How to Test an Environ Flex Electric Floor Heating Roll

Hello, today, we're going to talk about the environ flex roll system. I've got a product right here in front of me, and if you take a look at it, it's an aluminuminized foil type product that is good for putting under laminate and carpet in the US. And if you take a look at this, it comes with the installation manual on it. And if you take the insulation manual away, you can see that you've got the silver type roll with a sticker that says this side up and you can see the cold lead, which is the black part here. And this cold lead is a non heating lead and it will run over to the wall, and up to your thermostat to be controlled by a thermostat. If you look on the roll itself, you'll be able to see that there is a UL tag on it, that UL tag states that and cULus listed. And this tag will tell you on it what voltage it is, how many watts, how many amps and what the ohms resistance is of this particular roll. When you get the roll out of the box, you should test it with a digital ohmmeter to make sure that it's good before it's put in. When it arrives in the box, it should be tested. 

But the first thing you want to do is make sure that the voltage of the roll you ordered is the same as the one you received. If you take a look at the cold leads here, which are the non heating leads, you can see this one is red and black with a ground. This one is yellow and black with a ground. The yellow and black with a ground signifies that it's a 120 volt system. The red and the black with the ground signifies that it's a 240 volt system. Here we can see our sticker and this UL sticker is going to have the resistance on it. What you want to do is you want to make sure that the resistance shown on here is matched by the resistance shown on the digital ohmmeter. So what you do is you just take our testing probes, you put the red one on the red one and the black one on the black one. And this roll has got about 533 ohms. If we take a look at this meter, we've got 0.53 on a 20 k range, which means that stands for 530 ohms, which means that this roll here is good. You want to do this on every roll that you receive. 

Now if you have a 120 volt system, you're going to put the black on the black and the red probe on the yellow wire and that will give you the same type of reading. Each individual mat has an individual ohm reading no to match will be exactly the same. So please write that down on your warranty card when you're done making your first measurement. The next measurement you want to take is you want to make sure there are no ohms between the black and the ground or the red and the ground. And that's a very simple test to do. You can take your red probe, attach it to the black wire, take the black probe, attach it to the ground, and the reading on your meter should stay the same. There should be no continuity and no ohms. Some meters will say, OL, well, some will say INF this one displays a one when there's no change, now that you've tested from black to ground, you're going to go from red to ground and record that value. Also, that should be INF or OL or one just the same as the black to ground was. This will tell us if the mat is good. There are no shorts in this mat. And we're getting the correct ohms across the Red and the black. 

 Once you're ready to install it, locate the white sticker on the roll itself. And this white sticker will actually keep you from unrolling it because it wants to tell you that this product can only be installed. This side up. So let's take a look at the underside. You can see what we're talking about. One of the great things about the environ cut in turn, flex roll is that you can use it to fill very irregular shaped areas. The way you can do that, as you can see, that the cable has got an open loop on the ends here. And these open loops allow you to stick your scissor under them and cut this mat and turn it. But as we talked about before, it is one side up and that is supposed to be this way. So the wire is always protected from the Walking surface. So here's where you locate the cable and make your cut. But when it's installed, it should be this way with the cable side down. After you get the cuts and turns done on your environ flex roll system, that's the point where you want to make your second ohms reading before the final flooring surfaces installed if your ohm reading is still good, still exactly the same as it was on the card when you opened it and made your test. Next thing you want to do is you want to put the flooring and/or the floor covering over the top of it.

Once the floor covering has been installed over the top of the system. That's the point where you take your third ohm reading and write that number down on the enclosed warranty card, send that off to us and that information will be very helpful if you ever have to troubleshoot your system in the future. Now, if you ever have a problem with your floor system, first thing we're going to ask you when you call in is for your ohm ratings. So you might as well get those ohm readings for us in advance of giving us a call. We're available 24/7.

But we won't be able to troubleshoot your system unless we know the ohms readings that you're getting with your digital ohmmeter. So remember to do the test just like you did when you were installing the unit. You take your red and your black probes. You attach the red to red, the black to black and test for ohms there. Write that number down. Then the next test you do is you put on the red and go to ground, write that number down and then finally go from black to ground and write that number down and give us a call. At that point, we'll be able to help you troubleshoot your system. Well, that wraps up our introduction and easy troubleshooting of the environ flex roll system. If you have any other questions, feel free to give us a call at 800 875 5285 or check us out www.WarmlyYours.com Thank you for watching.