Tank5
SILVER Star
Thanks, Well nothing fell off yet. The tcase is noisy as heck, so I expect I will have go back in and figure that out.
What did you work on tonight? (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter Dumpolina
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Thanks, Well nothing fell off yet. The tcase is noisy as heck, so I expect I will have go back in and figure that out.
alia176
SILVER Star
Hey everyone, it’s been a while. Monday & Tuesday were productive.
Stripped out the power steering system and shipped my steering box & pump for rebuilds.
Prepped to put in new water pump, oil pump, front main seal and radiator. Discovered some fantastic brazing on the power steering cooler hard line. The line was most likely broken in the front-end collision that caved in the lower radiator bulkhead. Funny, this doesn’t come up on carfax.
Stripped out the power steering system and shipped my steering box & pump for rebuilds.
Prepped to put in new water pump, oil pump, front main seal and radiator. Discovered some fantastic brazing on the power steering cooler hard line. The line was most likely broken in the front-end collision that caved in the lower radiator bulkhead. Funny, this doesn’t come up on carfax.
That's some quality southern ingenuity right there.Hey everyone, it’s been a while. Monday & Tuesday were productive.
Stripped out the power steering system and shipped my steering box & pump for rebuilds.
Prepped to put in new water pump, oil pump, front main seal and radiator. Discovered some fantastic brazing on the power steering cooler hard line. The line was most likely broken in the front-end collision that caved in the lower radiator bulkhead. Funny, this doesn’t come up on carfax.
View attachment 3337465
What have I been working on? Certainly nothing with an engine. Three home improvement projects that just seem to take forever.
First. Unlike many houses in NM my swamp cooler was mounted on the side of the house at ground level. It made maintenance and startup/shut down easy. After I installed the AC, the space in the house where the cooler was ducted became wasted space. I was in the middle of another project when a buddy came over to consult. We got to talking about the closet. He said "go grab your drywall saw and let's go look." So we cut a hole in the wall to see what was behind it. Couldn't really tell, so we cut the whole damn thing out.
This started the snow ball rolling. This is what was behind the wall. The duct work.
A week later, all gone and the vent capped off. Now on to drywall, which I've never done. Fortunately, the buddy used to build houses. He will show me ... except, he ended up doing most of the work. Except the sanding of course.
This is where it's at today. I textured a few days ago, and now I'm painting. Not just the hole, but the entire closet. Dang I had a lot of crap in that closet. After I get the closet painted and the junk moved back in I'm going to install shelves in the hole.
First. Unlike many houses in NM my swamp cooler was mounted on the side of the house at ground level. It made maintenance and startup/shut down easy. After I installed the AC, the space in the house where the cooler was ducted became wasted space. I was in the middle of another project when a buddy came over to consult. We got to talking about the closet. He said "go grab your drywall saw and let's go look." So we cut a hole in the wall to see what was behind it. Couldn't really tell, so we cut the whole damn thing out.
This started the snow ball rolling. This is what was behind the wall. The duct work.
A week later, all gone and the vent capped off. Now on to drywall, which I've never done. Fortunately, the buddy used to build houses. He will show me ... except, he ended up doing most of the work. Except the sanding of course.
This is where it's at today. I textured a few days ago, and now I'm painting. Not just the hole, but the entire closet. Dang I had a lot of crap in that closet. After I get the closet painted and the junk moved back in I'm going to install shelves in the hole.
On to consecutive project #2. I had a persistent issue with my water heater the last few years. The bottom of the tank was scaling, dropping flakes down on the burner, and plugging up the fresh air screen on the bottom. This would cause my pilot light to blow out. Solution was to pull out the burner assembly and vacuum the snot out of it. Then recently my T&P valve failed open. It was a mess.
I was talking with the same buddy about the water heater and he said "we just put that in." Ummmmm, when did we put that in? Well, it was 15 years ago. Time to start looking into such things since they are only supposed to last a dozen years or so. I'm on solar. I've already converted my oven and clothes drier from gas to electric. What about the water heater? Long story short ... I went geek and installed a heat pump, hybrid electric water heater. In theory I will only need to add one more panel, though I bought racking for two.
