Best Of
Re: Old fridge
suction filters are part of the cleanup procedure after a burnout out. Once the pressure drop exceeds 5#’s it gets changed. After the burnout is all cleaned up it “should” be removed.
we also use them when converting a system over from mineral oil to POE. POE oil has an amazing cleaning ability on the inside of the copper tubing. Again once it’s done job it be removed.
pecmsg
Re: Beckett Oil Burner
Use an 1/8” impact bit in a micro ratchet, like the Klein one.
Questions regarding Two pipes Steam in 7 floors building in Argentina
Hi!, I live in the 7th floor of a 7 floor building.
The building has a two pipes steam heating installation.
I'm remodeling my flat and I want to apply some changes that involve taking out a radiator and maybe rotating the position of other radiators.
I read We Got Steam and tried to learn about how the steam works but there are a couple of questions that I'm not clear about.
Attached is the building heating pipes blueprint.
My questions:
I see that for each riser there is a vent on the roof, I'm not clear about this as in all examples I see the vents are in the basement. I also see vapor coming out often from those vents (not constantly, but in total it's almost half of the time the boiler is turned on.
In several rooms the steam pipes do a loop going over the radiator, I'm not sure if this has a reason or it's just because the installer wanted the radiator connections to face a specific way.
I have to remove a wall and want to remove a small radiator from that wall, my idea would be to close the pipes and disable that circuit, but I'm still not sure if that's allright or if in some way I would disable the radiators of that riser for all floors. Is there any situation in which taking out this radiator and blocking the pipes the whole line would not work for all the other floors?. In the blueprint it's this one:
Thanks for any help you can provide, I asked "experts" in my city but I'm not sure I trust what they are anwering me as I had answers that said that I couldn't close those pipes and other that said that it was ok, none of them explained exactly why.
fhc_ne
Re: This is a silly idea
This thing in combo with some kind of trap monitoring can really green that steam. Wow.
Good for them, and good for earth!
https://www.radiatorlabs.com/our-system/how-it-works/
MilanD
Re: Question about swing joints
The situation that @EBEBRATT-Ed mentions— straight header over two or three risers — is really lethal to boilers. But… there are other ways!
The basic principle here is that every pipe (or, for that matter pretty much anything) will change length with changes in temperature. It's not a whole lot: the thermal expansion of steel is about .0001 times the length times the temperature change. Copper is almost 20 times as much. The forces, however, are huge — thousands of pounds. A lot more than a 4 foot cheater on a pipe wrench can manage!
Although the distance the pipe or what have you will try to move is small — so is a crack. And crack something will, if it is a weak point which concentrates the force. And once a crack has formed, it will get bigger over time (for what we are doing this is low cycle (that is infrequent stressing) high stress (very high forces) fatigue.
This sort of thing is a real problem in civil engineering, structural engineering, and aerospace engineering — and should be, but often isn't, in automotive engineering. Also power and chemical work.
Re: repairing a neglected chimney, flue, thimble, liner, and leaks
So you have a CMU block chimney that was improperly built on day one, improperly modified, had two combustion appliances improperly connected, improperly maintained, improperly repaired and you want to stick a Band-Aid on it? Sorry to break the news but this is waaaay beyond resuscitation. An interior chimney must be built to NFPA 211, which requires a 2" clearance to combustibles, firestopped, constructed of 4" solid masonry units and not hollow block, use a medium duty non-water soluble calcium aluminate refractory cement mixture btw flue tiles that are not eroded, deteriorated or otherwise damaged or not properly stacked one upon the other. A chimney liner is listed ONLY if there is an intact 4" wythe wall. Half this chimney is gone from the inside. The effective flue area of that 8"x8" flue is basically a 6" round or about 28 square inches. a 9" circle has an area of 63.62" square. That exterior chimney portion was so rotten they had to glue it together with Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC)-based mortar as stucco. FYI, OPC mortar and stucco tend to trap water exacerbating the erosion of the masonry as well as rotting wood-based products in contact. The water causes the soluble salts deposited over the years of acidic flue gases to migrate towards the outer wall of the chimney. Here, the efflorescence attracts water like a magnet which breaks down the masonry. The alkaline OPC mortar is converted into sand and salt, which is why most of the mortar is visibly missing from the chimney linterior. Even if you reline this chimney, there is insufficient mass to contain it (4" solid masonry units. The thimble is way too close to the combustible mudsill. The chimney connector pipe is corroded and, even new is too thin gauge for that diameter.
