old timer tricks

aj2

I am new to the field 1st year in vo tech.last week my teach brings up a topic 'OLD TIMER TRICKS'.I figured the best place to find them would be right here.hope you guys can give me a hand if it is not to much of a bother thanx aj

lchmb

phew

Don't know who's an "old timer". I'm just a young guy!! Although after this weekend I feel old..LOL
Might help to indicate what your looking for in tips....;)

[Deleted User]

old timer tricks

Lets start this off simple...Lefty Loosy, Righty Tighty...
or, Clockwise is Lockwise...LOL

Pinball

oatmeal is NOT just for breakfast anymore

Here's a trick for ya. My father who was in the oil service business for more than 45 years showed me this one on a 2am service call.
an old cast iron boiler cracked, the h.o. was in her 80's and it was about 10-20 degs. out. He asked her if she had any oatmeal, (which she did). He mixed it up to a very wet solution, and with the help of a funnel and a 13y.o. son poured it in the relief valve tapping. With the circ. running and only about 5psi of pressure the leak stopped!
While it wasn't forever, it did last till his co. could replace the unit at the end of the week.
when I went into service full time, I always carried a can of Quaker oats on board. Ya never know!And besides, if ya ever get trapped in a blizzard, at least you won't starve to death.
Al

Firedragon_4

Here's on of my

favorites. Always carry an old style TACO 110 circ coupling. In a jam it will act as a pump coupling for every pump and motor combo on every residential US burner out there! In fact, it works so good, I've left many out there forever.

Mark Eatherton1

Lift with your legs....

not with your back...

Work SMARTER, not harder.

The faster you go, the behinder you 'll get.

ME

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lchmb

one other thought

Get some good comfortable knee pad's or a pad to set on the floor. May be your knee's are great now but 10 year's on them will beat the xxxx out of them! And alway's listen to your customer, they more often then not will lead you to what you need to fix even if the have no clue they did it!! Good luck

Unknown

Don't fix it till you get there.

Enjoy the drive. Look at the Northern Lights at 2 AM, with nobody else to enjoy them with. Think about summer vacation. Listen to the night sounds.

Just don't decide what the problem is until you have looked at the job.

Noel

jaybee

A-men!

Ted_9

Bread trick

If you cant get the water to stop leaking on a pipe that you are trying to solder. Put enough bread IN the pipe to stop the water from dripping. Then solder it up. Un fortunatly, the bread may clog some thing but hopefull it will get into the boiler and desolve. Never had a problem with it.

EDIT: Yes white bread!

PATRIOT HEATING & COOLING, INC.

Weezbo

Old Indian Tricks..?

Old Indiands can be Tricky so dont bet on the horses.

Mike T., Swampeast MO

Plain Bread

Don't be like the story in Fine Homebuilding where someone used "healthy" bread full of seeds and nuts!

chuck shaw

how about a little more basic

hots on the left

colds on the right

everything flows down

dont chew your nails

payday is friday


Chuck

Ed_13

NUT CRACKERS

No that is not a difficult customer,

It is a great tool to remove tankless coils from boilers. If you ever took out an old tankless, you probably broke a stud or two. If you take new nuts with you, and use a nut cracker to cleanly break the old nuts from the stud, the threaded stud is left undamaged.

Clean up the thread, put on your new tankless gasket, install the new nuts, (with some Never seize of course), and you¡¦re good to go.

See attached for a picture of the tool.

Regards,

Ed Carey

Unfortunately, I do qualify as an old timer. ļ

Ed_13

NUT CRACKERS

No that is not a difficult customer,

It is a great tool to remove tankless coils from boilers. If you ever took out an old tankless, you probably broke a stud or two. If you take new nuts with you, and use a nut cracker to cleanly break the old nuts from the stud, the threaded stud is left undamaged.

Clean up the thread, put on your new tankless gasket, install the new nuts, (with some Never seize of course), and you’re good to go.

See attached for a picture of the tool.

Regards,

Ed Carey

Unfortunately, I do qualify as an old timer.

Ed_13

NUT CRACKERS

No that is not a difficult customer,

It is a great tool to remove tankless coils from boilers. If you ever took out an old tankless, you probably broke a stud or two.

If you take new nuts with you, and use a nut cracker to cleanly break the old nuts from the stud, the threaded stud is left undamaged.

