really scary job tody

Kathe

Oh, I did something like that to my new service man, too. I, courteously I thought, fired up the system before he arrived (it was a freak 70 degree day in Oct.) so I could show him the unevenly heating radiators and he would not have to wait while it heated up. It started giving of a noxious odor, so I turned it off for a while, then when I got the call he was en route, I turned it on again and waited on the front porch because it smelled so unpleasant, but I thought it was just old dust on the pipes as it is a crumbly cement floor basement. When he arrived I told him about the smell, but that it wasn't fuel. He made quick for the front door, stepped in and asked if I had been refinishing my floors - "nope". Any electrical work lately? - "nope". Where is your basement (said with a tone of urgency) - then he bolted for the basement and ran down the stairs. He yelled, "Where is the emergency shut-off!?!?" I, smart girl that I am, knew exactly where and pointed. He shut it down, froze for a minute, then took a deep breath and looked at me. He showed me that the smell was the black foam insulation (the wrong kind anyway, but it was there when I bought the house the year before and worked fine) had been melting and dripping off of the pipes leading from the boiler. Needless to say, new boiler. An expensive learning lesson, and a really, really nice service man (especially when tears started running down my face when he told me how much they ran - he later, when we were sitting on my back porch and I made a joke, said he was glad I was feeling better because he felt like the dog had died when I started crying back there- poor guy).

Good story yours! I'm glad I'm not the only (saved) dummy.

k.

jeff_51

this is what I found today

went into a duplex on a no heat for the 2nd floor and uncontrolled heat on the first. 2nd floor boiler is about 35 year old Hydrotherm. The water feed was directly tied into the potable water with no reducing valve, or isolation valves but it did have a SWING check on the verticle line. Cours it wans't doing a thing but flopping there. At least he had it pointed in the right direction. So, we have line pressure in the boiler. Lukely this is the old part of town and only has 45psi. The 2nd thing I found on this boiler is NO, and I mean NO relief valve. Luckely the pilot was out. Got that one up and running. Boiler number 2 for the first floor is a 1904 Arco that was running off the limits when I got there, cause the stat had blown and they were running it that way to get some heat in the house. I looked at the t&p gauge and saw it was pegged and thought, bad gauge. Then I saw the old thrush relief valve had been plugged. Shut off the boiler switch which only shut off the pump relay. The wiring into the gas conversion unit had been all cobbled up to, so shut er down. I just love standing in front of a ticking time bomb. Luckily the limits were still working. Old strap on with mercury switch. Took a good look at it. The upper clean out door was completely broken off and was hanging in place with 1/4 inch alum pilot tubing. Had at least a 1/4 inch gap in it that had been pumping flue gas into that basemant for who knows how long. Condemed this one. Will replace it tommorrow. -5 tonight. Will be a long day tommorrow.

HAPLUMBER

WHAT I FOUND TODAY

I FEEL THAT WAY ALLTHE TIME I STAND IN FRONT OF A CHERRY RED BOILER WITH NO WATER IN IT AND EVERYTHING PLASTIC IS MELTED ALL AROUND ME AND THAT IS THE ONLY ROOM THAT IS HEATED

TIM

Weezbo

It only takes a single drop of water....

best to shut it down and tell the habby homeowners to hangout somewhere for a few hours...then we wont be reading about you on the 11 o clock news.

Constantin

Congratulations on the Save...

... and I am glad that you came out of that experience with all limbs, etc. still attached. Red-hot boilers are scary indeed, particularly if some Darwin-award seeker has managed to bypass some of the safety-devices, messed up the wiring, etc. Any pictures of the before and after?

kevin coppinger_4

actually if I saw that....

I would br taking a digital camera w/ me to document what was there...cover yourself...kpc

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jeff_51

got pics of the old beast

haven't gotten them loaded into the pc yet. Just got a digi-cam last weekend and haven't gotten it all figured out yet

Richard Miller

I nearly met my maker with a red hot boiler 3 days before I was to get married.

No heat call. Dear old client walked me to the boiler room. In the back of the basement in a extra room dug out just for the boiler.

It was one of those old 4' high boilers. Red hot.

Just then he says "Oh, I see the problem" as he reached out to turn on the closed ball valve on the water feed line.

I JUMPED into action and literally HIT his hand away. He was 3" from the valve.

I hit the power and weakly wobbled my way out to the gas tank to shut it off.

Took me an hour to recover properly.

I was literally 3" from death.

bob young

dry fire

he would of cracked the boiler but that is not death threatening. now he might of had a heart attack when he got the price of the new boiler but that is his problem.

Richard Miller

I was under the impression it would have caused a steam explosion.

BTW, he had a new boiler by that night anyways. It was in his best interest. The next day I returned and did a boiler room repipe.