insulation pics using mitered joint technique

gerry gill

Proud of my man Mark who insulated a whole steam system using the mitered joint technique and made it look pretty damn good! There were areas that i wasn't even sure how he got the skrim on the pipe to coat it.

BobC

He should be proud of that, it's beautiful work that shows he takes a lot of pride in his work.

Bob

KC_Jones

Gerry you have some seriously skilled people working for you, but I am sure I don't need to tell you that. Fantastic job the homeowner must be ecstatic!

ww

Gerry, this is great! Is there some instructional guide on how to do this? What a nice looking job and looks like it really keeps the heat from escaping too fast!

I'm going to insulate a steam system soon and would like this to be an option.

Steve_210

Beautiful job.
Can I make the pictures large on my Tablet does anybody know I know it seems to be a problem on the new wall

gerry gill

ww said:

Gerry, this is great! Is there some instructional guide on how to do this? What a nice looking job and looks like it really keeps the heat from escaping too fast!

I'm going to insulate a steam system soon and would like this to be an option.

Haven't seen any instruction on it. The guys got tired of cementing joints with high temp cement, and came up with this themselves. They started using 1 1/2'' thick instead of 1'' and use a filet knife to carve out the insulation over the fitting area. Mark even went so far as to curve a filet knife for the task. I didn't even ask how he accomplished that feat.

gerry gill

some more pics of the same job

Emeliza

I love the clean look of this pipe insulation job. What specifically did you use to cover the insulation tubes? I'd like to replicate what your guys did, on my pipes. I did google the buy pipe insulation site and found fiberglass scrim in 4" and 36" widths and also a tub of mastic that I guess you spread over the scrim after wrapping it around the insulation. Am I on the right track?

gerry gill

we use everyday cheesecloth, usually #40, lately #50 as it was what we could get..from amazon.com and childers mastic..the commercial skrim is to rigid in my opinion.

TheRooster

I am going to try this approach on my insulation job. I fortunately don't have as much to insulate as this job.

I bought my insulation from insulation express, lots of guys recommend buyinsulationproductstore.com but I was able to save almost 25% through expressinsulation.com including the CP-11 Mastic.

I purchased the cheesecloth through onlinefabricstore.net

I will post pictures once I am done.

icesailor

Your Pipers make better miters than a lot of wood peckers I've seen. They can't cut a miter without a miter saw. I'll bet they do all their own finish carpentry work on their houses.

Have you ever checked out a Farrier's (Horseshoe'er) Knife? Its curved and has a hook on the end. Used for cutting excess horn/hoof off of horses feet. For scooping out excess material.

http://www.anvilbrand.com/Hoof-Knives-C26.aspx

agurkas

That is love for your craft in those pictures. As a homeowner, I wish contractors I come across respected themselves and their craft this much.

icesailor

Plenty of us do. We just can't compete against the Hackaroos who have that DILLIGAF attitude.

KC_Jones

icesailor said:

Plenty of us do. We just can't compete against the Hackaroos who have that DILLIGAF attitude.

If we had more homeowners caring and educating themselves on what was correct, we would have less Hakaroos with the bad attitude. Homeowners should know better and not accept the garbage. IMHO there is fault on both sides of the equation.

billtwocase

That is sweet workmanship. Rare thing these days

icesailor

My favorite comment from the cheaper of the old homeowners when I started out in masonry about a certain local (long dead) hackaroo Plumber, "I know he is a hack. But if you are around and keep an eye on him, he can do a pretty good job".

I never saw a decent job of his and I was a mason. Why anyone would hire the clown was always beyond me. Until I finally figured that people will accept anything if they are saving money.

KC_Jones

I have a good friend that will accept anything because it's cheap. He is remodeling a bathroom right now and his neighbor the electrician is doing the electrical work on the side...cheap. I was over the other day and mentioned to him several code violations that I saw. He just shrugged...I don't expect much when it's cheap. I walked away in disbelief. Mention gas and people freak out, but electrical causes way more house fires than gas per year and people just shrug. It really boggles my mind.

icesailor

That goes along with that fact they state about people living in a house for 5 to 10 years. "In 10 years, I'll be somewhere else. I won't care. 20 years later, they still live there and complain about the crappy job someone did 16 years ago for them.

The cheap gene runs deep and wide.

RobG

A funny (or not so funny) story.

