here's a rough one, 7 year old oil fired steam boiler

Ok I’m not an expert on an indirect off a steam boiler. Why is there an aquastat on the steam outlet? Is the hot water leg pipes off the top of the boiler in what is essentially a “dry” area? Is that wrong or do I not know what I’m looking at?

Oh and the steam piping is all wrong too.

What did they call you in for?

> @GW said:
> KC I was there to give a ductless quote. I ran to the basement to check out the elec panel. This stopped me in my tracks. I'm trying to pay more attention to steam jobs and getting more pics and vids to build myself a small library. I did chat with her a bot about the steam, and she seems content. i'm not gonna break out into some weird 'who did your piping it's all wrong" routine, that's just not in my dna.

When you finish the ductless install, casually point out that you service steam systems as well. I'm sure the install of the ductless should convince them that it would be a good idea to let you take care of the steam system when they feel it's necessary, instead of the last guy that did it

They had no clue. Funny thing is they sometimes work.

did you also get the ductless job

Looks a lot better. The original installed could have done that for the same money....if he had opened the manual and read it

Mitsubishi, Carrier, the occasional other brand of mini splits, Mitsubishi & Lennox VRF systems (both heat pump & heat recovery). The guesstimator keeps threatening to sell a Daiken VRF system, but hasn't managed to yet, that I'm aware of.

Once I got a eccentric-cone style flare tool, the problems mostly went away. A touch of Nylog to lubricate the flare got rid of the few remaining I have a digital torque wench that I use, but the recommended torque from the tool manual might be too high—it always seems to want to push the copper out of the flare nut.

Why, Torquè, of course.

Sounds like you've go the same one, Black Max (IIRC) from Johnstone? Works good for me, but like I said, the recommended torque for the smaller flares tend to push the copper out of the fitting. We've been Zoom Locking & brazing lately, I haven't had much time to look into exactly what's happening. (Could even be user error, I suppose.)

I used copper lock once, on a condensate line in a bldg that wanted a 4 hour fire watch if you lit a torch. Pressed everything else. Worked good, I guess, no callbacks. I use Nylog, AKA gorilla snot, to keep my flares leak-free. For damaged flare surfaces, I use (or will, haven't had to yet!) flaretites. They look like they'd work like tits.

Flared with an Anchor eccentric cone tool, if anything a little on the long side (occasionally the flare doesn't want to go into the nut). If I try and torque a ¼" line down to the default numbers in the tool, it's >really< tight, to the point that I'm worried about breaking the nut or something. I backed one off once, the flare looked terrible. I ended up cutting it off & re-flaring, to a lesser torque.

As I recall, I never got around to comparing the tool's suggested torque to the mfgr's. I'll see if I can take a look at that some time next week.