Duck Pond Redneckery

[Duck]

My boiler hasn't been able to sustain a flame at all this fall.

It's a complicated high falutin' 90+ % efficiency thing. The burner is inside a blower fan.

3 weeks ago my regular HVAC guy said they were swamped with work. The weather returned to summer, so I forgot about it. I was spending 99% of my awake time in the shop which is better insulated than the house.

Last week I replaced the furnace in the shop.

Anyway I called a different HVAC company and 3 of them came out but couldn't figure out the problem. They called the manufacturer and were told how to clean out the burner.

I'd already stuck a bore scope into the burner and verified there's no obstruction, but whatever... They said Monday at 8.

Monday 7:46 am the guy called & said the manufacturer called them back and said they gotta descale the heat exchanger and it's gonna be $1700-1800 just in labor.

So I texted John, my preferred HVAC guy. He ended up taking most of last week off because his Rottweiler got kennel cough and wasn't eating.

Anyway he'll be here around 10.

I have a theory that the problem is in the heat recuperator.

The heat recuperator is this tin can looking thing that the boiler exhaust goes into & it uses some of the waste heat. He actual exhaust pipe that goes outside is f*n PVC pipe because the final exhaust is only about 90°F.


Future reference - if you ever install a 90+% efficiency furnace or boiler in your house, don't get a Weil McLane.

 

[Electric Chicken]

The only thing I've learned about my boiler repair wise so far is if you don't replace the expansion tank when needed, the relief valve will p1ss all over your floor every time it cycles.

I'm pretty much an HVAC idiot otherwise. Same with electricity.

 

[Duck]

The only thing I've learned about my boiler repair wise so far is if you don't replace the expansion tank when needed, the relief valve will p1ss all over your floor every time it cycles.

I'm pretty much an HVAC idiot otherwise. Same with electricity.

Since your boiler is also your water heater, and water heaters are only good for 7-8 years on good water, 3-4 on well water, if I were you, I'd learn how it works, and make sure the water going into it is from a water softener.

Yours might recirculate the same water through the radiators. Hopefully it does. Because no matter what quality of water it uses, there's only X amount of harmful minerals in it. If it's always using fresh water, it'll get lime-scaled really fast.

 

[389 Hood]

That's one plus about living here in this tourist hell hole, I really only use the heat a few days a year. When it gets to about 45F in here we'll flip it on to get it up to 60F, but the house is so well insulated, heat is almost unnecessary. A/C is quite another thing. It runs almost all year round and we keep it at 70F.

I read on a lot of forums I'm on about what a PITA boiler systems are. Our water here is so hard and full of lime it tears up electric hot water heaters in about 10 years. Once a year I have to soak all the aerators and shower heads in a gallon of white vinegar to clean them up.

 

[Duck]

That's one plus about living here in this tourist hell hole, I really only use the heat a few days a year. When it gets to about 45F in here we'll flip it on to get it up to 60F, but the house is so well insulated, heat is almost unnecessary. A/C is quite another thing. It runs almost all year round and we keep it at 70F.

I read on a lot of forums I'm on about what a PITA boiler systems are. Our water here is so hard and full of lime it tears up electric hot water heaters in about 10 years. Once a year I have to soak all the aerators and shower heads in a gallon of white vinegar to clean them up.

My water heaters rust out and start leaking after 3-4 years.

I think I'm on top of a huge iron deposit.

I have to soak my shower head & diverter spout in CLR about every few months. I've never had any luck with vinegar.

 

[389 Hood]

Try a quick dunk in Muriatic Acid. I have to use that to clean the nozzles and heads in my sprinkler system. The calcium and lime plugs them in just a few months. I only suggest that for plastic items. Anything metal would not be pretty when it came out.

I remove the heads and stems, put them in a 1/2 gal of Muriatic Acid and then with a pair of needle-nosed pliers, pull them out and rinse them off. It's just like you bought them brand new at Homo Dumpo.

 

[Duck]

Try a quick dunk in Muriatic Acid. I have to use that to clean the nozzles and heads in my sprinkler system. The calcium and lime plugs them in just a few months. I only suggest that for plastic items. Anything metal would not be pretty when it came out.

