Wright Chat

Hello all! I own a Wright-Fellow designed house, and I am about to begin a restoration. The vast majority of the interior redwood is viable, but the floor itself has failed. The copper-electric radiant heat system has corroded, and there are cracks in the foundation. My plan is to remove and preserve all of the interior woodwork to be reinserted into the house, and to jackhammer the entire floor out, so that the electrical, plumbing, and radiant heat can be updated and modernized. The floor was made by pouring plain concrete over the radiant heating copper wires, and then later mixing 2 pounds of Thompson’s water Seal with 5 pounds of Red Oxide. I have the original receipts and notes from the builder and architect.

Is removing the wood for replacement and preservation assessment, and the jackhammering the original slab and plumbing out for replacement the right way to go about this? This house was built in 1951, and is very tiny- about 525 square feet. I’d love tips and resources on best practices and experiences.

My goal is to restore this 72 year old house so that it lasts the next 100 years.

You can insert new 3/4" flexible radiant tunes into the existing copper radiant pipes so you wouldn't need to jackhammer it all up. You can cut down into the slab grids to lift the portions that need to be repaired & reput the carefully cut slabs back down in place and seal the cuts with new cement and colorant to match color slab. Yes red oxide added to mix for non fad red slab color. Usually 1/2" thick top coat was done with oxide mix. Type "b" pex tube is the type you want to use. Still bends but doesn't kink up on radial turns.

Wright never did Electric gravity heat floor that I am aware of. It was used under wealthy client driveways that were sloped for melting winter snows and ice in Midwest winters. Not sure if any of Wright's client used it however. It was done in the 50s however up thru the 80s in my southeast Iowa hometown for wealthy clients, even my best friends parent's home with steep driveway had it done to their 1970s custom home. I used it down the block from them for a client home I did in 1978 that also had a steep slope drive but going down from the street towards garage so I did s type curve drive so wasn't so drastic in winter or he would have slid off hill into forest. You can get additional help from Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy.

Also, use infrared camera app for your phone to view or find the hottest spots on the floor which will appear white by color. Those are the breaks in the pipes where it leaks. Remove those areas only to repair is needed. You can also hire firm to do floor temp readings too. You will want to run the system with fluid to find the leaks to easily fix then do the infrared or temp readings.

Good luck

A Wright enthusiast here and a homeowner of a slab foundation ranch home here in Central Illinois. I have had various water pipes break in my foundation slab through the years - my suggestion is to contact your local fire department and ask if they could survey your floor with their heat imagining camera. We did it here may times while cranking the boiler etc... and it pinpointed the leaks deep into the slab with accuracy. Next we jack hammered and repaired the copper pipes (nice crimp couplers available now). I did give a donation to the department for their pizza fund each time they helped; admittedly we are a small rural town here, but it may work in your situation. Their camera is in the $20K plus range and can find folks behind walls in buildings etc... The camera use also helped to map out pipe runs that were installed, but never documented in paperwork I have with the home.

Repairing / replacing radiant heating has been discussed many times on this board. I just entered "radiant heating" into the search function and got 163 entries. Some may address your questions, others not. It has also been discussed under house-specific topics. Some I can remember are Hanna (spot repairs), Sweeton (spot repairs), Richard Smith (partial?), Jacobs II (complete); Richardson (complete) and probably others. The architects of the Richardson house photo documented the process online (Tarantino Architects, who also did the move of the Bachman-Wilson house) although none of that seems to be online anymore.

The Hannas chose to do without floor heating, and expressed some regret for that decision in their memoir.

Jacobs I is the pilot example of that type. Photo from the Jacobs's book:







S

In addition to threads here on Wright Chat, the FLW Building Conservancy has some articles on radiant floor systems...a basic overview called “Radiant Heating 101”
https://savewright.org/radiant-heating-101/

Within that article are links to essays of Wright homeowner’s experiences with radiant heating...including my “diary” of our efforts:

https://savewright.org/sweeton-house-a- ... air-diary/

Others:
https://savewright.org/walker-house-rad ... k-product/

https://savewright.org/reisley-house-fi ... nd-by-ear/

(It is only in the last year or two that I have become aware that Roland pronounces his name "Ry-slee," and not "Ree-slee" as I had somehow assumed. This would be consistent with the default pronunciation of the ei and ie spellings, in each case typically but not universally sounding the second letter of the pair.)

S

In Norwegian, the 'ei' diphthong is pronounced as a log 'a', as in the name 'Leif' (layf).

Ah, yes. I knew a Leif in New England, long ago. I have assumed that the ei and ie in our English are inherited from German words---though that could be a gross oversimplification of the facts ?

S

Dr. Brian wrote: ↑Sat Jul 01, 2023 9:40 am A Wright enthusiast here and a homeowner... I have had various water pipes break in my foundation slab through the years - my suggestion is to contact your local fire department and ask if they could survey your floor with their heat imagining camera. We did it here may times while cranking the boiler etc... and it pinpointed the leaks deep into the slab with accuracy. Next we jack hammered and repaired the copper pipes (nice crimp couplers available now). I did give a donation to the department for their pizza fund each time they helped; admittedly we are a small rural town here, but it may work in your situation. Their camera is in the $20K plus range and can find folks behind walls in buildings etc... The camera use also helped to map out pipe runs that were installed, but never documented in paperwork I have with the home.

Great idea calling local fire dept staff to help out! It's certainly worth a try. I have heard to take temperature readings around floors to find the hottest points for breakages for the most part, but like the idea of thermal imaging to see exactly the "mapping" for pipe lines for any future needs including adding to the current systems. I got the recent tip that apps exist for doing thermal imaging you can add to your cell phones, so i passed it along to aid others.
Thanks for the "fire dept" tip. I'll give you credit for any future need by radiant system owners I run into.