Help! Heating plumber - hot water system radiator pipes need to be moved - fast!

We have some hot water radiator pipes between first and second floor that need to be moved in our kitchen. We had hoped to put it off until summer but we just pulled up the bathroom floor above doing a cosmetic reno and found that working on the pipes from below may be difficult or impossible once we lay the new bathroom tile because of clearance issues once new bathroom floor installed. The horizontal run of the pipes would be snug up against the subfloor where connections may need to be made making any wrenching tough.

So we would need a plumber to come out as soon as possible to let us know if our assessment that this needs to be done now is correct, and if so, to move the pipes.

We know it’s heat season which is why we feel the guys I’d love to reach out to like eman are booked solid. Anyone know someone who could do this in a tight time frame?

greenworks

in General Discussion 2 years and 5 months ago

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justinromeu26 | 2 years and 5 months ago

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just so others know. years ago, we would have taken a shop vac to this unknown screed. unknown rubble. we would have have not thought a thing about asbestos. not until say the 1990’s. and even then, if i was say 18 in the 1990’s (or now), i might not because 18 year olds do not think. a shop vac would make easy work out of that stuff that boo is talking about but it also will spread that dust all over the place (even with a hepa filter because the seals around the filters are not perfect in cheap shop vacs). we don’t use shop vacs for anything anywhere because they just spread dust around. don’t own one.

Guest User | 2 years and 5 months ago

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@booisgolden good news that your piping clearance is not a problem. In the event you encounter another urgent plumbing curveball you might consider https://www.parksetplumbing.com
I haven’t had them re-route heating pipes but they did arrive to inspect, draw up a proposal, and return for repair of a section of return line on a basement steam pipe for me this week in Prospect Heights. I hire them from time to time with generally responsove and good results

justinromeu26 | 2 years and 5 months ago

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@maggie, i am glad your father wore a suit. A lot of us did plenty of things without thinking about this and i’d still like to know what the busted up screed they put under the bathroom floors is made of. Its not like its busted rubble from a demo job. Its different. No one talks about it, in a modern sense.

justinromeu26 | 2 years and 5 months ago

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you cannot count on seeing non friable asbestos in cement like product like that. i am talking about that old screed. i have never looked at it that closely but have studied broken fire block that we have had tested. some things look different and not always fibers. some cement like products are acm with no fibers. i am saying this for the wider audience.

i am not sure where they get that old screed you are seeing boo. i am not sure of the origin of it and have wondered that. it looks like rubble.

we had a steam water heater in a building i worked in and it had a coat of cement on it with asbestos fibers in it. they were big fibers. you could really see them. they guy who had done that job in the 1960’s was still working there and he thought nothing of it. said the asbestos came in bags and he poured it into the mortar.

Guest User | 2 years and 5 months ago

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@homeinspector – 30 years ago? 5th grade, growing up in a house from the 1910s, asbestos insulation on all the heating pipes that my dad single-handedly removed wearing a hazmat suit and a respirator, screed under the bathroom floor tile that is still there and still may or may not contain asbestos 🙂
testing is pretty straightforward and will give peace of mind.

Guest User | 2 years and 5 months ago

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@homeinspector – 30 years ago? 5th grade, growing up in a house from the 1910s, asbestos insulation on all the heating pipes that my dad single-handedly removed wearing a hazmat suit and a respirator, screed under the bathroom floor tile that is still there and still may or may not contain asbestos 🙂
testing is pretty straightforward and will give peace of mind.

greenworks | 2 years and 5 months ago

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@maggie oh dear, what doesn’t have potential for asbestos in these homes?

We’re going to consult expert to be on safe side but I understand they used to mix the fibers in with the screed to make it stronger (later testing apparently showed little benefit), and our screed has no fibers at all.

justinromeu26 | 2 years and 5 months ago

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@maggie: ouch! where were you 30 years ago.

Guest User | 2 years and 5 months ago

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@booisgolden – FYI this cementitious screed material can sometimes contain asbestos.

Guest User | 2 years and 5 months ago

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@booisgolden – FYI this cementitious screed material can sometimes contain asbestos.

greenworks | 2 years and 5 months ago

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That’s so awesome Steve! Thanks!

justinromeu26 | 2 years and 5 months ago

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ok, i was going to get to that stuff. i have known that stuff is in the floors but i did not always know why until i took a class at Pratt twenty something years ago. the class was taught by a man who is pretty well into this stuff and has done it all his life, Edward Re. this is what i can recall: that stuff is called screed and what they used to do was lay it down and also burn the top of the joists a little to make them a little narrower and maybe put a soft charcoal like finish on them. all this was done so as to make a bed to lay the next layer of mortar (which i think they call screed today) and not only did the rubble support that bed, but the burnt joists and that rubble allowed the structure and the mortar floor above to move independent of each other. this is the best i can recall.

fortunately today, when they or you put your bathroom back together, they will not lay that rubble so get rid of it and then you will be able to deal with your plumbing. a subfloor will go down with mortar and perhaps a membrane.

greenworks | 2 years and 5 months ago

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But anyway I think crisis averted- there is a cementitious material completely filling the space between our joists that obscured the actual problematic connection.

I was hell bent on NOT dealing with this now so early this am I removed the loose bits of cement and when I did, I saw a tee/coupling dropping down from the elbow that would make the clearance issue I thought we had a non-factor. Whew. Sorry for false alarm.

On a tangent, since I’m here lol – every place we have original tile in this house, the area underneath, between the joists, is filled completely with cementitious material. It is in primary bath and under our vestibule too. Was this the best substrate available in 1910?

Why did they do that? Steve, you have to have some thoughts!

greenworks | 2 years and 5 months ago

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Thanks Steve I was assuming this being heat season I would have zero chance getting any of them. I know eman said on a previous thread he was booked solid.

justinromeu26 | 2 years and 5 months ago

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You know there are three people on this board who do this sort of thing, i’d start there. I did run into someone from gateway on a job recently and that i believe is the company master plumber is or was affiliated with. The people gateway send out appear to be a cut above some of the help i see from the other companies i have encountered.