What have you dropped into a boiler section by accident?

Mike Reavis_2

They are usually a little hard to turn upside down, and shake to remove the object. I recently lost a ret-tail file. Any nextels? (not on purpose) How about wedding rings, etc? Any interesting finds?

Mike

Ted_9

Never in a boiler, but if you talk to the warm air guys, I'm sure they can tell tales of red snips and flanging plyers going down.


PATRIOT HEATING & COOLING, INC.

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Mike Reavis_2

Don't even mention what you might find in new construction envir

environments. Sort of related to that, I got an AC unit to work once after I removed the nickel from the coupling used to join the lineset. And there was the time the lineset was in the way of the sheetrocker's design for the wall. They decided to add a 150 degree turn (kink)to the suction line.

not related at all was the time I checked a woefully venting appliance and found the furthest extent of the chimney was even with the attic insulation. I guess the roof jack was back-ordered.
Mike

Robert O'Connor_7

Guilty!

Reading glasses and about a half a box of small wire nuts.

Robert O'Connor/NJ

ScottMP

No heat call

For a hot air furnace. Everytime it fired up it ran untill the blower came on and then shut down.

Drove me nuts untill we took it apart and found the instruction package leaning up against the blower. Everytime it came on. It sucked the manila envelope up against it.

Scott

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Carl PE

I found

a beer can in a strainer.. does that count?

lchmb

guilty to..:(

Dropped a hearing aid into a boiler one day..:( What a pain to get it back out but alot cheaper than buying a new one...

bob_44

I found

48 inch and a half nuts a lunch box and a pair of carhart bibs in a 24" steam strainer! bob

J.C.A._3

Lets see....

I have a habit of losing mini Mag lights. I've got 1 in a boiler, 1 in a stove and at least 2 in various oil tanks. Anyone that finds them can have them. I got one of those big rubber coated ones that don't fit in anything. You might also come across the odd pen and definately a few little screwdrivers . Chris

Dave Palmer_3

.

6 inch pipe wrench,had a customer that took the grilles off the 2nd floor vents and their kitten fell to the basement.Thank goodness for humidifers,made for easy rescue.Dave

oil-2-4-6-gas

i had a school that just installed 2 new 20,000 gallon oil tanks with 2ft of head room above full tank of oil suction line at 28 inches vacuum --they drained the tank to find a rag stuck around the foot valve,also recently saw a "floor model" boiler bought from a supply house it was there for almost a year --found pens,small nuts and bolts,coupl of cig. butts and the best was some joker put a tampon in it --of course found the tampon after install----

J.C.A._3

Gentleman,

We have a winner!!!!

Mad Dog

Flux brush

Mad Dog

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Mark Hunt

Mice, but not my fault!


We uncrated a Weil-Mclain EG boiler once and I noticed a pile of insulation on top of the bolck. I had never seen insulation there before and tried to brush it off.

When I did, four mice ran out and two of them ran down the 3/4" tapping where the relief valve would go and the other two ran into the customers basement. Yes, the homeowner saw the whole thing.

I figured the two in the block were not long for this world anyway so after we finished the intstall we concentrated on the two runaways. Got them both.

As for the two that got into the block, I imagine I'll skim out what is left one of these days.

Mark H

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jim walls_3

now I have dropped my share

of items in the most unfortunate places,,,,,,,tubing cutters in block walls,tape measures in cleanouts,,,,,,but honest I was no where near the school whose boiler now contains a 4" shackle,,,,,,cathodic protection?

18 years ago while plumbing a motel, our company was asked to run the remaining 5' of fire line into the building in 3 locations ( 2-4" 1-6"), site contractor claimed he was not licensed to do so, but that he had hydrostatically tested his portion. Well as you might have guessed, the test would not hold, I removed a cap on one of the 4" lines in a stairwell to vent the air & heard a rather loud rattingly sound. I turned of the water, grapped a flash light & then,,,,,,,,, the odor hit me,,,,,,,,,,,,with a couple of pieces of copper I then fished a punctured can of engine starting fluid out of the pipe,,,,,,,,,

Wayne_12

lost tools

How abut a Snap-on ratcheting screwdriver falling into the harbor. Fell out of my back pocket when climbing over the rail of a sail boat. (sorry not up on the natical terms of sail boats) Tried to fish with a large magnet with no luck, Try throwing a 20# magnet attached to a rope, where you think the tool fell.

Timco

Had a customer with slow drains on his plumbing...seemed to be a vent issue...found wasps had completely blocked the vent...ran a hose in it and plunk!

Tim

tommyoil

Food

A crispy chicken from Mickey D's to be exact in a w/m 94.

tls_9

Found a claw hammer under the jacket of a W/M 94 once. The rubber on the fiberglass handle was dry rot, but i still have and ocasionaly use the hammer.

Found a 4' 2" x 4" in an 6" line to a cooling tower.

lots of leaves, small critters and rags in pipes.

Found a strainer full of strange little blue "O" Rings, The installer had used that Blue Glue permitex for pipe dope and must have doped the inside threads a little excessively.

Found a 1" plug in each of two 6" Tripple duty valves. Ruined the seats.

The things i have lost.... who knows where they will turn up..

tom

Jaitch

What Harry Recovered!