I remove the heads and stems, put them in a 1/2 gal of Muriatic Acid and then with a pair of needle-nosed pliers, pull them out and rinse them off. It's just like you bought them brand new at Homo Dumpo.

I used muriatic acid to clean the copper plating on my pots once.
The tarnish just immediately comes off, like I'm hosing mud off of a car.

 

[Duck]

I found this in the ashes in my bonfire pit.

It's from the closet door the firemen destroyed for no f*n reason, wasn't locked, wasn't burning, there was no fire in the closet, and they could've just lifted the pins out of the hinges..

This was not removed from the door.
The door was burned and this eventually fell down into the hot coals where it was probably glowing hot for hours.

The knobs and decorative plates had many layers of paint on them.

But it didn't look deformed.

So it got a bath in muriatic acid, then got taken apart & all the pieces individually cleaned on the bench grinder's wire wheel.



Most of the interior doors of this house built in 1917 have this exact same knob/deadbolt thing that uses a skeleton key.

I don't even know what type of metal it is.

The knobs look like plain steel, they stick to a magnet, but they had no rust. Just black stuff.

The decorative plates looked like copper after the muriatic acid cleaning , but then after I ran them on the wire wheel they look like brass on the faces and copper on the insides.

The castings for the mechanism are just cast iron.

The threaded square rod thing that passes through from one knob to the other, is steel. It was rusty so it got the wire wheel and then some primer.



I dunno if I'll lubricate the mechanism. Don't know if it needs it. It worked just fine before the fire.



I'm gonna have to make a new closet door eventually, because it was narrower than anything I've ever seen at Menards.

And because if I make a new door I can post lots of pictures to trigger Old Scrooge

Dunno if I'll get some metal polish and all that shit or if I'll just spray it with clear polyurethane to prevent tarnishing. Probably put primer on the castings.

But I'm gonna use it in the new door.

 

[389 Hood]

No Chinesium cheapy metal in that, you proved it in the fire. Go buy a door lock set and drop it in a bonfire. You'll never see it intact again.

 

[GAnthony]

I found this in the ashes in my bonfire pit.

It's from the closet door the firemen destroyed for no f*n reason, wasn't locked, wasn't burning, there was no fire in the closet, and they could've just lifted the pins out of the hinges..

This was not removed from the door.
The door was burned and this eventually fell down into the hot coals where it was probably glowing hot for hours.

The knobs and decorative plates had many layers of paint on them.

But it didn't look deformed.

So it got a bath in muriatic acid, then got taken apart & all the pieces individually cleaned on the bench grinder's wire wheel.

View attachment 90564

Most of the interior doors of this house built in 1917 have this exact same knob/deadbolt thing that uses a skeleton key.

I don't even know what type of metal it is.

The knobs look like plain steel, they stick to a magnet, but they had no rust. Just black stuff.

The decorative plates looked like copper after the muriatic acid cleaning , but then after I ran them on the wire wheel they look like brass on the faces and copper on the insides.

The castings for the mechanism are just cast iron.

The threaded square rod thing that passes through from one knob to the other, is steel. It was rusty so it got the wire wheel and then some primer.

View attachment 90565

I dunno if I'll lubricate the mechanism. Don't know if it needs it. It worked just fine before the fire.

View attachment 90566

I'm gonna have to make a new closet door eventually, because it was narrower than anything I've ever seen at Menards.

And because if I make a new door I can post lots of pictures to trigger Old Scrooge

Dunno if I'll get some metal polish and all that shit or if I'll just spray it with clear polyurethane to prevent tarnishing. Probably put primer on the castings.

But I'm gonna use it in the new door.

well first...dumbass..........you can leave it "as is", and it'll just continue to have that patina, or you can indeed have it polished out for a super shine, but you'd want it to match the rest of the room, meaning if the room is not painted, it'll stand out way too much, or blend in with the rest of the room.

i had the address numbers on my house, go thru the polishing media in my reloading room, and put a nice shine on those numbers.

i have taken apart a few locking mechanisms before and never found any grease in any of them, but i'd be certain that at the very least some old fashion 3-in-1 oil was used to lubricate them from time to time.

today, you could use a heavy duty grease, light application of course, to keep things lubed.

i have several such door parts myself, and just leave them alone.

and i still figure you'll flood the website with a gabillion frigging pictures any way..........

