Steam Mystery

clammy

That’s makes sense to me Charlie .just wondering is that drip on the Hartford loop side I would hope so and how far did they drop down on peerless I use a 18 inch nipple and far done a few counterflows and never has a issue .peace and good luck clammy

JUGHNE

Paul, I did not see a specific box to check for squirrel....

ChrisJ

> @JUGHNE said:
> Paul, I did not see a specific box to check for squirrel....

TitaniumHammer

Go in with a thermal imager to verify locations of blockages would help.

GregWeiss

You can borrow my FLIR camera for an iPhone.

Hap_Hazzard

My money's on this:

Steamhead said:

King valve stuck shut?

Cheap gate valves will do that.

ethicalpaul

Here’s the results. Blockage of the main is the popular favorite

“Other” responses in 2nd screenshot.

ChrisJ

Wish I could bet against a blockage...........

Hap_Hazzard

I forgot to vote. I would have voted for a bad king valve.

ChrisJ

My vote is workers messed up and fed boss incorrect information.

ethicalpaul

> @Hap_Hazzard said:
> I forgot to vote. I would have voted for a bad king valve.

Voting remains open 😀

Charlie from wmass

Still waiting on photos

AMservices

What my mind sees from my house,
- 2 steam mains, 1 counter flow, 1 parallel flow.
- Steam won't enter counter flow main.
- isolating Parallel flow main doesn't let steam into counter flow main.
- made sure counter flow main king valve is fully open
- removing plug at end of counter flow main causes water to leave boiler and exit system through open plug
- water can only leave boiler through the end of the counter flow main 2 way. Eater surging through supply piping or built up pressure pushing it up drip line near boiler.

My experience with broken gate valves is when there broken the handle will spin continuously.
@New England SteamWorks said his guy opened it until it stopped making me think the handle is still connected to the gate.

I have seen boiler water so muddy it looks like oil.
I have never seen enough mud to clog a 2" steam main.
I have seen a decent amount of mud collect in the spuds on a single pipe radiator.
I have seen TRV'S completely clogged to the point no steam was passing.

I have had customers who turn off radiators at the supply valves, attempting to reduce their fuel bills by heating less of the home.
Maybe the last owner of this system did just that.

I'm guessing the king valve is good and the radiator valves are off.

Hap_Hazzard

There are two kinds of gate valves. The kind pictured above is the industrial type where the stem is threaded into the gate. If the threads strip out, the handle spins but nothing happens. The other kind has the stem threaded into the bonnet and the end of the stem anchored in the gate, so when you turn the stem, the stem is withdrawn as it pulls the gate open. The latter generally have more compact bodies and cost a lot less and are way more prone to flutter. They frequently fail when the gate becomes stuck in the seat and the end of the stem pulls out when you try to open it. The stem still unscrews, but it doesn't move the gate, so it's hard to tell the valve is still closed. This is what I think happened to the king valve.

New England SteamWorks

> @AMservices said:

> I'm guessing the king valve is good and the radiator valves are off.

Wouldn’t matter. By removing the plug at the end of the main the radiators became a non-factor. It’s the main that’s not heating at this point.

It is certainly possible there are issues with the radiators, but we are not that far yet.

P. S. Headed there now.

Hap_Hazzard

If the main is filling with water, but isn't heating, the water must be getting forced up through the drip, which would only happen if both king valves were closed.

New England SteamWorks

And the correct poll answer is:

King valve, human error (valve not open)

Que @ChrisJ “egg on face” meme...

New England SteamWorks

And your requested photos:

AMservices

That sucks

JUGHNE

Everyone of us has done something like that.....just not posted for the world to know.....

But was better than digging out squirrel guts!

EzzyT

@New England SteamWorks beautiful job as always.

ethicalpaul

Wow, thanks for the update, glad it was easy to fix!

New England SteamWorks

In defense of the guys, the valve was initially very hard to open and required a great deal of torque to break it lose. However, they are trained to always open the valves immediately upon installation (they ship closed) which obviously was not done. Then when they went back to be sure all valves open and it wouldn't turn easily, they assumed it was already open. Had they followed procedure it would have been avoided....

BobC

At the very least you should skip the rum ration for a few days so they understand the severity of their actions.

Bob

pecmsg

New England SteamWorks said:

And the correct poll answer is:



King valve, human error (valve not open)



Que @ChrisJ “egg on face” meme...

Don't know how many times I've laid in bed wondering...……………

Did I turn that switch back on?

I'm sure the Human will not be making that mistake again for a long time

ScottSecor

This job reminds me of so many jobs I've been on or had my employees take care of. I can only imagine the amount of tools and materials you loaded into your truck for the trek to this customers house. How much time you spent responding to out ridiculous ideas and thinking of some of those same ideas yourself. Then to finally make the time in your schedule drive all the way out there only to find you needed no tools, no extra materials, and perhaps the customer could have been coached over the phone to fix it themselves.

This is a reminder (for me and I suspect many others) that most often the problem is actually a simple fix, not some oddball quirky thing that no one on the Wall has ever witnesses before.

