How To Shim A Concrete Floor To Add Pex Tubing

Confirm in advance that any chemical additives used in the concrete mix will not react with pex tubing.

How to shim a concrete floor to add pex tubing.

While pex is a tough pipe it can be damaged by a piece of rock or other abrasive stuck in an outsole of a shoe. There s a little shoulder on all the fittings that s where you slide the pex to. Arrange for a contractor to pour concrete over the pex tubing to create a concrete slab. Use a pair of slip joint pliers or your fingers to slide the crimp ring up.

You ll know it s in position when it s between an 1 8 and 1 4 or closer to the end of the pipe. How i installed the pex tubing for radiant heat under the slab before pouring the concrete floor in my pole barn house. Check my layout for an example. Pressure test the pex system before during and after the pour.

The flexible tubing is embedded in a. The pex is not deteriorated by the concrete of course think radiant heat systems. Slip a crimp ring onto the pipe and then slide the pipe into the fitting. Most radiant floor pex tubing is stapled directly and correctly to rigid insulation wire laid over and the slab poured with 1 saw cuts made without worry.

Where we specify a raised tube rare and have been using zip strips for over 10 years now but they are hard to keep straight and unnecessary except in an occasional basement where saw. Avoid costly slab and pex tubing repairs. The new plastic fashioned into flexible pex pipe also known as pex tubing arrived in the us in the 1980s initially for radiant floor heating systems. Not sure why to sleeve unless you want to add some protection against physical contact it certainly won t hurt.