Too many years ago I was in installer's apprentice. We took an old oil hot air unit out of the basement, and I was assigned to return it to the shop and unload it on the junkpile. Later that afternoon I return to the shop and Harry is wailing and bending on the thing trying to pry it apart.
I asked Harry why he was taking this junker apart and he replied, "I dropped the nicest 7/16 wrench in there three or four years ago, and I'm gonna get it back!" He got the wrench back and we laughed for days.

PS: Harry is in a home now and suffers from Alzheimers(sp)...... I miss him

JOHN

John Starcher_4

Not in a boiler or furnace, but.......

....was in a crawlspace about a year ago, and lo and behold, there was the tubing cutter I had lost back in 1993!

Starch

tls_9

My dad

when he heard we were going to work at a certain nursing home would always say "bring me back my jacknife" One day I was sent there to fix a tub mixing valve and crawled into the ceiling to shut the valves off. Low and Behold, there was Dad's knife. I recognized from many years before. His comment when I returned it.... " 'bout time "

tom

Boiler Guy

My helper used my

expensive Beckman multimeter to test some control wiring in a basement crawlspace over 8 years ago. I didn't miss it until later that week and of course by then it couldn't be found. Well, in October of this year I had to access that crawlspace and found my meter sitting on top of a beam, right where he left it. Turned it on and it still worked - after all this time. It is now an antique. Since I have a new Fluke, I may just donate it to the local community college so others can learn.

bob young

boiler

a 1/2 " box wrench slipped out of my hand and i dropped it down the 2 " tapping of a burnham in5. got it out with a telescopic magnet. once dropped a spool of lampwick down a open 2 " steam riser. that i left.

Jim Bennett

Dropsy

I was walking across a roof on a commercial building one day, looking for a plugged roof drain. When I came to a firewall that protruded about 3 ½ feet above the roof, I hopped over. As I did, a brand new pair of Ray Ban sunglasses jumped from my shirt pocket and disappeared down a nearby 4” sewer vent!

Never even touched the sides. :-(

Jim

Mark Eatherton1

My father...

Seriously, and I didn't do it, but my dad, when he was a young wiry kid, was helping a boiler maker finish laying up the brick refractrory on a large locomotive syle boiler. They'd put him inside the combustion chamber and handed him bricks to lay into position. When he finished, and tried to get out the fire door, his body had swollen from all the physical activity and he couldn't get out of the fire box. The old timer he was working with told him to lay back, take it easy, drink a soda and try again in 1/2 hour. Sure enough, out he popped.

Good thing he wasn't cluasterphobic...

ME

Phil_6

Inside a little steam boiler

I remember a spool of wick going in about 15 yrs ago. Every time I drive by the place I think about it...

Mike Reavis_2

It is like the joke about playing a country-western song backwar

backwards. That is you get all the stuff you have lost back. This joke only makes sense to people old enough to remember recordings before tapes, cassettes, and CD's. Oh for the days of some good old back-masking.

Mike

Mike Reavis_2

Bryant furnaces once came with oil-paper on the heat exchanger

This was to protect the heat exchangers from moisture and rusting I guess. Well as you can imagine an inattentive or disgruntled employee could well forget to remove this paper, and between the oil, and the paper you had a good potential for a fire when the furnace heated. Bryant stopped this practice, and like alot of other manufacturers at the time went to just leaving the oil on the heat-exchangers that was from manufacture. It made for a smokey house at start-up.

Jaitch

Thanks to the manufacturer

I remember going out to a new mobile home for a "no heat - warranty" call. when I got there I immediately found the problem - the t'stat wire was hanging loose behind the new Miller furnace. I tried unsucessfully to fish it out with a coathanger - it seemed awfully "stuck" back there. When we finally did get hold of the end of the t'stat wire I was amazed to find a 250 foot spool of 18/2 connected to the end of the wire. I installed the new t'stat wire and I thanked the mobile home manufacturer on the next dozen or so jobs. Musta been lunchtime..........
JAITCH

Guy_5

losing

What I have lost on jobs:
My mind
My patience
Quite a bit of blood (sheet metal and I don't agree)
Uniform jacket(s)
Facial hair (rotary oil burners and I had to learn to come to an understanding)

I have FOUND:
Crabs(the ocean kind)dehydrated- in a warm air furnace blower compartment. How the H/O could not have noticed the smell, I don't know.

Bats- 6 total, 5 inside an oil burner, one in the chamber, unceremoniously creamated upon re start.
Looked at the service tag to find that it wasn't the first time bats were an issue. Dead bats smell awful.

A hamster on a heat exchanger- the first time, a courtesy removal, alive.
The SECOND time, the critter wasn't so lucky, and the H/O got the bill for the ...extraction.

My helper lost the Goldschlager that he had overindulged on the previous night. That was his first and last call that day.

clammy

solder

As a young mech starting out on a apartment complex i had amoung other duties was the finish guy and while doimg the bathrooms i managed have a roll of solder slide on the title floor right into the toilet flange being really young i was alittle upset so i searched for my boss who laughed and grabbed a three prong retriver from his truck and fished that roll right out i was sorry and thanked him and his reply was don,t worry i,ve done it many times but never had the guts to tell anyone or get the roll back i would just flush the bowl a couple of extra times .To this day i can only wish to find all the stuff i,ve lost on jobs in attics basements and hanging on steel beams i used to do alot of 1 day wonders and lose alot of tools that way to peace enjoyed reading this post brings back alot of menories peace clammy

Jeff Lawrence_24

I remember that!

Now that you mention it, I remember removing that paper off the heat exchangers. To the best of my knowledge, I never left any.


I hope.

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