On top of all that, you're nursing a dinosaur boiler that is grossly inefficient. Replace the chimney with either a Class A "all-fuel" stainless steel chimney with a 316ss inner liner preferably, or type L vent. You'll have to replace all the rot, reframe/ repair the house, install listed firestops, maintain stated clearances to combustibles, use only components listed for use with that venting system, use 24ga. 316ss rigid chimney liner for your chimney connector with a barometric damper and a spill switch then install a low level CO monitor and you should be good to go.
Re: Actual Performance of Cold Climate Heat Pump in Upstate NY
If your heat pump is blowing warm air, you have the wrong unit for the climate or it is down on refrigerant.
In any place colder than zone 4 you want a vapor injection unit (ie Hyper Heat). These will easaly run down to -20F and supply hot air even on the coldest days. I run one at the cottage which is deep in zone 6 and it is nice and toasty even when it is -25C out.
Older house with wall mount heat pump is hard to get right comfort wise as point source heat really doesn't work well. A better option is always a ducted unit with the registers under windows. Even in a old house, this works great for comfort.
As for backup heat. In any place with expensive electricity, fuel burners will generally be cheaper to run. If you already have it, by all means switch over. If you look at the cost delta in most cases you are looking in the range of $100-200/year, so if the fuel burner gives up, there is no point in replacing it. Thus, if installing a heat pump, make sure to get the right unit and size it to handle your full load.
Kaos
Re: ADVICE/IDEAS NEEDED! 3 Commercial Hot Water Heaters
Hi, I'll stay at 30,000 feet for a bit with tank longevity… Things that kill tanks are pressure fluctuations, high pressure (I like to keep it around 40-60 psi), too much water thru-put, making the heater fire excessively, and overly conductive water (reducing the anode's useful life). You can add improper connections, like copper fitting to steel tank, but it's a smaller effect.
A reason I suggested low flow fixtures is to cut the time the heater/s are firing. A water quality report would be useful as well to get an idea of the conductivity of the water and to see if there are things in the water which could be damaging to tanks or plumbing, like manganese. Salt softening is another question. Softening done wrong can dramatically shorten useful anode life.
The elephant in this room is anodes. Have you replaced them regularly? I've gotten 40 years from commercial heaters by doing so. If you have not been doing that, any other measure is close to meaningless for tank longevity.
Yours, Larry
Re: R454B leak detection and mitigation devise
It's part legal requirements and part manufacturers trying their hardest to not end up on the news or in a courtroom. As far as I can tell all manufacturers are handling the detection and mitigation similarly with slight differences in sensor location and what concentration they mitigate at. You see the sensors in the coil because in a normal upflow installation the refrigerant (if leaking) will fall down to the burner, the manufacturer takes care of this part because they are required to do so (there's a fire in there after all). The equipment manufacturers are not supplying any sensors or mitigation for your connections outside the mechanical room because it is not their job to do so, and quite frankly local codes haven't all decided what will or will not be required of you for leak detection outside the cabinet From what I can tell all the boards, whether built in or separate (they will likely all be built in within the next year ) can take an extra sensor as there will be situations with 2 furnaces in one room where codes or manufacturers requirements will require a second sensor on the outside of the furnace cabinet to prevent one refrigerant line from leaking and ending up in the other furnaces cabinet. Allied Air brands and I think Lennox as well have sleeves for where the lineset connection is made at the coil so if your field connection leaks it gets picked up by the sensor, should make finding a leak just a bit easier
Honestly from an equipment perspective this is such a minor change, and one that should detect a leak before there is a real problem which may be beneficial to an installer. The parts I am worried about are the local code requirements for refrigerant piping, they aren't even finalized here and the guys are installing the stuff.
@SuperTech much of europe requires the sensors since about 2020. One of the sensor manufacturers was key to getting the regulations passed (go figure) I imagine much of Europe doesn't have typical gas fired furnaces so the overall possibility of a leak actually igniting goes down tremendously when you have an air-to-water heat pump, or a wall mounted mini split.
GGross
Re: Where can I find Pennsylvania code reqs for residential basement oil tanks?
Home Depot & Lowes have instantaneous electric water heaters not much larger than a 5 Gallon Bucket that are great temporary hot water units. Good enough for hot showers. Mad Dog
