Can't get steam fitting on tight enough
I cant get the street 90 on tight enough. I need to go another whole turn from the current position. My pipe wrench is butting up against the floor.
I've tried 2 different street 90s. A chinese one and a Ward.
Would swapping position of the 90 and the street 90 help? Or should I get a different wrench with a slimmer profile?
(The nipple and valve are not on the street 90 when I tried to make the turn. ;>)
Comments
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You need to get tricky with that wrench. You will need a long nipple to place in the street 90°. screw it in a few threads and use it to make a 1/4 turn to point the 90° strait up. Then another street 90 to do the same 1/4 turn thing again. Now the 90° you want to tighten is pointing in the opposite direction. remove the helper fitting and use the pipe wrench on the 90° over the edge and lift the wrench for another 1/4 turn. and finally use the wrench again over the edge to get that last 1/4 turn.
Illustration to follow
Edward Young Retired
After you make that expensive repair and you still have the same problem, What will you check next?
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Use wrench on the edge sideways
Edward Young Retired
After you make that expensive repair and you still have the same problem, What will you check next?
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Hi, Maybe time to get an offset wrench 😊
Yours, Larry
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Why don't you just tighten the fitting coming out of the floor another 90 degrees, or is that 2" that important in where the radiator sits?
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Can you install a union between the street ninety and the regular ninety? Is there room to do that?
If there's room you should be all set.
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@mattmia2 and @Intplm. have good ideas if you can get the radiator to fit. But I think you are going to use the same radiator you removed to do the new flooring job.
I have one concern about that job. Will the new floor hight cause the radiator to actually lift the pipe that is coming out of the floor about 5/8" vertically? Will the new position cause the pipes in the basement to shift and cause a dip in the main going to the next radiator?
If you are all done and you get some hammering noise that you never had before, I would look there first! You may need to lift every radiator, on that particular main, 5/8" in order to keep the proper pitch.
Probably not. but you never know!
I have seen stranger things happen. Like when someone gets new wall to wall carpet to block the under side of a baseboard radiator. The 8 months later there is not enough heat on a cold January night.
Ask me how I know!
Edward Young Retired
After you make that expensive repair and you still have the same problem, What will you check next?
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Thanks for the tips. I got it done but with some struggle. The hard part was when the female side of the street 90 was facing the floor. The face of the street 90 was just a few hairs off the floor. I couldn't get my wrench onto the neck of the street 90. The space was so tight that jaws of the wrench didn't fit under the neck of the street 90. I ended up positioning the wrench in the loosening direction and turned it clockwise. I had to tighten the wrench nut with channel locks to get it to hold.
Out of interest, I was in home depot and was looking for a wrench with a slimmer hook jaw profile. Everything was about the same size as my wrench.
This radiator has a 2 1/2" oc inlet. It's a real pain to get them plumbed properly. Here are the constraints I was facing.
- This is a gut renovation job. All the risers were exposed before. To modernize things, I'm hiding the risers in the stud walls. This brings the walls closer to where the radiator inlets come up. Making working on them difficult.
- I did replace the old 90 & nipple coming thru the floor when I had the subfloor up to get it to the correct height for the new finish floor. I could have moved it further from the wall, but that would mean notching a joist. So I opted not to.
Regarding the hammering - I sure hope not. I don't think i lifted the main pipes up. The new nipple length coming out of the floor was measured for the new flooring height. I eyeballed the pitch of the valve to make sure I was getting proper condensate return and my valve center was 2 1/2" off the floor. 1/2" longer on the nipple and the valve didn't quite look pitched properly.
Yesterday I threaded a long pipe onto the street 90 and put a level on it. More than enough pitch. I could have probably went 1/2" higher on the nipple coming out of the floor and avoided the wrenching problems.
@Intplm. Good idea. Not sure if there's enough room off the floor for the unions nut. I'll have to measure. Thanks - I'll keep that in mind next time I'm in a pickle.
@mattmia2 - Good idea. That would have solved my spacing off the wall. Will also keep this in my bag of tricks. Thanks.
With the 90 el so close to the sheetrock, I can't get my baseboard behind it. I'll have to get crafty and build something to fit.
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Some big channelocks might do it too.
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I've tried tightening pipe with channel locks.
You'd be surprised how difficult it is to compete with a pipe wrench trying to squeeze those handles together.
Single pipe 392sqft system with an EG-40 rated for 325sqft and it's silent and balanced at all times.
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Chain wrench
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You can grip it at the fitting like a ford wrench. I have some insanely large channelocks that I bought when I went probably 2 sizes bigger than I should have but they have been useful for some things. You also have to buy real channelocks, I have had several brands of knockoffs and they never hold well enough at the slip joint.
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The biggest ones I have are :
Single pipe 392sqft system with an EG-40 rated for 325sqft and it's silent and balanced at all times.
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Hi, I used Channellocks for years, but then found Knipex:
Now this is my go-to plier. They come in a range of sizes.
Yours, Larry
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that would have done the job.
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I brought the first Knipex pliers I came across about 40 years ago. At the wholesale house there was a demo pipe setup on the counter. I played with that awhile and brought one. Two plumbers at the counter laughed at me and said I could have gotten a "real" pipe wrench for what that cost. (They were old guys…just a little younger than I am now….😉).
Almost never use the channel locks I have…..they seem like clubs compared to the Knipex pairs I have now.
And I have several pairs of the sizes.
I still have "real" pipe wrenches, 6" up to 36" and use them as needed.
2
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