Best Of
Re: Large Shower Riser
Those escutcheons and faucet handles look exactly like the ones in the house where I grew up, built in 1952 in eastern Massachusetts. American Standard I think.
bburd
Re: Large Shower Riser
Hi, I'll agree with @delcrossv . Long ago, I built a small chamber to go on the end of the shower arm, ahead of the showerhead. It did a good job of slowing the rate of change in water temperature when an imbalance was created by someone flushing a toilet, or washing machine coming on. Not having to jump out of the way was good. 😽
Yours, Larry
Re: Boiler Heats House and Pool
Hi, It doesn't happen often, but we had a freeze in the 1990s that had all of the plumbers out until around midnight dealing with burst pipes and cracked valves. Even plumbing at homes right near the ocean had freeze damage… It's not all that hard to do the work in a way that's less likely to freeze, so I do.
They shouldn't have laughed at you!
Yours, Larry
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: Question about swing joints
The amount of movement is exceedingly small — as @mattmia2 said, at the very least a dial indicator and rigid pins. That, however, doesn't mean it is zero. It isn't. The point of a swing joint is to allow an expanding (or contracting) pipe to transmit that movement to a joint which can twist slightly but relatively freely. If it can't do that — say it goes to a joint which really is rigid, the forces can be very large. Now if the joint is really rigid — say, for instance, really well welded or brazed, that may not be a problem. Otherwise — say, for instance, soldered, small cracks will form in the joint material and, over time, will get larger (called fatigue cracking — for heating applications it would be low cycle high stress fatigue) and eventually the joint will fail.
Re: Question about swing joints
A sharpie won't do it, you'd need some pins and a dial indicator or something like that.
mattmia2
Re: H/W Coil replacement
I was told by sparky my panel, every few months tighten the connections. It’s amazing how loose they can get on the larger loads in 3, 6, 12 months.
all from expansion, contraction.
pecmsg
Re: H/W Coil replacement
Wire wheel the boiler, chase the threads to get the junk out.Grab the stud kit and get washers. Don't hulk them in there. Anti-sieze, little high temp silicone.
Snug them wait 45 min, get lunch, then snug'em smore.
BDR529
Re: deleting unused steam riser
A sawzall would be tough to get in there. I usually slice it with an angle grinder 95% of the way through on both sides of the fitting and drive an old screwdriver in the cut. Never damage the threads that way and no pounding.
