Getting rid of the old boiler sections

GW · November 17

Help-

It’s at least a couple decades since I’ve removed one of these hogs.

59 inches tall 36 inches wide, very heavy. It’s not looking good to get them out unless we break them.

cutting torch the only way to do this or is anybody have any other ideas?

Unfortunately we have to go up a flight of (working) stairs

mattmia2 · November 17

Or a sledgehammer. Or hire movers to deal with it.

hot_rod · November 17

A typical oxy actylene cutting torch will not work well on high carbon content iron. It will blow blobs of red hot iron. Plasma cutters work better.

Diamond wheel in a saw works.

All are messy.

Sledge hammers can send pieces of iron flying, approach with care.

I vote for subbing it out :)

HVACNUT · November 18

Hand truck. 2 guys up top, 2 guys on the bottom.

GW · November 18

Hand Truck, it’s a little sketch because a little bit of movement in the section will flop to the the left, the front and rear section must be 500- 700 pounds. I’m guessing

EBEBRATT-Ed · November 18

Hand truck and 4 guys. Or cut 1/2 way through with angle grinder the hit with a sledge hammer.

Can you hang a chain fall at the top of the stairs. Cut a hole in the plaster or drywall. Drill a joist with an angle drill and push a piece of 3/8 wire rope through the hole and put wire rope clips on it.

If the stairs are not too steep and the stairs are straight outside you can hook a come along or a winch to a truck. Make a trough of 2 x8s or 2 x10s and nail some sheet metal to the bottom with flat heat roofing nails and winch them out on edge.

another way is to lay 2 x6s on stairs and lay the sections on them flat. Pull them up the sections will dig into the 2 x 6s and the whole works will slide out.

I have done Smith 28s where the F & B sections are 800#. Those Burnhams are smaller probably 500# each

Cutting torch is NG on cast iron won't work.

HVACNUT · November 18

Any turns on the stairs? Open underneath? Can you add 2x4 supports, Hand truck and rope it? I've had to split many boilers to get them out, but I've never had to smash the cast iron. I have however been in a few basements where the old behemoth was just moved into a corner.

mattmia2 · November 18

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1872814#Comment_1872814

like that this old house where they go in to the basement and there's like 5 water heaters

DanielDAY · November 18

If you can, buy a nice heavy duty dolly. If the stairs are able, put a heavy duty ramp on them and with a few people go up the ramp with the extra help. If you have to take a brake on the ramp, have some one closely watching and shove wood under a wheel to stop it in its location while the person holds it. I’ve done this at a school with a bad dolly and a sketchy ramp situation. More people is always better.

other than that there’s no easy way about getting those sections out unless there’s easy access to the outdoors (like no stairs)

Mad Dog_2 · November 18

If there's a little "room" in the job, Sub it out. You and your guys spinal discs will thank you down the road. Mad Dog

Intplm. · November 18

Cut them into "small" pieces. Cut them in a method of your choice and load them to the scrap yard. Or, even better, see if you can have a "scrapper" take them for you. Depending on your area, scrapers might want the whole load.

clammy · November 18

Use a grinder w a diablo metal blade cut a bunch of channel in the proper place and a good wide chiesel and it shold pop the rest of the way . In my younger days i ve dragged them out myself but when i got older started to smash them and got used to having some sledge handles extra but in the past couple of years of still dragging out it was the grinder much quicker and cheaper then buying and replacing multi handles . Now a days when in that situation unless a walk in walk out i make a call and a bunch of super nice gentlemen come and draggem out and dispose of them for less time and money then i ever could do it plus saves the back and enables you to concentrate on the real work at hand . some would rather kill them self and there workers then pay for the service at this point in my life again if its a walk in walk out standard residential boiler ok but on larger one i drop the dime and get the nicest gorillas to do the heavy work it a whole lot smarter that way and nobody gets hurt .

peace and good luck clammy

dandub1960 · November 18

Scrapper came right down to the basement to haul away sections of my old Burham 5B, including two buckets of rust chips from the collapsing pedestal. Not sure if he got money for the chips or just did us a favor. That said the boiler sections were (only) 150 lbs each.

GW · November 18

old school labor, we got it all out. I’ll post some pictures once I clean the soot off my face and put some food in my head.

GW · November 18

a combination of cutting with the diamond wheel, a little sawzall action with the expensive Diablo blade, some old school sledgehammering.

GW · November 18

@HVACNUT yes these sections were pretty big.

we normally haul all the metal stuff back to our shop, and then hand it over to our Scrap guy.

This was a unique situation, larger than average rip out for us.

This job is going directly to the scrap yard. we don’t have time to hand it over to the Scrap guy, it’s coming off our truck just once- the Scrap guy will lead our help load it into his truck.

Plus, I’m dying see what the weight is, I’m gonna guess 2200 pounds

we packed everything in the pick up truck minus the front section. We did haul it outside, but the pick up truck was starting to sag. We probably should not have loaded those water heaters, oh well