Glad to learn it was a simple fix.

New England SteamWorks

ScottSecor said:

This job reminds me of so many jobs I've been on or had my employees take care of. I can only imagine the amount of tools and materials you loaded into your truck for the trek to this customers house. How much time you spent responding to out ridiculous ideas and thinking of some of those same ideas yourself. Then to finally make the time in your schedule drive all the way out there only to find you needed no tools, no extra materials, and perhaps the customer could have been coached over the phone to fix it themselves.

This is a reminder (for me and I suspect many others) that most often the problem is actually a simple fix, not some oddball quirky thing that no one on the Wall has ever witnesses before.

Glad to learn it was a simple fix.

No question I over thought this one!

ChrisJ

New England SteamWorks said:

ScottSecor said:

This job reminds me of so many jobs I've been on or had my employees take care of. I can only imagine the amount of tools and materials you loaded into your truck for the trek to this customers house. How much time you spent responding to out ridiculous ideas and thinking of some of those same ideas yourself. Then to finally make the time in your schedule drive all the way out there only to find you needed no tools, no extra materials, and perhaps the customer could have been coached over the phone to fix it themselves.

This is a reminder (for me and I suspect many others) that most often the problem is actually a simple fix, not some oddball quirky thing that no one on the Wall has ever witnesses before.

Glad to learn it was a simple fix.

No question I over thought this one!

In my opinion you didn't.

The guys made a mistake, it was a long day, they just wanted the damn thing to work. After a long day it's hard to think clearly.

You wanted all your bases covered when you got there.

pecmsg

Would you’ve had felt better if it was a plug or rag in the piping? I don’t think so, instead it was the easiest service call you’ve done in a while, besides you get to show the Yutes you can still do it!

gfrbrookline

The good new is it was easy to fix, you didn't have to take it apart and rebuild. I had a car that I restored and spent hours taking the wiring harness apart trying to track down a fault only to find a light bulb with crossed filaments to be the culprit. We have all been there, live and learn.

Don't be to hard on your employees, they are humans and we all have a learning curve and tend to rush things at the end of the of the day. They did a nice job on install otherwise.

I wish I could convince the other owners of my building to let me have you install one of your drop headers. They are piping works of art. Look forward to seeing you on Friday. You have done wonders for my system and many other in my area.

Bill_Kitsch69

What ever happened with this job..?

ChrisJ

Bill_Kitsch69 said:

What ever happened with this job..?

New England SteamWorks said:

And the correct poll answer is:



King valve, human error (valve not open)



Que @ChrisJ “egg on face” meme...

BobC

@gfrbrookline Years ago a neighbor's wife blew the engine in her '67 chevy. He was able to buy a brand new engine from GM and paid a local mechanic to swap everything over and install the new engine.

A week later i came home and found him putting that engine back together, he said one of the rocker arm nuts came off, I told him that shouldn't happen. A few days later he was tearing the engine down again and he found the same nut came off again.

I looked at it and told him the nut was missing the crimp that is supposed to act as a thread lock. He was upset as hell and was going to go **** at his mechanic, I told him if he wanted ti **** to start with GM - they were the ones who let that uncrimped nut get into the engine. He got a crimped nut and the car ran fine from then on.

In this case it was that missed crimp in yours it was a closed valve, all it proves is that **** happens and we are here to make sure it unhappens.

Bob

unclejohn

A friend of mine [really no kidding not me ] heard about another guy who left the rubber plug in the end of the refrig. pipe. My friend started up his new job that went into a deep vacuum on start up. He went to every joint and cut it out looking for that plug only to find it was a bad TEV. The moral is do the easy stuff first.

ronewold

My dad was on an old diesel submarine in the 60s- these things were 300 foot long steel tubes jam packed with plumbing from end to end. There were valves in every compartment, controlling all the numerous fluids (water, oil, high and low pressure compressed air, hydraulic oil, fuel oil, etc) that stood between 80 sailors and a watery grave. One of the rules dad taught me was "never jam a valve open". The reason being: if it is jammed open, you can't tell which position it is in (in a hurry, in the dark, while depth charges are going off outside). On the sub, if the valve is jammed, it must be closed. To this day, I still turn the garden hose back a bit after turning the valve all the way open, just to save all of our lives in case the boat is attacked...

coelcanth

they still teach that same procedure in regards to the valve on the air tank when you take your scuba diving certification

JUGHNE

That is a valve you would quickly know the position of once under water!

FWIW, when shutting fire hydrants off you crank CW closed to the end and then back off to keep it from jamming up over time.
This is another situation where you want the valve completely open or closed. There is a drain down waste port UG to make the hydrant dry for freezing weather. If partly open then this will put full pressure under ground and eventually bubble up in a soggy mess. You check for drain down by putting your hand over one of the 2 1/2" ports and feeling the suction.

Bill_Kitsch69

What ever happened here?

Charlie from wmass

Closed valve.

Bill_Kitsch69

Charlie from wmass said:

Closed valve.

Thanks Charlie..