I am looking to purchase a home built in 1950 that has radiant heat with copper pipes inside the concrete slab foundation. The home has been vacant for a little while now too, not sure if that effects it. I have never had any experience with radiant heat before and am worried that it might fail due to the age of the home. Plus, it seems like it would be incredibly costly to repair… if that's even possible. Any advice would be most appreciated.
Concrete – How long does radiant heat in a concrete floor last
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You have a couple things going on here: 1) The posts. an engineer would have to evaluate to be sure, but it's most likely that you will not be able to remove the posts without providing beams of some sort to span the space between the walls. Their irregular arrangement probably lines up with walls that they are supporting in the first story, which in turn are supporting the floor of the second story. 2) Clearance. Digging deeper to get additional clearance will be challenging, because you will have to leave the footers under the existing foundation in place, and not undermine them. This means you will likely end up with a floor that is a fair amount smaller than the existing space. Also, you will have to support the part of the house that are held up by the posts while they are being relocated/lengthened.
In either case, you will need advice from someone knowledgeable in building structure and foundations.
Overall, it may be easier/cheaper to raise the level of the house and add additional height to the existing foundation (if it is in good enough shape to take the additional load) than to dig deeper. A contractor that is experienced in this will know how to support the house while it is being raised, and you may be able to include new support beams to eliminate some or all of the posts at the same time.
Type of flooring dictates how "perfect" it needs to be, carpet being the least work. Vinyl is flexible so just no real drastic changes.
Below are the basic steps to fixing uneven concrete floors.
Use a straight edge and mark high and low spots. (Really exaggerated case in this image)
Or if you like gadgets, Bosch has a new laser out that lets you easily mark the uneven parts.
You use a grinder (with dust mask and safety goggles) for high spots. You can rent a large floor grinder or get on your hands and knees.
and SLC (self-leveling compound) in low spots. For SLC just follow the manufacturer's instructions. If the floor is really bad you may want to pour the stuff over the whole thing.
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Best Answer
According to the Copper Development Association, it is perfectly fine to embed copper tube in concrete under certain conditions. However, it is unlikely your home met all the conditions like making provision for thermal expansion (especially important with a heating system that will likely cycle on and off many times in one day) Another important requirement is to protect the copper if "it comes in contact with concrete mixtures that contain components high in sulfur, such as cinders and fly-ash, which can create an acid that is highly corrosive to most metals including copper."
In the early 80s I lived in a house that had plumbing in the concrete slab floor. Not heat, just domestic water. It was much younger at the time than your house is now. There was a leak and the only way to find and fix it was to jack-hammer the living room floor. Because the water followed existing cracks in the concrete, a lot of concrete had to be removed to find the actual location of the leak.
My recommendation: write off the radiant heat system and budget for a forced air heat replacement. You can upgrade the house to have air conditioning for the summer at the same time.