Mike ought to leave the word filters alone, and let us swear till the lights go out in Georgia, and concentrate on picture limits for YOU instead.......

 

[Electric Chicken]

I have some older doorknobs still but I never considered burning down the house to see what's inside them.

 

[389 Hood]

Graphite is the best lubricant for any fine precision instrument.

 

[Duck]

you can leave it "as is", and it'll just continue to have that patina, or you can indeed have it polished out for a super shine, but you'd want it to match the rest of the room, meaning if the room is not painted, it'll stand out way too much, or blend in with the rest of the room.

The walls in that room were a pinkish reddish pink or something, with white doors and window trim.

But that's just the most recent color.

Right now they're a pinkish reddish black, with gray doors and window trim. And the blinds on a window ten feet from the fire got partially melted.

A framed picture of my mom when she was 12, is on the wall, perfectly intact, and the smoke patterns on the wall around it look really cool.

Her urn was all black but it's polished marble, and cleaned up really well with Simple Green.

 

[Electric Chicken]

Graphite is the best lubricant for any fine precision instrument.

What I'm hearing is I need to start pencil whipping the inspections and maintenance of my Mack.

 

[Duck]

My dad has been hoarding plastic because he's addicted to communist propaganda and thinks we can save the world if we recycle plastic.

So I decided to recycle some plastic with the heat gun and my shop press.

Here's the process.. Most plastics shrink as they heat up. With the Walmart bag I just started with it flattened and folded twice into 1/4 size. Then I shrank it with the heat gun and kept flipping it and folding it over. Eventually I had to put a silicone glove on.

Fold, smash with fist, heat, smash, flip, heat, smash, etc then I finish with the hydraulic press.

Now I don't just stick it between the cold, one inch thick steel plates, I use parchment paper as an insulator which buys me a few seconds to get it between the plates, centered in the press, then operate the bottle jack.

I leave it for a few minutes with like 40,000 lbs of pressure on it.







The 6-pack holder thingy is kinda cool. Super slick, feels like nylon or silicone. Might be good for making thrust bearing discs from using a hole saw.

The pill bottle plastic, if I can get more colors, would be good for making a fake stained glass window using the band saw to cut straight edges, and super glue.

But ain't nobody got time for that. Not even me.

Tomorrow morning when I'm hung over, I'll probably just throw all this shit in the garbage.

 

[Duck]

Here be's the shrink-wrap around a 24 pack of bottled water.

Melt, flatten, fold in half, crush, heat, flatten, fold, etc Yada Yada blah blah..



I drilled a hole and tapped threads in for a 1/4" bolt





The bolt fits tight, turns stiff.

That's what she said..

 

[Duck]

If I can invent some kind of machine that makes it easier to do this to plastic, make little flat discs out of light and bulky plastic garbage, maybe start a Facebook page for interesting looking plastic melt-crush discs, I bet the democult would give me free advertising because it's SAVING THE WORLD...


I could actually in real life help the landfill, floating garbage in the oceans problem and get a Nobel prize and become a billionaire and have a harem of 18 yr old chicks on my yacht while I dump plastic discs into the ocean and laugh at all the stupid people who made me rich.

 

[Duck]

So if I say, 6 beers is a decent drunkening, not shitfaced but nicely buzzed, and I weigh 240 lbs

That's one beer for each 40 lbs of body mass..

My dog weighs 40 lbs.

So if I can get him to drink one beer, that's the equivalent of me drinking 6.

I'm gonna do some research into "what happens if a dog gets drunk" tomorrow.

But I'm gonna get this little ankle monster drunk one of these days.

 

[389 Hood]

Not only are you bored as hell, but a dreamer and fantasizer.

 

[389 Hood]

DO NOT give the dog alcohol. It will shut down his kidneys.