Clean up the thread, put on your new tankless gasket, install the new nuts, (with some Never seize of course), and you’re good to go.

See attached for a picture of the tool.

Regards,

Ed Carey

Unfortunately, I do qualify as an old timer. : )


http://www.handsontools.com/store/show_product/?product_id=23353

Ed_13

NUT CRACKERS

No that is not a difficult customer,

It is a great tool to remove tankless coils from boilers. If you ever took out an old tankless, you probably broke a stud or two.

If you take new nuts with you, and use a nut cracker to cleanly break the old nuts from the stud, the threaded stud is left undamaged.

Clean up the thread, put on your new tankless gasket, install the new nuts, (with some Never seize of course), and you’re good to go.

See attached for a picture of the tool.

Regards,

Ed Carey

Unfortunately, I do qualify as an old timer. : )


http://www.handsontools.com/store/show_product/?product_id=23353

Firedragon_4

Here's another!

Always carry a pigtail lightbulb holder with alligator clips crimped onto the ends. Not only will that and a 100 watt lightbulb make a great tester and find missing grounds and other nastys, but it will also act as a substitute capacitor for all of the PSC motors now in use.

BTW, we'll have great article on motor troubleshooting soon in Fuel Oil News and this month's article on steam ain't bad either go here:

http://firedragonent.com/Books.htm

DaveC

Soot vac party pak...

There's always lots of cold ones in those basement fridges, and lots of room in that canister - so go ahead, Rookie... It's Miller time!

[Deleted User]

Full or Empty?

If you are not sure if the steam or water gauge glass is 100% full or empty, hold a pencil or pen at a 45 degree angle behind it. If the glass is empty, the pencil or pen will look to be in line, if full, it will appear distorted.
"Never say NEVER and never say ALWAYS"...
If a 3 phase motor has a 50-50 chance of being wired correctly to turn in the correct direction, why is that it's never right 90% of the time?

ScottMP

Just so you know Ted

A doughnut from the teachers room at the High School on Friday afternoon will also work

Scott

De Plain , De plain

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Ed_13

Installing threaded fittings

AJ,

Whenever you are going to assemble and install threaded fittings, there a couple of things to consider.

Remember that there is microscopic grit in the both the male and female threads of the fitting, that is left there from the manufacturing process. Give both the male & female threads a quick cleaning with a small wire brush to clean them out before assembling. It takes but a few seconds but it can really help to prevent leaks.

Use a good quality pipe sealant that is LISTED for the application that you are doing. Not all pipe dopes are created equal. They do not all work with all products, (i.e., steam, water, air, gas, etc.). Use the proper sealant for the job, not just what is on the truck.

If you are screwing a fitting together, fill it or cap it so it will not deform. Example: If you are screwing an 1 ¼” M x Copper adapter into the top of the boiler using a wrench, cut a piece of 1 ¼” copper pipe and insert it into the copper female before using the wench. It will reinforce the fitting from the inside and prevent the CxM adapter from deforming. This goes the same for steel and malleable fittings. No problem with cast iron, as they do not bend.

Finally, tighten that fitting until it is as tight as you dare to go. Then back it up about ½ of a turn and retighten it. As long as you were not “bottomed out” in the first try, the fitting will almost always tighten well past the point that you stopped at before.

Just be careful when aligning fittings, such as a 90. Using this technique you will get more of a turn on that fitting, but you will probably not get another full 360 turn. Do not back up the fitting then stop, or you are looking for a leak. You must tighten the fitting into place, and then stop on the tightening direction.

Regards,

Ed Carey

Ed_13

Installing threaded fittings

AJ,

Whenever you are going to assemble and install threaded fittings, there a couple of things to consider.

Remember that there is microscopic grit in the both the male and female threads of the fitting, that is left there from the manufacturing process. Give both the male & female threads a quick cleaning with a small wire brush to clean them out before assembling. It takes but a few seconds but it can really help to prevent leaks.

Use a good quality pipe sealant that is LISTED for the application that you are doing. Not all pipe dopes are created equal. They do not all work with all products, (i.e., steam, water, air, gas, etc.). Use the proper sealant for the job, not just what is on the truck.

