Best Of

LOL. I was going to be an auto mechanic, but my old man said "you're not going to be a grease monkey like your cousin"

Dragged me down to the local community college and signed me up for "Heat and Power".

I started at an Oil Co the first summer out of school and began cleaning boilers.

Ancient Snowmen boilers with 1920s & 1930s Petro oil burners that made more soot than heat. Came home every day looking like a chimney sweep.

A grease monkey wouldn't have been as dirty.

Foam in the TL means air in the fuel line.

Understand that if the fuel line is in a vacuum it will leak air in and you may not see any air leak out.

Find someone who can flare tubing.

Its no different than a pipe connection with a union. You don't tighten the union first, then try to spin the whole thing. End to end, if turning side A clockwise, side B goes counterclockwise. Not good. The union connections are at the pump for ease of service of the pump.

Or the dryer vent is next to the boiler God forbid

Thanks everyone. I will try to skim it this weekend and see what type of difference it makes. I've lived here less than a year so I don't know the whole history of this boiler but the tag on it says it hasn't been skimmed in 5 years. Not sure if this needs to be done more often.

All of my vents breath like this. In my system I believe it's the steam "inch worming" down the mains as the warm up. Steam pushes forward into the cool piping and condenses, sucking more steam into the space, over and over.

For now I'd concentrate on skimming your boiler and getting the water nice and clean. After that we'll see how it goes.

Do you have an accessible skim port, and do you know how to skim?

Kids Gotta bang around in menial jobs sometimes before they see things clearly..I did..Mad Dog

I'm very happy today and so is the young lad I just connected with my old plumbing shop. 23, Associates degree in Business. VG suburban family, not an office guy. He starts at the bottom in the warehouse Monday. Mad Dog

I had a different experience. During HS, my father got me a job working for him, cleaning all the bathrooms at night in a 16 story building, taking out the trash, painting, re-lamping light fixtures, unclog toilets, cleaning the old Federal boilers. I loved it.

But the old man insisted I go to college. He said, do you think I like working for "the man"? I am wholly dependent on him, his ability to run his business, his moods…If he says jump, we jump. We have to lick his boots. We have no education and we are limited. We can't go wherever we want. But, if you graduate from college and decide to come back to this, it is YOUR decision. At least you have a choice in the matter and a degree that let's you walk if the situation is't right. Unlike us-we're stuck here.

It's the American dream , really. To have your kids do better than you. So, I don't slam a college education. I am better for it in so many ways and I still clean boilers and unclog toilets. 'Tis my choice.