# Latest Project



## Gary

A year and a half ago, we were hit by a tornado, followed by heavy rain. With no power, our basement flooded. This fall, when I went to fire up the boiler it wouldn't. Looking closer, the flood water had finally taken it's toll on the 18 year old boiler. The bottom had rusted out. 
Backing up, when we bought the house it had the boiler on the right in the photo. Years later we added on to the house and added the second unit to handle the addition. A few years after that the original boiler died. I tied the whole heating system to the new boiler and but for the very coldest days it worked well that way. We have an efficient, sealed door fireplace that can pretty much heat the house on it's own, so the two together worked o.k.
But, since we now had to replace the newer boiler, I decided to up the BTU's  (an extra 25,000). I added extra baseboard  to handle the extra BTU's. The last few days have been bitter cold and the extra boiler size worked great. 
Unfortunately the flood water had the same affect on the hot water heater. It wasn't leaking yet, but the metal exterior was rusting away to the point it was starting to lean to one side. 
So, I took out everything. I bricked up all but 1 opening in the brick chimney, gave it a coat of vinyl patch concrete and re-leveled the concrete pad they sit on. Set bricks in the new concrete and leveled them, so the boiler, water heater & humidifier would have air space under them to keep them drier. Put a new liner in the brick chimney.  Then installed a new hot water heater and boiler. Replaced the regulator valve & blow back valve. Replaced a zone valve that was shot. Replaced all the bleeder valves as they were getting a little nasty. 
Also, installed a new dehumidifier to keep things dry. 
I boxed in the copper water lines running in the crawl space and insulated the floor joists. The ceramic tile in the foyer used to be freezing cold, but now is nice and warm. 
I bought new programmable thermostats for each zone valve that need to be installed yet, then it's done. Those extra BTU's have really made a difference. Hadn't planned on this project, but now that it's done, I'm glad I was forced into replacing it.

Guess this may be in the wrong section as  it's more about HVAC than a water heater? If it needs to be moved, please do. Thanks.


----------



## nealtw

You've been away for a while. Nice update. looks good.


----------



## Gary

nealtw said:


> You've been away for a while. Nice update. looks good.



Thanks nealtw. Yes, I ran into a wall trying to log in for a long time. I would get an occasional email, but would run into password problems. I finally had some free time and got to the bottom of the problem, and so here I am. 
We were hit by a tornado a year and a half ago as I mentioned, so I've been doing a lot of repair & upgrade projects around the place. Still a long way to go.


----------



## nealtw

Gary said:


> Thanks nealtw. Yes, I ran into a wall trying to log in for a long time. I would get an occasional email, but would run into password problems. I finally had some free time and got to the bottom of the problem, and so here I am.
> We were hit by a tornado a year and a half ago as I mentioned, so I've been doing a lot of repair & upgrade projects around the place. Still a long way to go.



I saw two interesting things, the chimney is used as a bearing point for the beam and the hole beneath is almost the same size as the beam.

And what is the mauve box against the wall?


----------



## Gary

The beam is a little wider than the vent opening, not by much but it's wider. It's  the original vent opening. It's been that way for nearly 100 years with no cracks, so it should be o.k. 
The box is a curing oven for screen printing. It hasn't been used since I gave up screen printing many years ago. As far as I know it still is in working order. That's a future project, cleaning everything out of the basement that is no longer used & give the space a face lift. There's a bunch of projects higher on the list though.


----------



## nealtw

Gary said:


> The beam is a little wider than the vent opening, not by much but it's wider. It's  the original vent opening. It's been that way for nearly 100 years with no cracks, so it should be o.k.
> The box is a curing oven for screen printing. It hasn't been used since I gave up screen printing many years ago. As far as I know it still is in working order. That's a future project, cleaning everything out of the basement that is no longer used & give the space a face lift. There's a bunch of projects higher on the list though.



I am sure they did something in there to take the wait but the wood has to be close to the liner, just something you don't expect to see. Like you say time tested.


----------



## bud16415

Nice work Gary and welcome back home.


----------



## Gary

Thanks bud16415. It's good to be back. 

I worry about the oddest things sometimes. It's nice to have isolation valves on the boiler for maintenance, but I worry about the valves inadvertently getting turned off when the boiler is running. So, I came up with these lock out plates. To close the valve you have to remove the two self tapping screws & remove the plate. Being in the sign business, I had to label them to make them look more official. 
I put ZIP ties on the last boiler's valves, but over time they got brittle from the heat & fell off. These should last.


----------



## bud16415

That&#8217;s a great idea. 

They also make ball valves that take a LOTO lock (lock out tag out).


----------



## nealtw

Labels are a great idea, home owners and handymen do some strange things.


----------



## Gary

nealtw said:


> Labels are a great idea, home owners and handymen do some strange things.



Yea, I'm one of those guys that figures why buy when you can make something out of stuff laying around. (an old habit that's hard to break).


----------



## nealtw

Gary said:


> Yea, I'm one of those guys that figures why buy when you can make something out of stuff laying around. (an old habit that's hard to break).



I have never ha to deal with a system like that and every time I see one I ask the home owner if they know what to do if they ever spring a leak or worse.

One did have a what if list, what to do's if and that was only because the home owner had asked all the questions and listened to the answers and wrote it down.


----------



## Gary

Yea, we've had forced air in the past. This place had hot water heat so we stuck with it. I really like the heat, the house just gets warm. I routed all the heat runs so they're accessible. Only a couple short runs can cause drywall damage if there's a leak and most of that would be in the garage. As a plus I ran the DW lines between the heat runs, so there's no chance of frozen pipes, unless the boiler is down for an extended time.


----------



## nealtw

A friend had a circulating pump that actually broke in half and he just went down and turned everything off and did some damage to the boiler. The tech told him what he should have done. Instructions at hand would have been a great help. When it was all done and fixed I asked him what he would do the next time. He didn't know.


----------



## Gary

Shut it down, but also turn off the water inlet to the system so cold water won't get to the hot boiler. 
That's the first time I've heard of that happening. Usually when a pump goes bad it just stops or a seal starts leaking a little. Boiler heats up and the limiter switch shuts it down. Much like when a blower motor fails on a forced air unit I would suspect. I had one pump fail on the last boiler in 18 years. I can't remember exactly if it stopped or leaked but it didn't cause any damage beyond  just having to replace the pump. 
I remember I bought a pump and it was slow coming. So, I ordered one from another place and then both showed up. The one pump is still in the box and the one I installed is still in good shape. The new boiler takes the same pump. So, I have one pump in service and 2 backups. I should be set for life as long as the seals don't dry up on the shelved units. 
I should probably check to see if there's a lube I could run through them to protect the seals from drying out? Anybody know of a product?


----------



## nealtw

It was a bad casting that held for 20 years but I guess it was like an explosion and then water all over the place. Just lucky no one was near by.


----------



## Gary

190°f water under pressure , that could have been bad.


----------

