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Re: What do you think the future of our industry looks like?
I ve kinda waited out a bit for posting ,but from my point of view there really are not enough younglings going into any blue collar type of work . I kinda think that when it comes to making money like everyone they want the largest return for the smallest effort in most cases. And the work we do is not the most rewarding over a few decades your bonuses are bad back ,knees shoulders and rotator cup aside from arthritis sounds like a good deal . I think most kids are not willing to put in the grunt work and think that doing some thing once correctly and your a pro and should be intitle one to a raise . lol
i hardly doubt any kid would walk my shoes in construction to get where i am and that aint saying much .
From starting out doing basement water proofing installing french drains in existing homes to digging under grounds and doing sewer and water main connection to doing finish work and hot water boiler and all the waste and vent ,b vent chimney installs and all plumbing junk to switching gears and doing hvac for about 35 year from residential to commercial ac splits to package rooftops ,multizone rooftops to process cooling for blow injection plants water towers,refregeration from freezers to blast freezer and in between all that work on single and old two pipe system and a few years of oil burner install and service . Oh yeah go get a chiller lic w toxic ref cert at over 50 . A request of my dad so i did it
i highly doubt that kids today would stick w anything that long while continue to learn more and more aspects of the trade . While learning all this stuff w fairly no monetary increase for long lengths of time ( raises once a year ) I think most of the truly smart one will be off to college and not dirtying there hands .
As time goes on finding the diamonds in the rough w 1/2 a brain that fit some basic requirements will be like hitting the lottery .Being the one big issue i hear is reliability and that lack of dong a couple of basic simple things like showing up to work on time and every day and doing that every day no excuses . Stay off your cell phone ,work like theres a flame on your **** instead of dragging your feet hoping that some else will pick up or carry material or garbage . Seems like the only time the flame is on is when its punch out time then theres a fire under there ****. I know there are a few kids out there like me when i was younger but i have to say i don't think there that stupid any more and realize that it s not glamorous as one may think but you may meet elvis as you are hallucinating in a 130 degree attic while the ho ask how much longer lol . That's glamorous for sure . i guess this is why there are so many non american doing the work but w our new immigration program there's no wonder there is a short coming of workers in the new construction fields and plenty of jobs available but no taker or at least not youngins .
Just my wierdo view standing w one foot on a banana peel and the other in a hole and ready to go at any point w zero resistance
peace and good luck clammy
clammy
Re: Dripping lots of water from the main line air vent
So if the feeder or bypass valve has a slow leak the water keeps coming without registering anything
I think this is the root cause! I carefully watched the water level yesterday and it went up by 1cm over the course of a few hours. I shut the valve leading to the feeder and bypass, and watched it again: no change in water level. So it looks like one of those two has a slow leak which was leading to the boiler flooding and water getting backed up way into the main return. Thanks for the help figuring this out!
Re: heavy duty power relay
Before you slap an expensive contactor in there — and there are lots of them — check one thing: are you really getting 24 volts AC to the coil? Or is something dropping it to maybe 21 or even less? Is the transformer powering the system big enough?
Reason I ask is that the quickest way to destroy any relay or contactor is to not give it enough voltage. It will pull in slowly, and that will give you contact bounce and arcing, and you're done.
Re: Installation of Honeywell Home Smart Thermostat
From photos sent to me by PM, it appears the blue wire is connected to Y on the furnace and therefore must be connected to Y on the Trane thermostat. I don't believe that the Blue wire is available to be connected to C on either the thermostat or the furnace. the Blue wire is identifying as a Yellow wire in this system.
See the left Existing photo has no yellow wire and the Blue is connected to the screw that is marked Y (tough to see in the photo but it was verified by vachi , The other screw terminal is supposed to be the Y1/Lo and on Trane equipment is sometimes used as the Y out to the condensing unit. But that is beside the point.
If there is in fact an additional wire that i don't see, then I proposed the wiring on the right photo that I modified. If there is no extra wire then vachi needs to run another 5 wire to the thermostat or decide if they want to try their hand at this product called Add A Wire ™
Hope this helps.
Re: She canna take any more, Cap'n! She's gonna blow!
Here's an update and summary of figuring out the size of compression tank I need.
First I had to estimate the # of gallons in my system, then use a tool for required tank size.
Radiator Volume
Since I have a mix of radiator types, I had to use different methods. I have:
- free-standing column radiators (Kewaunee) of various sizes
- baseboard radiators (Burnham: 7", Weil McLain: 9")
- Radiant radiator (Burnham)
For Burnham and Weil McLain I was able to find information from the manufacturers.
Burnham baseboard data was only for 9" model so I had to interpolate to 7".
For the old Kewaunee radiators, it's a two-step process:
- Calculate the EDR
- Convert the EDR to water volume
For the EDR calculation I found a couple of sources (GreenBuildingAdvisor, ExpressRadiant) that provided the EDR based on the number of columns and the height. For the volume I used what seems to be a commonly accepted formula: 1.5 pints (0.1875 gallons) per square foot. So for example, our dining room radiator is 18" tall and has 24 sections, which worked out to:
- EDR: 108 sq ft
- Volume: 20.3 gallons
Piping Volume
This was based on visible configurations plus my recollection of how I added pipe for two additions, and split the original gravity piping into zones. I then used numbers from Table D (Page 42, Xylem Air Management
Sizing And Installation Instructions) for the volume per foot of all the different sizes.
The final numbers work out to:
- Radiators: 146.8
- Piping: 56.9 (including boiler)
- Total: 203.7 gallons.
Compression Tank Sizing
I used a couple of different sizing tools. Taco has a web version of a calculator. Xylem has a downloadable program called ESP-TANKS.
These two tools provided very similar recommendations:
- Taco: 44.66 gallon
- Xylem: 44.60 gallon
For these I used
- Initial Temperature: 65
- Max Temp: 170
- Initial Fill Pressure: 18
- Max Pressure In Tank: 28
- System Volume: 204
So bottom line, adding a second 24-gallon compression seems to be just the ticket. I'm prepping it now and will install it in the off-season.
Thanks for all the comments and feedback. This was quite a lively topic.
—Eric
Re: What do you think the future of our industry looks like?
P.S.
"TVMDC" in reality references a mathematical formula to set ones course to account for the following in order:. T = true north, V = variation, M ' magnetic , D = dead reckoning, and C = compass heading ,
Regards,
RTW
Re: What do you think the future of our industry looks like?
I'm am tutoring many Latino & Chinese students as they are the real go-getters in Construction these days. They got the eye of the tiger...Mad Dog
Re: Strange oil burner operation
Is it possible that the nozzle heater is blocking the light from the flame from reaching the eye?
Is it possible that the end cone is partially clogged with a carbon build up that is blocking the light from the flame from reaching the eye?
Is it possible that the fuel is really that cold to cause such a rich flame on startup that it is not as bright enough for the eye to see it?
I have run across burners that do not have a line of sight path form the flame to the eye location and therefore there is a wheel signal (Greater than 2000 Ohms) and by adjusting the position of the eye bracket and painting the interior of a black air tube with silver paint, was able to get the signal to be much better. (Below 1000 Ohms)
Hope this helps, or you found what you needed.
Re: Strange oil burner operation
That is unlikely. Think your still going to have problems. JMHO