If you are screwing a fitting together, fill it or cap it so it will not deform. Example: If you are screwing an 1 ¼” M x Copper adapter into the top of the boiler using a wrench, cut a piece of 1 ¼” copper pipe and insert it into the copper female before using the wench. It will reinforce the fitting from the inside and prevent the CxM adapter from deforming. This goes the same for steel and malleable fittings. No problem with cast iron, as they do not bend.

Finally, tighten that fitting until it is as tight as you feel you dare to go. Then back it up about ½ of a turn and retighten it. As long as you were not “bottomed out” in the first try, the fitting will almost always tighten well past the point that you previously stopped.

Just be careful when aligning fittings, such as a 90 where you have to "turn it into position". Using this technique you will get more of a turn on that fitting, but you will probably not get another full 360 turn.

Do not back up the fitting then stop at the final position, or you are looking for a leak. You must tighten the fitting into place, and then stop on the tightening direction. Assembling leak free fitting is as much of an art form as it is a task.

Regards,

an old timer

Ed Carey

Unknown

Steam water gauge

I have trouble reading the 30# gauge on a steam boiler while I'm setting a vaporstat to 4 ounces pressure.

I take a 12' clear hose with a female hose connection on one end and open on the other, and connect it to the boiler drain. I hang the open end above the boiler, right next to the gauge glass.

I open the drain valve and the water rises up the hose to the glass water level, if no pressure or vacuum is in the boiler.

As the boiler runs and makes pressure, the water in the hose, the returns, and the glass changes level. It rises in the hose, and the piping, and falls in the boiler.

The height in the hose above the height in the glass is the steam pressure, in inches of water column. 1 PSI = 28"; 1/2 PSI = 14"

It shows vacuum, by the water in the glass being higher than the water in the hose.

Noel

Kal Row

real cool!!!

aj2

just wanted to say thanx to all of you who gave me a hand.Thanx for taking time out of your day for helping.aj

Dale

2 things

Never leave something you fixed until you know it works correctly. Sounds simple but "some" companies have paid for burnt up equipment or houses because the safeties weren't wired in or the thermostat was no longer controlling the boiler. Never touch a steam boiler unless you personally can say the lwco shuts off the burner. Every time you finish a job turn arround on your way out and look to think if you left things the way you found them and if the system checks out, lose fewer tools that way too. 2. Buy yourself a $12 or so 120Volt sniffer and keep it in your pocket and check everything you walk up to to see if it's really off or really low voltage. Servicemen usually work alone and too many get electrocuted every year. If you don't like the elect. test light touch the "off" stuff with the BACK of your fingers so they curl away from a hot elect. surface.

Kal Row

my two cents...

keep the blue-stuff leak detector spray handy, it's not just the best soap bubble leak detector, it also a thread lubricant, spray some on a Teflon-taped fitting before screwing in, to keep the tape from completely ripping apart

spray some on that long drywall screw - before you screw-gun it into a beam - to keep it from snapping halfway in

don’t wait for minerals in the water to stop unions from leaking - pre-dowse them with Teflon paste

use flanges on your steam jobs instead of unions - the knuckles you save might just be your own

live by DFD = Design For Disassembly

when using "blue-block" just put 1/4 inch bead on the male threads, one thread of the end of the pipe, makes the cleanest joint – I will just assume that you wire brush the female end with oil – (the male end was already oiled by the threading machine) – never had a gas leak using this method – with only just snugging up the pipe – no heavy torque

the best stuff for cleaning "blue-block" is acetone

the best stuff for cleaning Teflon paste…fo-geh-ah-bow-it

oh yes: hair spray gets out permanent marker - from clothes

never run a pipe to termination downward on an outside wall, cause the cooled water pooled at the bottom cant convect away and will be the first to freeze – even a slight slant downward to a sink on an outside wall will freeze – slant it upwards – so it will drop it’s cooled water into the warmer part in the basement – always keep density displacement (water or air) in mind when designing systems – let gravity be you friend not your enemy

Mike T., Swampeast MO

Not an old timer, but...

...particularly with old steam/vapor/gravity systems if you see strange devices whose function is uncertain, be VERY careful.

The odd looking connections opposite the valves on two-pipe steam systems often have little "hidden" and likely irreplaceable parts.

