Trace Central Heating pipes using Thermal Imager?

[Graeme McClinton]

Hi,

My upstairs floorboards creak a lot, so I want to screw them down.

However, I don't want to burst any central heating pipes, so I'd like to know where they are.

I figured there might be people on this subforum with experience of thermal imaging cameras.

Would these cameras be able to discern under floor heating pipes with enough clarity to be able to easily avoid them with screws?

I ask, because I have seen them available for rental locally for around £80/day, which would be a small price to pay for peace of mind, but a huge waste if it doesn't work!

Anyone have any experience of these?

Any models that would work better than others for this application?

 

[footprints]

My cat was good at locating hot pipes under floors, he would lay there for hours!
I don't think it would be that reliable as you may have cold water pipes and cables that it will not detect.
Lifting a few boards and using a torch with a mirror is the safest bet.

 

[Graeme McClinton]

Well, the difficulty lies with the fact that it's not traditional floorboards as such, it's loft flooring sheets, a bit difficult to lift I would have thought.

Wiring I am not so worried about, as screwing into them should trip the breaker, and not ruin my day as much as bursting a hot pipe would.

The house was built around 1990, and I don't think it's been so majorly remodelled that there might be cold pipes running through the bedrooms.

I can see where the cold feed comes in at the kitchen, which is directly below the bathroom, so I don't think they'll have taken any silly routes upstairs with the cold pipes.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Problem with thermal imaging is that unless the pipes are more or less touching the surface you won't see them. Can work well though:

Sometimes, not so much. No pipes visible here:

 

[Newboy]

Wiring I am not so worried about, as screwing into them should trip the breaker

Always assuming that you hit the cable across more than one core - if you hit just the live then you would have a live screwhead, if you took the neutral out then you would have a broken circuit & if you hit the cpc/earth then you may have an unearthed circuit.

 

[Dan Robinson]

if you hit the cpc/earth then you may have an unearthed circuit.

The screw head would be nicely earthed though.

 

[Graeme McClinton]

Given all this good information, what would be the best course of action, given that I would rather live with the creaking than go to the trouble of lifting the flooring?

Are there reliable ways of remotely detecting live wiring?

If the pipes are low enough to not register on a camera, are they low enough for me to not hit them if I put a screw in directly above one?

Or, put another way, would there be a safe screw length that would not hit pipes low enough to be invisible on a thermal imager, but long enough to be effective?

I'm thinking that there probably isn't a good answer to this, as it will depend on the thickness of carpet, underlay, flooring sheets and how well they insulate!

Would any of you just risk it and hope for the best?

I have already tried removing one nail so I could screw into the hole that was left, but after 15 minutes of trying, all I succeeded in doing was to break the head of the nail off!

 

[Echo the husky]

It's just a guess without pulling up the floors, anything could have been done and it may not be the same all over! I have solid 8.5" deep wood joists in my house, the cables are all run through holes in the centre of the joists, well away from screws. The pipes are all copper, notched into the tops of the joists. I used a thermal imaging camera to identify some heating pipes, but was lucky as most rooms had them marked already. You will need to lift the carpet.

If you live in a property with 'I beam' joists notching is not permitted, so as long as the screws are no longer than the height of the top of the joist and the thickness of the flooring, you should be ok. As long as you don't screw just to one side of the top of the joist and screw into a pipe/cable fixed along the side of the top of the joist. If you know what I mean.

It's often difficult to identify mains wiring locations with enough accuracy to know the depth, but with the house being built in 1990 I wouldn't expect the cables to be notched into the top of the joists. You could always isolate the water supply to limit any water damage.

 

[Graeme McClinton]

Definitely not I-beam for loft joists, and I've seen some joists on the ground floor which were not I-beam.

Does this mean that it wouldn't be likely that the upstairs joists would be I-beam?