Best Of
Re: Mystery tool
I saw one set of bunk beds with exactly the same bolts that @Larry Weingarten posted. Only one I ever saw and it wasn't an old bed.
Re: Literature on Geothermal
looking to stay 40+ deep into the season by alternating loops.
skyking1
Re: Mystery tool
Even now they can't do a lot more than watch a big fire if they don't have a municipal supply to pump from.
mattmia2
Re: Old fridge
LOL, I was wrong - it's not a post war fridge like I always thought it was. Curiosity got the better of me so I pulled it out and looked behind it - the model is B6-39-A, so it's over 85 years of continuous operation.
I'm selling my commercial building this summer where it's at - do these have any value or should I just leave it with the buyer? It needs to be stripped and painted and it needs a new gasket, but otherwise it's ice cold and dead quiet.
MaxMercy
Re: Stealing Steam Boiler Water for Hydronic Baseboard?
Well, technically you are correct on a leaking pump seal — or for that matter any leak on the pumped loop — emptying the boiler. That's one of the reasons, among many, for having a LWCO. The Hartford Loop, however, still protects the boiler against a leaking wet return, and since that is by far the most common sources of leaks in a steam system, why not have it?
You could, in principle, have a hot water radiator fed that way on the first floor. There are several ways to do it — the simplest being to have it up there and make sure it has no leaks, so that once it is purged a standard circulator can circulate it. However, a standard circulator likely will not be able to fill it if is allowed to empty for any reason. A higher head pump would work — provided there is enough head to avoid cavitation at the inlet. Another approach would be to use a heat exchanger and run a normal closed hydronic loop… more complicated.
Re: Mystery tool
Thanks everyone! Talk about crowd-sourced knowledge. Even better than AI!
So I'm going with "It's a bronze bed bolt wrench that can also be used safely on gas lines due to the inherent safety of non-sparking bronze, and can also be used on anything that happens to have a square-head bolt of 7/16", 1/2", or 5/8" size."
jesmed1
Re: Mystery tool
Meanwhile, here is an eBay listing for an old iron "bed wrench" marked "A L Firmin", which was a Boston cabinet company. As Firmin was a maker of cabinet hardware, not gas fittings or plumbing supplies, the bed wrench seems a more likely intended use.
jesmed1
Re: Mystery tool
Hi, I was curious to see what the bed bolts looked like that this wrench would fit, so did a search. Here's what I got. Looks like a good fit 😉
Yours, Larry
Re: Mystery tool
As a plumber I can say that the Whitechapel is a tee wrench and your wrench is a wye. So I am going to double down on it being a gas cock wrench and say it is very similar to the other wrench, but not the same. Bronze would be fairly expensive for a wrench to tighten bed frames.
