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This week in oictures

S Ebels
S Ebels Member Posts: 2,322
in THE MAIN WALL
First up: Mom was home on the couch with the "flu". Sis was having headaches that disappeared when she went to school and then came back over night. Hmmmm What's going on here?

One look at the mechanical room pretty much showed me everything I needed to see. Back to the van and get the Testo. BaddaBoom Baddabing! 24 ppm ambient, yanked the probe when it started jumping in 800ppm increments in the water heater flue. A closer look revealed soot stallagtites (sp) hanging in the water heater burner area.

Long story short, family had just moved in at the tail end of last winter. Dad noticed cold air coming into the closet where the furnace and water heater were and decided to put a cap on the 6" pipe letting in all the draft.

Pic 63........ can you say roll out?

Pic 64 Dad had the thought that it would probably work OK if he put a cap on the combustion air pipe on the back wall of the closet but it should probably have a "little" air yet. He drilled about 8-10 1/4" holes in the cap. "I thought that would be enough" end of quote.




Opening line of the next story........... It was a dark and screwed up Knight!

HO called us from recommendation by a friend. We are third contractor on the scene of the crime. The first was the plumber who was originally hired to do the job. He does not hold a boiler license and as such, cannot legally install a boiler.........I have no idea what he was thinking. The second contractor happens to be the plumbing inspector in a neighboring county. He at least got the boiler to fire and heat going. On a call for DHW the boiler starts banging and shuts down.

The pics show how I found it, we'll go there next week and re-do a "couple" things. Pictures are 73 and 74

As you can see, we are looking at a system which delivers the same water temp to the cement slab basement floor as it does the three loops of pex nailed to the side of the floor joists above. He's either going to cook his cement or freeze upstairs.

Comments

  • Weezbo
    Weezbo Member Posts: 6,231
    Yikes ! you should have left him the sawzall...

    that would save you lots of time:) provided he marked the zones etc.... :) dont worry Be Habby :)
  • Christian Egli_2
    Christian Egli_2 Member Posts: 812
    Saving the draught for the birds

    Funny thing, this week we diagnosed one similar problem on a 200000 BTU/h hot water heater with lots of flame rolling out the sides: the clever idea :( to stop the nuisance? wrap a piece of sheet metal all around the open bottom...

    It's worse now? Black streaks on the side? Install one of those lateral draught booster :( ...

    It's piling up full of soot inside, so much so, the flue passage is completely choked off? The chimney is caked with soot? Now may be the time to worry - finally.

    The cause of all the problem

    The slanted stack consisted of about 20ft of single wall galvanized steel pipe. Too cold to maintain an adequate temperature for stack draught creation. The cure will be tankless.
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