What's in the way?

DanHolohan

Love to hear your stories about obstructions you had to work around on jobs over the years. I'm I'm talking about objects, not people.

DanHolohan

Ever have to do something like this?
https://heatinghelp.com/systems-help-center/piping-past-obstructions-in-one-pipe-steam-heating-systems/

STEVEusaPA

Does this count?

DanHolohan

For sure! Thanks, Steve.

EBEBRATT-Ed

Not really an obstruction but then maybe it is.

Holy Cross College in Worcester had a leaking 3" condensate line in a building built in the 1800s.

Down in the basement looking up at this it was a 3" pipe pushed tight to the brick foundation running horizontally up inside the floor joist bay. Problem is the pipe was against the wall and there was a floor joist on the other side of the pipe so the joist space was only 8" or so wide and it was up against the sub floor.

I thought about using copper but soldering was out as we were right against the wood in an 1800s building and propress jaws or megapress jaws wouldn't fit

So they had to have their carpenters pull up the floor and sub floor for access.

We sawed the pipe in the middle and made a couple of cuts, one end backed out of a coupling but the other end wouldn't come out. I had to do some sawzall surgery and a cold chisel on that one.

We had to bring the 3" threader with us.

Now the problem was the elbow we had to screw into was also pushed against the brick wall and the other pipe wouldn't move so no wiggle at all.

So we ended up using 2 unions in line to get this thing together.

It was a struggle, the pipe was so close to everything we couldn't use a pipe wrench very well as the jaws couldn't get around the pipe

a chain wrench saved us just had enough room to get the chain around the pipe. We even had to chisel the brick wall to spin the union nuts

DanHolohan

Good one, @EBEBRATT-Ed. Our daughter Meghan is a Holy Cross grad, so I'm pleased to have donated heavily to that job! Thanks for sharing.

JUGHNE

I had worked on an old LP furnace in the country, on my next visit a couple years later I noticed the corner of the brick chimney was chopped out.
HO said the blower motor quit and I was out of town, they called the nearly retired old guy to fix it.
The front of the furnace was maybe 10" from the chimney. The blower did not have clearance to pull out. So the old guy chopped the lower corner of the chimney open to get clearance. HO wife said it was a real mess....about 80 year old chimney and the base was on the floor in the kitchen. So what ever died in there over the years plus wood, coal and oil soot was spread abound the room.

It was a good weekend to be out of town.

The chimney still stands today.

When I replaced the furnace I rotated it 90 degrees to insure clearances.

DanHolohan

What a story!  Thanks for sharing. 

Danny Scully

DanHolohan said:

Ever have to do something like this? https://heatinghelp.com/systems-help-center/piping-past-obstructions-in-one-pipe-steam-heating-systems/

Yes we have 😉 thanks for including me and @EzzyT in that article @DanHolohan

DanHolohan

👍