Am I risking an involuntary swimming pool in the basement?

[janwide]

I have a house with a full basement built in 1960. We have hydronic heating, but I don't know if the pipes are embedded in the floor/ceiling of the basement. I plan to install some tracks on the ceiling in the basement and am wondering if I risk drilling into the pipes if they are embedded in the ceiling. The basement is built with lightweight concrete blocks and the basement ceiling is cast.
So, I have two questions about this.
1) Did they usually embed the heating pipes in the concrete in the sixties, or are they in the floor slab above the concrete?
2) If the pipes are embedded, how deep can I drill without risking puncturing them?

 

[sir_daniel]

Possibility to borrow a thermal camera so maybe you can see where they are located?

 

[Avle]

They usually aren't embedded, but you never know.

 

[Liteavvarje]

Apparently, no pipes are visible in the basement ceiling, and it's concrete. You can see if the pipes from the furnace go into the ceiling. Normally, they follow the exterior wall, maybe 10 cm out, not crisscrossing. The drains probably go straight through the slab down into the basement. Where in the ceiling should you place the tracks? In the slab, there are also electrical conduits that lie about 10 cm from the bottom edge, between the ceiling light and up to the switch, the most direct path, diagonally.

 

[janwide]

The heating boiler is located in the middle of the house. The pipes for hot and cold water run up next to the drain stack, so I'm not worried about them. The pipes for the heating system go straight up into the ceiling in the middle of the house next to the boiler. So they must go straight across the ceiling to reach the paths where the radiators are.
The electrical cables are the next problem. I drilled into one many years ago when I put up a hook for a lamp! That pipe was no more than a couple of centimeters into the concrete. In the part of the basement where I now plan to drill, there is only a ceiling lamp, and I know which junction box it goes to. So that should work out.
In other words, it's worse with the heating pipes.

 

[Ljus]

Rent or borrow a thermal imaging camera. It's the only way to be reasonably sure not to drill into a heating pipe. On the other hand, it's likely floor heating pipes for the upper floor and not ceiling heating, so they should be in the upper part of the casting. But without a camera, you can't be sure. I once drilled into a ceiling heating pipe myself. I wish the customer had told me they had waterborne ceiling heating before black boiler water started pouring out.
It's not a very common solution, and it was the first time I had heard about it

 

[janwide]

Rent or borrow a thermal camera. It is the only way to be somewhat certain not to drill into a heating pipe. On the other hand, it should be floor heating pipes for the upper floor and not ceiling heating so they should be in the upper part of the casting. But without a camera, you can't be sure. I have drilled into ceiling heating pipes once. I wished the customer had mentioned that they had waterborne ceiling heating before it started leaking black boiler water.
It's not a very common solution and it was the first time I heard about it

Thanks for the tips and opinions. I have waterborne heating with radiators, not underfloor heating. A thermal camera seems safest but expensive to rent. At the same time, it's not free to repair broken pipes!

 

[hempularen]

There are good thermal cameras available as accessories for mobile phones, they cost a bit but are not ruinous.

 

[Ljus]

Sorry then, I misunderstood and rambled on about embedding floor heating pipes
But the positive side is that the odds of hitting a heating pipe with a drill have decreased drastically.
I think Flir One or something like that is a phone accessory. Maybe not so costly?

Edit
Second on mobile accessories.

 

[janwide]

Sorry then I misunderstood and rambled on about embedding floor heating pipes
But the positive is that the odds of drilling into a heating pipe have drastically decreased.
I recall that flir one or something with a similar name is a phone accessory. Perhaps not so costly?

Edit
Second on mobile accessories.

Off topic, ceiling heating was a brilliant innovation back in the day

 

[Ljus]

Well, I went to a daycare in the late '60s with ceiling heating. It was childproof and good. No radiators to burn yourself on or sharp edges. The downside was that the staff more or less suffocated from the heat radiation at head height while we kids froze at floor level during the winters

 

[shomakie]

In our house, the water pipes are embedded in the ceiling of the basement. So don't take any chances.