Trap life

John Shea

not on my car insurance either.

I recently piped in a steam trap "testing station" on an old Webster Mod system. Turns out 13 out of the 18 or so that we replaced are still GOOD!! ($30/trap, $390 savings not bad for a few fittings and a litlle elbow grease!)

Amazingly, though, one of the traps had a date on it as old as the building (1922). Many others were replacements dated in the 50's and 60s. THEY ARE STILL WORKING!!!! (so much for conventional thinking, huh?)

So, before you throw them away make sure they're bad!

Question, though:

A couple of the traps would let the slightest amount of steam through (barely enough to see). Being on a tight budget, should I let these fly? It seems that the tiny amount of steam that is passing would quickly turn to condensate in a cold return pipe.

Thanks to all.

Fred Harwood

Good bad

In my experience, they're on the way out, whereas return calls are expensive to both operations and reputations.