Underfloor heating repair

[Dazza1976]

Hi all,
Got to look at a job where the builder has cut through the underfloor heating mat and it’s gone right through the heated cable.
Not something I’ve ever had to do before.
Any one else had a go at repairing this type of thing ? Would it be sufficient to just strip back the insulation on the damaged section and repair with through crimps and heat shrink sleeving ?
Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[SparkyChick]

There are some kits available for specific manufacturers. If you can get a kit which exactly matches the mat then I might consider attempting it, but I certainly wouldn't consider trying to do it with bits and pieces. I'd also consider how many breaks are there? If it's just the one, then give it a punt but if there is more than one break, I'd be inclined to suggest the whole mat gets replaced (at the builders expense) for the simple reason that each break is a future point of failure and if you don't specifically state warranty terms you could find yourself being roped in to fixing it every time it fails in the future.

 

[westward10]

Is the mat a new install or existing?
I agree with @SparkyChick the builder should be funding complete replacement I would never attempt to repair one of these.

 

[oscar21]

I had to repair one about 10 years ago and I rang the manufacturer to ask what I could do, he said they sold a repair kit for the mat but it was basically a couple of crimps and heat shrink tubing which I could get from anywhere so I did it with the stuff that was on the van and it worked no problem.

However the last mat that I layed the other day looked to have an awfully thin heating element running round it, it looked more like a fibre optic cable than a heating element, the one I repaired was almost like a twin flex by comparison.