Gravity systems often have restrictor plates in the upper radiators right at the connection (usually the hand valve). Usually brass or copper disks with a hole about the size of a kindergardener's pencil. If customer complains the rad you find one in doesn't heat sufficiently remove AND SAVE it--otherwise reinstall!

Vapor systems have a great variety of special devices around the boiler. Be careful and don't go disconnecting things unless you are utterly certain they are no longer needed/useful. Even then, unless the device is utterly ruined, I'd either leave it hanging around or store for future use/parts in other systems.

Watch out for strange narrow tall devices (often? usually? sitting on the floor) near gravity system boilers. They often contain a great deal of mercury.

In a closed hydronic system NEVER forget that the ONLY purpose of the pump is to CIRCULATE the water. The static (fill) pressure has ALREADY DONE THE JOB OF LIFTING!!! Oversized pumps not only waste electricity but they can adversely affect performance and HX efficiency as well.

When piping, first try to "think like water".

"I'm incompressible but I get bigger and lighter when I get hot and I also get bigger and lighter as I near freezing. I ALWAYS flow downhill naturally! I ALWAYS seek my own level! I'm already the "universal solvent" but when I'm acidic I'm especially corrosive to much? most? piping. I can hold and trap air inside of me and the higher my pressure, the more I can hold--suddenly relieve my pressure and I'll let the excess air out somewhere--likely where you LEAST want it. I can easily change my state of matter at common temperatures and conditions--unless you want me to change state, DON'T LET ME!!! When you want to get rid of me from the system make certain you pipe me so I can get out--I can't jump!"

Then, try to think like air:

"I'm HIGHLY compressible--and when highly compressed I'm HIGHLY powerful. You can force me into "hidden" solution with water by increasing its pressure, but relieve the pressure and I'll be back. Unless you can force me to leave high points, I'll stay like a ghost--give me vents at high points or arrange valves such that you utterly force the water to push me along in the pipe until I find an outlet. I'm TINY in my common state and I can move through many things that you consider solid! In fact, nature FORCES me to do this if I'm in a different concentration on different sides of the solid. Once I can get in this way, DON'T GIVE ME FOOD (my favorites are iron/steel) because I'll eat it, get bound up inside and then be REPLACED from outside."

Nick W

pitching pipes

My father had a way of sticking a wedge into the dye when threading steam pipes so that when screwed together the piece would angle slightly in a certain way.

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curiousity kills

tricks

The best tool to remove a stubborn expansion tank is a basin wrench hold it sideways and it will give you all the leverage you need.

bob young

65R

we used to cut a crooked thread by offsetting the guide on a 65 r stock. you could establish pitch on drainage or steam lines from a fitting that was backpitched or dead plumb.

Unknown

One I just used today

When trying to remove a stubborn fitting from a pipe , try to keep the pipe wrench off the part of the fitting that's around the nipple . It tends to pinch the fitting on making it harder to spin off . Works good on old steam piping .

David_5

Tip

If you service always do it like you are the one on call that night.

David

Robert O'Connor_7

One more!

Don't sit on the cement....Robert O'Connor/NJ

bob_25

Tip

If you have to solder a joint where you can only get one hand in the space use that hand for the torch and run your solder through an appropriate length of 1/4"OD copper. Careful you don't burn the joint down. bob

bob_25

I love Noel's

post that's some good thinking. Along the same line, to test gas pressures just mark some tube every 1/4" hook it to the gas, stick it in water deeper than the pressure you expect, turn the gas on and pull the tube up. Watch when it just starts to bubble. That's the pressure in inches water. bob

Pat Clark

very important

If you don't have time to do it right the first time, you sure as hell don't have time to go back and do it again!!!!!

The call you're on is the only one you have to do today, until it's completely finished and done right. Then there will be one more.

When you are looking for a problem and find it, ask yourself why it failed, you may find the real problem and not have to go back again later.

Pat Clark

Pat Clark

many a night

I have just sat in my truck and watched the Northern Lights. Nothing like 20 below and beautiful colors dancing across the sky. Your mustache freezes up and your lungs ache from the cold, but as they say, It doesn't get any better than this.

Pat

Unknown

Great thoughts, Pat

I can tell that there are MILES and MILES between your service call locations.

Sound advice, even if the next call is right beside the last one.

Noel

Tony_8

Hurriers

Are only quick, which often makes them half-fast.