Megapress in steam near boiler piping

Dave0176

I thought it was available up to 4” could be wrong, however have you seen the cost of 2” 90 its 4 times the cost of a cast 2” 90

EBEBRATT-Ed

@Ironman

Megapress

Didn't know 2 1/2-4 was out yet. I can't imagine what the 4" stuff will cost.....a weeks pay for 1 elbow?

Ironman

IDK, but a 2x2x1" Tee was about what I charge for an hour.

https://youtu.be/CNxN-0IP1Io

PMJ

So not knowing much about it the labor savings installing this stuff easily pays for the increased material cost right?

Also, when the boiler goes is any of the press stuff reusable? The expected life I hear about with new boilers is so low I'm not sure the piping needs to last all that long anyway. Is a really long test (ie 50 + years) ever going to happen anyway?

I've faced up to the fact that I can't sell my place without paying for a boiler replacement (or much more likely a whole heating system replacement) even though my current boiler would probably outlast a new one. The market is demanding "new" with no apparent consideration of longevity at all that I can see. If I were preparing to sell I would make out runaway the best financially to get myself the cheapest install I could find. If that is pressed stuff so be it. How long those joints would last would never come up during a sale. I could show the invoice and call them "new" and everybody is instantly happy. Since I would be unable to bring myself to be a part of such a thing I'll save myself the hassle and just cut a money deal with a rehab outfit. I'll let them handle the bad business of a cheap install that is in the future here at my place. Obviously replacing what is here now with equal quality isn't even theoretically possible.

pecmsg

Press fittings cant not be reused. One time use only. As far a labor 6 - 8 seconds to make one connection. Less then a minute for a T
How long to thread the Black pipe, clean the oil, apply dope, hand tighten and wrench tighten.

ChrisJ

> @pecmsg said:
> Press fittings cant not be reused. One time use only. As far a labor 6 - 8 seconds to make one connection. Less then a minute for a T
> How long to thread the Black pipe, clean the oil, apply dope, hand tighten and wrench tighten.

How much for the press fittings and how much for the tools and how long do they last. Also where do they not fit.

EBEBRATT-Ed

@pecmsg by the looks of @Ironman picture I know I couldn't press the big stuff in 6-8 seconds LOL

Looks like you need a hand truck to get it in from the truck. doesn't look like a one man press job to me. By the time you get the 4" ring on a fitting, try to hold the fitting and ring in place, then get the gun on the ring all without your joint jiggeling coming apart.

Yeah, that would be good up on an extension ladder. Cool video though. Multiple trigger pulls. Keep your batteries charged!!!

I will bet the 2 1/2" -4" rings, pressure booster and cripm jaws are probably $3k

Like everything it has it's place I guess

SeanBeans

The pro press guns like to shift on you sometimes too, wouldn’t be fun getting a 3 o 4 inch fitting to turn slightly after pressed.

ethicalpaul

And how impossible is it to turn a fitting once pressed? Or maybe it’s not too big a deal because you can press them when the whole thing is dry fit?

But in the videos I have seen, the fittings are pretty floppy on the pipe (edit: I mean before pressing). It would be great it you could dry-fit it like PVC and then press everything in-place

Fred

How do you get the fittings off when you need to? Do you have to cut it out and press nipples onto the black pipe and then re-install your fitting? Is the end of the black pipe compressed such that that pipe has to cut back anyway?

Dave0176

Fred said:

How do you get the fittings off when you need to? Do you have to cut it out and press nipples onto the black pipe and then re-install your fitting? Is the end of the black pipe compressed such that that pipe has to cut back anyway?

Once their compressed their done. If you need to remove it the pipe has to be cut, to reinstall a new fitting you’ll need a press coupling, new piece of pipe and then the new fitting.

Dave0176

Here’s what they look like

SeanBeans

We were pressing 1/2 - 1 1/4 copper pipe, the customer requested we use pro press so ridged sent out a rep with a gun and fittings.

I pressed a 90 the wrong way and he told me to just grab two wrench/pliers and twist them to where I want. Then press again..

I did and it didn’t leak. That was 3/4 pipe. I imagine t would be a lot tougher turning fittings on bigger pipe? But who knows

Fred

Thanks @Dave0176 . This certainly would make it much more expensive to correct a bad near boiler installation and probably almost impossible for a homeowner to make those corrections themselves. Still seems like press joints on boiler risers into headers might also be a problem on boiler sections with expansion/contraction.

Dave0176

Fred said:

Thanks @Dave0176 . This certainly would make it much more expensive to correct a bad near boiler installation and probably almost impossible for a homeowner to make those corrections themselves. Still seems like press joints on boiler risers into headers might also be a problem on boiler sections with expansion/contraction.

Fred I’ll stick to good old Domestic cast iron fittings and my Ridgid 300.

Ironman

I see pro's and cons.

The obvious pro is time (labor) savings. In the contracting side of this business, virtually all of the overhead is on labor ( taxes , insurance, liability, disability, work men's comp, health care, social security, you name it). If I can cut an hour labor out with one fitting, and the fitting costs the same as my hour of labor, I'm way ahead because there's no overhead to pay on the fitting.

A contractor friend of mine had to run the gas line in a large warehouse with hanging heaters. He used the MegaPress, pre-cut his pipes to the approximate length, then took them and a cordless band saw up on the lift and fine tuned and pressed everything up there. He did the job in 1/3 of the time.

One con that I see is that the fittings a very long radius and could be difficult to arrange for a header on a steam boiler. As others have mentioned, it's gonna be a two man job to hold and press large fittings while both hands are on that large tool.

