The Squamidian Report – Nov. 29 / 08
Issue #340
Including:
From the Shores of Lake Huron
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Remember that hot water heater that I needed to install in our house here? Well, I tackled the job last Saturday and what should have been an easy morning of removing the old tank and hooking up the new tank turned into a hellish nightmare. I used to be good at that kind of stuff, did it all the time 15 or 20 years ago. Now I guess I’m old and decrepit because I’ve sure lost my touch.
The old tank came out easy enough. The tank sits in the laundry room, which has an outside door so draining the water was a breeze and getting the tank out no problem at all. Binging in the new tank was as simple as carrying it around from the garage in setting it in place. Running new copper pipes from the cold water line that fed the old tank went great. Hooking up the hot side also went great. I used those new pre-soldered fittings wherever I could and had everything done by early afternoon.
Then I pressurized the system!
Four leaks, that’s right, FOUR! I’ve never had a soldered joint leak before in my whole life. Two of the leaks were at pre-soldered fittings and two were at the two couplers that connect to the tank. None of the standard type fitting joints leaked. Now, the problem with a leaking soldered joint is that you have to get all the water out of the lines before you can re-solder. Even a tiny bit of water will disperse the heat enough to prevent the solder from melting and flowing. For the leak in the upper, hot water line simply turning off the intake valve and releasing a bit of water from the tank was enough to drain that line and let me re-solder the joint. The leak in the cold water supply was down at floor level and that meant I had to cut the line in order to drain it.
With the upper leak I had been able to re-solder with everything in place. With the lower leak I had to un-solder the pipe stub where it connected to the old existing line. That is a time intensive, pain in the butt job. Once the pipe is removed from the old line fitting, that fitting has to have all the solder cleaned from its inside diameter before a new piece of pipe can be inserted and re-soldered. Rather than chance using the pre-soldered fitting again I picked up a good old standard style and soldered it in the old fashion way. Then I tackled those couplers that connect to the tank. Now here is the one thing that I actually did right. I had installed union joints in the lines just above the tank inlet and outlet, just in case I needed to undo these connections. Had I not done that, you might well have heard me cursing all the way from here to where you are.
By loosening off the unions I could tighten the tank connectors and then pressurize the tank again. Guess what, they still leaked. So, let off the pressure and tighten again. STILL LEAKING. Then I undid them completely and put more Teflon tape over the treads. Still leaked, tightened them even tighter and the cold side was good. It took one more tightening before the hot side held. Lesson here is buy the absolute best fittings you can get, I guess, and go extra heavy with the Teflon.
Those pre-soldered fittings definitely have their place but you have to be better at soldering than I am to use them. When they work, they work great. The solder forms a perfect bead that looks very professional. The trick is to get the heat right and to get that bead ALL THE WAY AROUND THE PIPE. But you can’t always see all the way around the pipe and it was at those kind of joints that I had the problems.
So what should have been an easy morning turned into a long day of frustration and aggravation. However, last time I checked there were no leaking spots and we have plenty of hot water so unless something unexpectedly blows up on me, the job is done.
And of course the room has a fresh new coat of paint and now Sue just has to decide what new curtains or blinds she wants, then the mess can be completely cleaned up and finished with. In the mean time, I’ll just hide out somewhere in hopes that she doesn’t get ideas about painting and decorating any of the other rooms in the house.
doug
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Greetings everyone.
This week at the hatchery: Monday we shocked the eggs which literally kills all the weak eggs before we pick out the dead eggs. By shocking I don't mean electricity type of shock, what we do is take a tray of eggs and put them in a 5 gallon pail of water and take and dump it back and forth around 4 times which in turn breaks any yokes that are week. Being this year we only had about 95,000 eggs to start with this depleted the total to about 60,000 good eggs left. There will still be some die off but hopefully we can manage to still release between 40,000 plus small fry back into nature. After shocking two days later we put the eggs through an egg picker, which with a beam of light detects the bad eggs and separates them from the good ones. Before we bought an automatic picker it was all done by hand with tweezers and a wild turkey feather used to move the eggs around gently. This took many volunteers many many hours of work and after a while your eyes became screwy from the process. We did the above amount in about 1 1/2 hours with five people. Where as that amount the old way would have taken six or seven people 10 or 11 hours.
The weather this week wasn't up to normal temps for this time of the year but it also wasn't freezing cold. I was working back at the motel in the swimming pool area for a couple of days this week changing the cedar wainscoting on the walls. The first day I wore a tee shirt and standard work pants. I roasted to say the least. The second day I wore track pants over my shorts until I got there then took off the outer layer. It was still very warm but much better. It was kind of interesting when I went to the motels cafe for lunch. The looks on patrons’ faces to see someone in shorts with the colder weather and snow coming down when I walked in. Well I must sign off for now so everyone have a safe and happy week.
****
Hello
everyone!
The stars
are twinkling the moon is bright in a dark midnight winter sky, the snow
glistens on the bows of the front yard tree in that romantic moonlight. What
more could one ask for as Christmas approaches. How about a winning ticket in
tonight’s $25,000,000.00 Lotto 6/49? I’d say that’d be a nice surprise wouldn’t
you?
Ha ha
ha…. We all have dreams and wishes this time of year and the commercial aspect
of Christmas is in full swing. What the heck is going on here? It’s only
November and not yet winter. I guess with the snow falling people get in the
winter/Christmas mood and forget that it’s not official yet. Oh well, it’ll be
here soon enough.
*
From what I hear on the news tonight we just
might be treated to another federal election courtesy of the underdog Liberals,
NDP and Party Quebecois. Why should the citizens of Canada put up with the
temper tantrums of these three jealous parties and their less than qualified
leaders? I certainly hope a huge number of Canadians put pressure on their MPs
to stop this absurd raid on our present government by the Liberals who
definitely don’t deserve to be in power after the mess they made of things
before the Conservatives stepped in to bring some sense of normalcy to running
this country. The only other hope Canadians have is that if these jerks manage
to topple Mr Harper’s minority government, the citizens of Canada have enough
brains to realize they should have put Steven Harper in a Majority position in
the first place and do so by voting Conservative this time around. It really
ticks me off that these childish bastards play with Canada’s future like it’s
theirs to do with what they wish, not what the voters of this fair nation want
and need. It’s time to put a stop to these antics and vote in a party that
cares about the state of the country, not the state of their own pay cheques!
Sorry but with the shock of this news still bouncing around in my head I can’t
think of anything entertaining to say so I’m going to call it a day!
That’s it
for this week folks. Thanks for tuning in and I look forward to talking to you
all again next week in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now…. Greg.
PS:
Something To Think About>
Do you
believe in Santa Claus? Let’s hear your description of what Santa really is!
Surely you all have an opinion on this subject?
****
Have a good one..
the doug
The Fine Print!
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