First bit of plumbing...

This project is part plumbing and part tool making. The plumbing has to do with part of the in-floor heating system I'll be installing. The tool making has to do with crafting a sort of "test rig" so as to leak check the in-floor tubing before we pour concrete all over it.


The in-floor heating system uses plastic tubes to carry heated water into the concrete floor. All the tubes come together at a pair of manifolds which are connected to a pump and boiler. I'm fabricating the manifolds out of 3/4" copper pipe with 1/2" ports. The three side ports are for the plastic tubes and the end port is for either a temperature/pressure gauge or bleed valve. I also added a brass threaded end on one manifold to make it easy to plumb into the "test rig".

The "test rig" is the tool that (once connected to the manifolds) will let me apply a variable amount of pressure to the system. Once everything is pressurized, finding leaks is easy. I want to pressure test the manifolds first so I know that there are no leaks in them before I hook them up to the in-floor tubing. Then once the manifolds are connected to the tubes, I can apply pressure to the tubes and know that if that pressure won't stay constant, there is a leak somewhere in my tubing.

Bits and pieces for a pair of manifolds.

Almost complete pair of manifolds. One with threaded
connection for "test rig", the other missing some type of
bleed valve.

Messing around with some scrap pieces of pipe to make
the "test rig". It needs to incorporate a filling port with a
shut-off and pressure tank.

Luckily I have this old pressure tank left-over from
something else.