EBEBRATT-Ed

@Ironman said:

The obvious pro is time (labor) savings. In the contracting side of this business, virtually all of the overhead is on labor ( taxes , insurance, liability, disability, work men's comp, health care, social security, you name it). If I can cut an hour labor out with one fitting, and the fitting costs the same as my hour of labor, I'm way ahead because there's no overhead to pay on the fitting.

That is the best explanation of the real savings of using press fittings both copper & steel that I have herd.

Never thought of it that way although I should have


that being said I still don't like them

JohnNY

I'm reopening this thread because I recently spent about $8,000 on a new press tool and mega press jaws up to 4".
I've already used it on steam risers and it's saved me an incredible amount of time and labor.

I want to use it on low pressure steam boiler headers and I'll take it one step further: I've got a bunch of schedule 10 piping in my shop. The Milwaukee rep says he's got numerous guys in the field pressing schedule 10 on their steam jobs.

Take emotion out of your answer. I know many of us stand on tradition and in that spirit I myself have always rejected the use of black malleable fittings on a steam header. But here I am crowd sourcing opinions of piping boilers with press fittings and schedule 10 or 20 pipe.

Lemme know...

ChrisJ

JohnNY said:

I'm reopening this thread because I recently spent about $8,000 on a new press tool and mega press jaws up to 4".
I've already used it on steam risers and it's saved me an incredible amount of time and labor.

I want to use it on low pressure steam boiler headers and I'll take it one step further: I've got a bunch of schedule 10 piping in my shop. The Milwaukee rep says he's got numerous guys in the field pressing schedule 10 on their steam jobs.

Take emotion out of your answer. I know many of us stand on tradition and in that spirit I myself have always rejected the use of black malleable fittings on a steam header. But here I am crowd sourcing opinions of piping boilers with press fittings and schedule 10 or 20 pipe.

Lemme know...

Does code and the manufacturer allow the use of schedule 10 on steam?

ScottSecor

We've used Megapress on a bunch of steam emergency replacement jobs without issue. Always with schedule 40 black pipe. We never use schedule 10 or 20 (never saw 20) in our work.

We take care of a twenty-five year old three story apartment house that was built with schedule 10 steel piping for their reverse return trunks (4", 3", 2.5" and 2") with grooved fittings. They do a shutdown every summer to replace sections of pipe and fittings. Obviously, this is not a steam system, nor is it Megapress, but my point is this schedule 10 steel piping appears to be short lived.

JohnNY

ChrisJ said:

JohnNY said:

I'm reopening this thread because I recently spent about $8,000 on a new press tool and mega press jaws up to 4".
I've already used it on steam risers and it's saved me an incredible amount of time and labor.

I want to use it on low pressure steam boiler headers and I'll take it one step further: I've got a bunch of schedule 10 piping in my shop. The Milwaukee rep says he's got numerous guys in the field pressing schedule 10 on their steam jobs.

Take emotion out of your answer. I know many of us stand on tradition and in that spirit I myself have always rejected the use of black malleable fittings on a steam header. But here I am crowd sourcing opinions of piping boilers with press fittings and schedule 10 or 20 pipe.

Lemme know...

Does code and the manufacturer allow the use of schedule 10 on steam?

If they didn't this wouldn't be a question. I've got a license to protect.

JohnNY

ScottSecor said:

We've used Megapress on a bunch of steam emergency replacement jobs without issue. Always with schedule 40 black pipe. We never use schedule 10 or 20 (never saw 20) in our work.

We take care of a twenty-five year old three story apartment house that was built with schedule 10 steel piping for their reverse return trunks (4", 3", 2.5" and 2") with grooved fittings. They do a shutdown every summer to replace sections of pipe and fittings. Obviously, this is not a steam system, nor is it Megapress, but my point is this schedule 10 steel piping appears to be short lived.

We have a lot of it left over from some fire suppression work. It's been sitting in my shop for years. 2" though 4". I'm sick of looking at it and the guys like it for its lighter weight, ease of cutting, etc.

CLamb

I've noticed that black iron pipe is much more likely to have a not smooth surface from rust, paint, or just dirt, than copper tube. How does MegaPress deal with this? In the video I didn't see them cleaning the outside of the pipe.

Ironman

I’m not real familiar with the NYC code except knowing it’s probably the strictest and has certain prohibitions that no others do.

I’d make sure that both the code and the boiler manufacturer’s instructions allow for anything lighter than schedule 40.

EBEBRATT-Ed

We use to use a ton of schedule 10 for chilled water all VIC, never Mega Pressed it. I have also seen a 26 story high rise hot water system done with 10 all welded.

I would be curious to know how that stuff would mega press.

The reason I am suspect is we used to cut all that #10 on a Rigid 258 powered cutter before grooving and the schedule 10 you buy is really out of round.

The vic coupling forces it back into round. I could see MegaPress being a problem with #10 I would be afraid of cutting the O ring tring to get the fitting on the oval pipe. Maybe it's a sloppy enough fit it would be fine

For some reason they can't seem tp roll schedule 10 as round as 40

I don't think the boiler mfgs have anything to say about it it's thicker than copper and they seem to love that on steam

WMno57

Who will be the first to have their steam boiler header made by a Muffler Shop? It might work if steam pressure was kept low enough. Might even outlast some of today's boilers!
Sch 10 is about twice the thickness of 16 gauge exhaust pipe.

ScottSecor

@CLamb I've been to the Viega training in Colorado and I can say with certainty, they want the steel pipe reamed and cleaned before installing Megapress fittings.

@JohnNY I'm thinking of a "thin-wall" supply we just replaced at a local hotel on a Hydrotherm modular system that is very popular in my area. I am not real familiar with schedule 10 or 20, but I would guess the forty year old header I just replaced was about schedule 10 (about at thick as a dime I guess). Granted this was on a system with hwbb, but it did hold up for many years on a poorly maintained system.