Foreign objects

New England SteamWorks

A few years ago I took the top off a pin boiler and found an entire flock of cooked birds. Not one or two, mind you, -but at least a dozen or more. I had a picture for the longest time. But of course, -now that I finally have a use for the photo, -I can't find it!

DanHolohan

Ahh, man. What a tease!

Ironman

Four and twenty black birds backed in a ... boiler?

DanHolohan

Lol!

Solid_Fuel_Man

I put a used wood boiler in and had it all piped up. Had been sitting in the customers basement for several years. Filled with water and all seemed well. Popped the relief on the cold fill to make sure all was well and only a few drops came out, removed the relief to find some type of brown/green/orange gunk, not rust looking stuff, but thick like shredded wheat that has swollen.

Told the customer I would have to flush the boiler due to what is found. Ended up filling several pails. The homeowner came down and immediately said "that's where all the dog food has gone!"

Apparently a mouse had stashed several bags of dog food in the boiler.

DanHolohan

That's one industrious mouse!

Jamie Hall

I used to run a sewage treatment plant, years ago. I'm not even going there... except to say that a)if it will fit in the pipe, eventually you will find it in the plant and b)a pair of panty hose will stall even a pretty powerful centrifugal pump...

DanHolohan

People flush pantyhose? Gosh.

Henry

I had a client that was a 7 floor department store. It had a large cafeteria in the basement and an 8 stall women's toilet. I get a call that the boiler room in the sub-basement was getting flooded. In front of the boilers was a large holding tank that had two Darling shaft thrash pumps. The 6 inch check valve was jammed. I had to remove the bolt on cover with large gloves that went to my elbows as I was standing in 1 foot of sewage. Low and behold, A large panty (nearly 20 inch wide) was stuck on the flapper. What a mess!

DanHolohan

Love to know the why. Gosh.

Tim McElwain

When I was a service man for the gas company (many years ago) a call came in from a customer that their warm air gas furnace was making a "honking" noise when the blower came on. When I arrived the customer went into some detail as to this noise and how annoying it was.
When I proceeded to the furnace and with the thermostat calling the burner came on, no noise, the burner ran until the temperature was reached which would cause the blower to come on. Still no noise, the fan was running for about a minute then all of a sudden HONK! HONK! very loud. I traced the sound to the clean out on the chimney and to my suprise when I opened the inspection door a large Canadian goose had somehow gotten into the chimney. This was a fairly large chimney so no suprise it would fit.
Now how to get it out? I ask the customer if she had any type of oven glove I could use and she supplied same. I reached in grabbed the goose by the neck pulled it out and with much fluttering and noise proceeded up the stairs to out doors and released the goose. Off to Canad it went no worse for the wear.
Watch out for those honking sounds in warm air furnaces.

DanHolohan

Tim, you’re killing me!

NYplumber

Hi Dan!

Myself I have seen the usual squirrel in the bottom of an oil fired steam boiler. Also found a mouse buried in spray foam while tracing thermostat wires.... after seeing the mouse we had a new line ran. The mouse may have been the culprit.

My buddy found a full sized possum behind a boiler. The possum probably couldn't squeeze by and then the boiler fired.....roasted possum.

DanHolohan

Good eatin’!

Ironman

DanHolohan said:

Good eatin’!

Only for those on the other side of the mountain from me.

BobC

Them be fighin' words to Granny!
Bob

DanHolohan

Good one, Bob!

Mad Dog_2

Pulled 13 dead pigeons out of church chimney.
Mummified Starling on a closed vent damper.
I've posted that here before. Beer cans & bottles
Mad Dog

JUGHNE

My best find was in the chimney clean out of a 1920's house.
I was servicing an oil furnace and it seemed time to clean out the bottom of the brick chimney, flue pipe went in about 5' off the floor and there was about 4' of junk under it.

While digging out debris a heavy cash box was found buried in the soot.
As the Urban Legend goes, this house has an interesting history as it was first owned by a banker. His bank went under in the crash of 1929 and supposedly someone in the family business went away for embezzlement. The money just disappeared. I had grown up with this story and had great expectations for my discovery.

The cash box was heavy as hell and rusted shut. The house was presently owned by 2 bachelor brothers whom I called downstairs to witness my find. They said to break it open. It was full of soot, but inside was what looked to be a brick. I cleaned it off and it still looked more like a brick. I broke it in half and it looked like 2 pieces of brick. I continued to break the pieces until it was a pile of broken brick.

This was the days before chest freezers. The chimney clean out was apparently where personal valuables were hidden. Why the brick? I don't know, the draft of the chimney wasn't that strong.

DanHolohan

You sure it wasn’t petrified cash?

JUGHNE

The pieces were small enough to confirm that.
But can you imagine finding a heavy brick in a cash box with the provenance that came with the house?

DanHolohan

Like Al Capine’s Vault

STEVEusaPA

DanHolohan said:

Like Al Capine’s Vault

Or Al Capone even...

Grallert

I installed a steam boiler a number of years ago with a helper who had a habit of cleaning up before the job was done. He would often clean too well and I would loose a screw driver or something in the process. At the end of the day I was missing my Channel Lock pliers and I naturally blamed my helper. I denied it for a year or so and I forgot about it. A couple of years later I was sent to service the boiler . Yup you guessed it, There under the clean out sat my pliers. I spent another year apologizing.

DanHolohan

Good one! What happened to the helper?

Ironman

I tell my helpers they have 3 main functions:
1. Gopher. Go for this, go for that.
2. Buy my lunch.
3. Take the blame for everything that goes wrong on the job while I take the credit for everything that's right.

DanHolohan

I'd say you've earned that.

BobC

@Ironman The only job of any assistant i had was to remember what I put where because i was sure to need it again.

One of the young engineers once asked exactly what they paid me for, (I was always working on odd problems around the plant) the plant owner was passing by just then and told the young engineer that I was paid for the 2 or 3 good ideas I came up with every year and that anything else I did was just a bonus.

Back then people who could see a problem from a different point of view were valued, now they want everybody to be the same - like stampings out of a machine. I worked there for almost 30 years before that industry and it's jobs went to china.

Bob

DanHolohan

Bob, thank you!

MarkS

Not exactly *in* a heating system, but when we were remodeling back in 2011 I found this assortment of paper treasures inside the fireplace mantle, dating from 1907 to 1926.

DanHolohan

Nice find! And the women of Royersford are still at it: https://www.facebook.com/pg/CaroleS47/posts/?ref=page_internal

unclejohn

Had a no heat on a Carrier 90+. Wasn't making the pressure switch. Pulled the air inlet pipe out the side of the furnace and at least 30 to 40 tennis balls fell out. Seems the lady ran a day care center and she said now she knows where all the tennis balls went.

DanHolohan

Hilarious!

MilanD

"There may be a time when you will need our services, but we hope not." - how powerful!