always the last guy..

S Ebels

For a Darwin Award. You should send it in, he might get an honorable mention and you could forward it to him. maybe if he heard it from someone other than a heating man "just trying to sell me a bill of goods", he'd pay attention.

Unknown

always the last guy

Got a call last nite from a regular customer asking me to check out his neighbor's heating system. ( I guess in rural areas, the neighborhood is 10 miles radius) This what I saw, house built in 93 and they lived there for 5 years and had 4 differnent companies with all different answers like, needs a new,bigger boiler, must remove the iron pipings with copper pipings, needs another spirovent next to existing one,pumps on wrong side (supply),better off going to forced air system, can't remmy others statments.
This system have weil mclain gv5 boiler piped for two air handlers, basement radaint floor heat and garage radiant heat all on one temp! No mixing valves to lower the temps for radiant heat with ploy tubings! Can't raise the air handlers temp as the floors get too hot.. Having ton of air problems on the air handler units...
I changed the woefully undersided expanison tank to keep the reilef valve from poping and keep the air entrained water ( have air compressor for rust removal on well water) from feeding in system. Recommeded installing flat plate heating exchanger for ploy tubing system and repipe the system with pri/secondary, mixing valves, the work system.... Customer said I got the job during the off season.... So, we are the usually the last guy they call.....

ttekushan_3

at least it wasn't dangerous

I get a call from a building owner that the steam heat's quit.

I get there to see a boiler with all the control wiring melted, paint scorched off the front of the boiler, and the metal distorted and melting. One 24v trans for the water feeder toasted/open, next to a BRAND NEW one intended to keep this thing running.

Its been running like this for a couple of years with the wiring suspended in air staying separated for the most part by the Grace of God.

I check for draft first. Marginal but OK (about -.03). I decide to look up the chimney with mirror through the clean out. OK, but not a particularly tall chimney. Determined that the boiler's oversized for the connected load and a bit large for the chimney dimensions. Found it grossly overfired on top of it. Pressuretrol cranked way up (of course). Downfired to match load and available draft. Cemented breaches at the boiler's lower front, some new metal, completely rewired. Fireside and waterside cleaning. Combustion analysis, etc. No CO in boiler room at all anymore. Works great, looks like crap. If it hadn't been going down to -5F with a bunch of tenants living there...

The kicker: I found a garbage pail to put any contents of the cleanout into. In this garbage pail was a Nighthawk CO detector.

"Why's this in here?" I asked pointedly.

The guy says, "Somethin' wrong with it. It kept going off."

-Terry