Best Of

Again, thanks everyone. I plead guilty to paralysis by analysis, my weakness perhaps. Back to comments from GGross: I fully understand that good advice because I spent my carrier of over 50 years in multiple industries, companies & institutions doing design, manufacturing, production/process engineering, facilities engineering and management. Over 20 final years was in institutional facilities management and construction at a small college and then a major university; this included university research labs and data centers (both conventional under-floor plenum cooling by Liebert units and a new data center where high-power server racks were water cooled). However, in those environments we dealt primarily with vetted engineering consultants, contractors and architects and we had client-friendly and enforceable contracts, which I did enforce. The mantra I preached to my subordinates was "you get what you inspect, not what you expect."

I find the residential contractor environment full of minefields and inflated pricing. It's hard to identify really good contractors (or if they are good they are too busy and can't get to you for months). I'm in a small city (actually a town; the largest in VA where cities are not part of counties but towns are). We have only one independent residential/commercial HVAC contractor universally praised for good workmanship and service; I have a quote from them: $35+k for 2000 sq.ft. house retrofit (Mitsubishi). I have two other quotes so far - over $30k - from companies beholden to their private equity bean-counter ownership. Hard to swallow for a retired guy who knows what equipment and material costs really are. (Don't even talk to me about replacement window ripoffs!) I have little choice but to turn to smaller independent contractors who have less overhead.

maybe that's why so many tankless coil plates leak

Forty-five years in the trade and I don't own a torque wrench. And I don't think any heating contractors in my area have one either.

Torque spec's. aren't always stated. I see them mostly on Viessmann instructions.

Triangle Tube HX bolts seem to be the most sensitive, i.e. too tight and they will shear off. Hand tight with another half turn with a socket set is good; check for CO in the cabinet.

Wondering if I really need one or is it going to be another tool that gets lost in my truck.

In my opinion that PVC was not properly solvent welded, that isn't the materials fault it's the installers fault.

I don't think that even get hot warm, look at the barcode label on the coupler.

B vents can pull apart easily if they're not twisted and locked together correctly.

Single wall galvanized pipe can pull apart easy if there isn't the proper 3 screws per joint.

@loamyroots11 said: "Hmm it was hard to tell if the compressor was humming with the condenser fan running. I just pulled both capacitors from the system."

I have had the same problem… to rule out or confirm the compressor hummmm, I would usually disconnect the fan motor to eliminate that noise. the you can hear the compressor start or just hummm.

Of course, I can't let this one go. Many times when a control or compressor humms… it is because they forgot the words. If you put the appropriate sheet music on the floor near the compressor, the humming may stop.

oh my, a Bumblebee😆

Nice clean piping work.

@Brandon_MN I did pretty much what you are looking at not too long ago. Kept all the old pipes in the walls to avoid any interior work. In the basement I removed the main horizontal pipes and connected right to the eblow on the risers going up. Some of the risers had more than one rad, those got 5/8" feed, the rest 1/2". All pipe home run to two manifolds in the utility room. Ran all the new pipes through the joists so I now have a completely flat ceiling.

It does look a bit wrong to see 5/8" pex connected to 1 1/2" black pipe. The funny part is that the system works way better than it ever did before. Some of the rads that were far on the old gravity main would never get enough heat, with the new setup I can dial in the flow to these and get nice even heat everywhere.

Best part is no more pipes that I can bang my head into.

Undoing some of the old pipe was not fun, did break a pipe wrench with a 6' cheater bar but got all the pipes out of the fittings.