Lofall: There's a Warm Spot on My Floor

Why this happens in Lofall

A recirculation loop fault: on homes with a hot water recirculation pump, a loop running constantly can warm a floor without any leak. In Lofall that usually means brittle 1970s polyethylene near Highway 3, and the ground, hardpan a foot down on the uplands, decides how far the water travels before you see it.

The second thing we rule in or out is radiant heat, if the home has it. A radiant floor zone that's stuck on. It's common enough on waterfront on Hood Canal that we never skip it.

Don't overlook a hot line leaking under a crawlspace floor. A pinhole or failed fitting under the subfloor warms the boards above. On Lofall properties from 1970s-to-2000s acreage homes and small farms it comes up more than you'd think.

Before you call

Locates start at the pressure tank, we isolate the buried line from the pump and the house, and then it's a correlator across a 200- to 400-foot run through hardpan and a ground microphone at the correlated spot.

What you can check yourself on small farms off Pioneer Way: confirm the warm area with your hand and note its edges. Do the meter test with everything closed. If you get that far, we'll pick it up from there with pressure gauges and isolation and pipe locator and tracer.

What happens next

In Lofall the work that follows the diagnosis is interior water leak detection, and it runs in order: thermal and moisture, open and repair, isolate hot and cold. HDPE replacements pulled in one piece in roots and till along Pioneer Way sets the pace on acreage along Lofall Road; the sequence doesn't change.

Our Lofall coverage for warm spot on the floor runs Pioneer Way, Port Gamble, Lofall Road, Kitsap Memorial State Park and everything between. We're based in Central Kitsap, about half an hour north of Poulsbo, with pressure gauges and isolation and pumps on the truck.