Objects found in heating systems

HeatingHelp

Objects found in heating systems

I was helping a contractor troubleshoot a heating problem that he was having with a residential boiler. The problem was in this one zone that would heat some days, but not heat on other days. You could feel the place where the hot water stopped flowing. It was right at this copper elbow. Heat some days; no heat other days.

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TheDMC3

Well,…… About the nickel obstruction? That nickel wasn't "LOST"

I need to keep this short, and I'm not here to cast any aspersions.

First of all I'm 60 years old and have found several. Always in a three-quarter inch, copper hydronic heating circuit. the nickel fits perfectly, try it.

A very old, experienced, trustworthy plumber told me over 20 years ago, (after telling him my discovery) that in fact plumbers (in some instances) deliberately placed a nickel in a strategic location, on jobs where they started having feelings, that they were going to have trouble getting paid.

It was also suggested, that it was to generate call backs. I'd like to think not, but I'll let the readers here be the judge.

Mad Dog_2

I dropped a flux brush inside a 75 Gallon water heater. Try getting THAT out!!!!! Thank God...never became an issue. I've since replaced it. Mad Dog

Steamheatnewboiler

Thanks so much for these great stories. You keep America warm. Lives well lived. I am learning from all of you! Thanks.

DanHolohan

Thanks. Years ago, I met a chimney guy who, after not getting paid after the job was done, started to install a piece of plate glass halfway up the chimney. If he didn’t get paid, he left it there. The boiler guy installthe new boiler. The chimney, of course, wouldn’t draft. The homeowner would call him demanding that he return. He would insist on getting paid first, which every homeowner did. He’d then go back to the job, climb up on the roof and drop a brick down the chimney.

Mad Dog_2

I love that one Dan. Mad Dog

mattmia2

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1863392#Comment_1863392

I mean they only cost like a dollar 😀

Mad Dog_2

I wasn't worried about the $1 flux brush....The endless call backs.."Why is our Hot Water so rusty?????" Mad Dog

EBEBRATT-Ed

For me it was working in office spaces with lift out ceiling panels. You pop a tile measure something or do some work move the ladder do some work move the ladder etc. etc.

At the end of the day you pop all the panels back in, then you find out you missing half your tools that are in the ceiling and don't know where they are.

but i found some good stuff others left behind as well.

mattmia2

i hate work like that in suspended ceilings where you go 4 ft then have to go up another 4' away. I don't mind pulling stuff in conduit(as long as someone didn't put the pull box where you need to disassemble the grid to get a ladder up to it), but i hate working stuff along a couple feet at a time up and down the ladder.

Patchogue Phil_2

Turbulator in my old vertical tube New Yorker boiler disappeared. My guess is that it very slowly slid down the tube and got burned up in the cone of flame.

I've got no other explanation.

Patchogue Phil_2

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1863399#Comment_1863399

Somewhere I've heard that story before. Did you tell this online in the past? Maybe in one of your books?

DanHolohan

I occasionally told it in my seminars, Phil. It would just pop up. It always made me laugh.

EBEBRATT-Ed

We had a semi hermetic refrigeration compressor go bad. It had been replaced the year before but the motor in the replacement had grounded out after a year. We pulled the end bell off the compressor to look at the motor and found out a cold chisel had been left inside the motor housing.

Needless to say we stopped buying rebuilt compressors from that company