through the concrete slab I am confident I can bypass this pipe altogether by taping into the pipe in her basement where it disappears under the slab and atached it at the the bathroom supply line.
My idea was to run a new pipe outside underground along side the 60 foot slab and attach it to the far side of the hot water supply pipe inside the bathroom that i already have exposed. My concerns are;
How deep would I have to bury this pipe so it doen’t freeze (I am in NY on Long Island)?
Can I use pex? If not, what is recommended?
Any sugestions on how to insulate the pipe ( are lengths of foam insulation enough?)
Thanks, Steve
Replies
How deep you have to bury it is something to ask the local building inspector. I'm guessing at least a foot, maybe 18 inches (would be 4 feet here), and it needs to be down a certain distance (or shielded with concrete or some such) to protect it mechanically. And keep in mind that you need to keep the pipe at this depth underground for the whole distance that it isn't protected by the building envelope.
Should be an excellent place to use PEX, unless local codes prohibit it.
In some similar situations the fix is to run the pipe overhead, in the attic, but this obviously creates a freeze hazard if the attic isn't "conditioned".
>>>Any sugestions on how to
>>>Any sugestions on how to insulate the pipe ( are lengths of foam insulation enough?)
Are you sure there is no way to route this pipe through the interior? I'm no expert in this field, but running hot water lines underground, even with insulation, seems to invite problems to me.
There is no way to run this pipe through these rooms unless you go under the slab. There are tiles and rugs that would be ruined. I think the best way would be to run it outside underground along the slab if this is even a possible solution.
The attic would have been a good way to run this but the whole extention is valted with no room at all for this pipe.
Just run the pipe exposed and make it a "feature". ;)