My dad who is eighty two and tight with a dollar as only the elderly get, needed a new furnace. He lives 150 miles away from me and I don't do air anyway. I gave him the number of one of the industry's finest people / companies (I will not use his name to protect the innocent). My dad called him for an estimate and he came out. My dad called me a couple of days later and could not believe what the price was. I called the (unnamed) friend and asked him to drop his price to whatever my dad thought was reasonable and send him a new quote and I would pay the difference behind my dads back. He did as I asked and I never heard a word back. I assumed all was well. A month or so later I went to visit my dad and found that he had use my friends "lowered" price to get someone else to do it cheaper. Unbelievable! I called my friend (who most on this site know and love) to apologize. He said it was not a problem, and asked me how the install looked, my response was you don't get what you don't pay for. Needless to say, I had to install a new sleeved oil line, Tiger loop and do a combustion analysis.

agurkas

Since I see pros chime in here, let me put in my 2 cents, as a home owner AND also someone who deals with bunch of contractors at work:
1. Quoting and pricing - from about 12 contractors I had in my house just for HVAC, 3 actually explained what needs to be done, what they are measuring, what they are looking for, where they see the challenges, and what I have already will save me money. From those 3 ONLY 1 (yes ONE) contractor got me quote, manual J, AHRI certs, and other docs in the time they promised. One took 2 months! I just dropped them and went for that last one who week later had everything for me.
2. If we just focus on HVAC contractors, from 12 companies only two realize it is 21st century and most people don't have fax machines, many don't check voicemails (thanks telemarketers) and may highly prefer email. Those two were the only ones who did not force me to play voicemail tag and sent me questions and answered mine via email.
3. Care about reputation you have online. Clean up your site. Be proud of your craft and share pictures of your work. From 12 of those contractors, again, only 3 had pictures of their prior work and only 2 had them on their site.

You see the pattern. Often your work is tens of thousands of dollars. It is not about us homeowners being cheap. It is about the fact that most of us are not millionaires. Reasonable people will understand why $1200 furnace may cost $7000 to install, if you don't treat us like idiots. I myself had a shock when I got the quote to convert from oil to gas, replace furnace and condenser, convert boiler, install two minisplit heatpumps with four heads. It was heart attack material. But then the two contractors walked me through every stage of install, what gets replaced, how much time it takes, how much materials cost, where cutting corners will cost me later and how much, and did suggest cheaper options, which I clearly did not feel like taking due to trade-offs. Third one (who I did not pick) gave me detail with attitude. 9 others did zero to explain.

One I ended up picking had the vibe of the guy who actually did the awesome installation in these pictures. He told me about his company, he told me about who will come and install everything and why he hired them, he told me about how he wants the entire install to look like, after it is done. He shared with me some concerns about some existing sub-optimal ducting and piping, but it wasn't whining. He rather chose to explain to me why I still should not spend money to fix it and focus funds somewhere else.

I understand you have volume of inquiries to deal with, so do more filtering and go do less quotes. Rather focus on jobs you really want to take and treat those home owners with bit more respect. You may be surprised at your results and profitability.

That is what I did for my business. I consciously decided with my partners to talk to less people, have less clients, and do less jobs. But those we did, we poured our hearts out. Profitability and total revenues doubled last year, when we started doing it. And my colleagues are happier too. I only had to fire one client and I got applause from my team, when I did it.

KC_Jones

@agurkas I couldn't agree with you more. The problem is that so many people really don't care. They view the systems in their home as some **** stepchild that some "stupid mechanic" works on. "Ok just fix it and send me a bill". Does it work and am I not bothered. Many people I know just think stuff breaks all the time and that is part of home ownership. They don't understand and don't care that it could be better. They want it cheap and now and don't care how it gets done even if it's wrong. "Who cares it's just going to break again next year so why spend the extra on something better?". I have had people say that to me. I am dumbfounded. Don't even get me started on preventative maintenance!

agurkas

@KC_Jones, person I bought the house from last year paid $6K in oil and something like $200 per month in electrical. One person living in 2900 sq. ft. burned all that oil and all that electricity. You want to bet my ears perked up, when contractors started showing me why and how the situation can be fixed :-)
Changes I made just from what I have learned on this site have reduced our oil usage so much, I am still using the $600 of oil I paid for 3 months ago. And my electrical is half what previous owner burned.

Robert O'Connor_12

Nice job!