This project quickly went out of control. Things I needed to do before the water heater:
- run a 30A 220V circuit from the service panel to the water heater.
- bring the silly thing up to code with an expansion tank.
- replace the leaking gate valve with a ball valve.
- lower the T&P drain.
- remove the pedestal. Code for a gas water heater is 18". An electric can sit on the ground.
Before. Note how high the T&P drain is on the wall. There was some debate online about it needing to gravity feed down, which made no sense to me since it would be under pressure. I lowered it anyway.
Scale where the burner was. You can't even see the vent screen.
T&P Valve. No workie.
To code we go with the expansion tank.
And the replacement ball valve. I used a Shark Bite valve, but at the same time learned to solder pipe (easy).
I was talking with the same buddy about the water heater and he said "we just put that in." Ummmmm, when did we put that in? Well, it was 15 years ago. Time to start looking into such things since they are only supposed to last a dozen years or so. I'm on solar. I've already converted my oven and clothes drier from gas to electric. What about the water heater? Long story short ... I went geek and installed a heat pump, hybrid electric water heater. In theory I will only need to add one more panel, though I bought racking for two.
This project quickly went out of control. Things I needed to do before the water heater:
- run a 30A 220V circuit from the service panel to the water heater.
- bring the silly thing up to code with an expansion tank.
- replace the leaking gate valve with a ball valve.
- lower the T&P drain.
- remove the pedestal. Code for a gas water heater is 18". An electric can sit on the ground.
Before. Note how high the T&P drain is on the wall. There was some debate online about it needing to gravity feed down, which made no sense to me since it would be under pressure. I lowered it anyway.
Scale where the burner was. You can't even see the vent screen.
T&P Valve. No workie.
To code we go with the expansion tank.
And the replacement ball valve. I used a Shark Bite valve, but at the same time learned to solder pipe (easy).
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The hole cut in the wall to lower the T&P drain. What I didn't take pictures of was the pedestal removal. That stupid thing was built into the wall. When I removed it I had two gaping holes that needed to be dry wall repaired. We were hoping to have this done that day, but it set us back. I had two days of cold showers.
Look how stupid close the T&P drain is to the gas line.
I hated to use a Shark Bite elbow behind the wall, but it was really the only solution.
That part of the train wreck dry walled, gas line capped.
And ta-da ... all done. Since I have more room to work with I might remount the expansion tank vertical. No hurry. Also, since Ali asked, yes that is plastic pipe for the T&P drain. You can use CPVC, which is what I did.
Look how stupid close the T&P drain is to the gas line.
I hated to use a Shark Bite elbow behind the wall, but it was really the only solution.
That part of the train wreck dry walled, gas line capped.
And ta-da ... all done. Since I have more room to work with I might remount the expansion tank vertical. No hurry. Also, since Ali asked, yes that is plastic pipe for the T&P drain. You can use CPVC, which is what I did.
Forgot, because this is essentially an AC unit it has a condensate drain like a furnace/AC. I put the water heater on the ground which put the drain lower than the drain in my laundry room next door. The black box to the right of the water heater is a condensate pump. I had to drop an outlet down from the light switch to run the pump, GFCI of course, since it's in the garage.
The condensate hose coming through the wall into the laundry room.
The condensate hose coming through the wall into the laundry room.
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Me too. Lots of folks giving me a WTF look when I say "heat pump water heater." You are the second person to say you have heard of such things. The other was Larry Gorman, but he was in the green building business.
I've got one in my house and I was inspired by the HPWH that was in the apartment I lived in for 2 years while building my new house. The builder just wanted to put in a tankless, propane fired water heater. I didn't want to spend a fortune on propane. I like it for the most part. The only challenge I've had is slow recovery time to get hot water when it's in heat pump only mode, which is the most energy efficient mode to heat the water. Mine is in the garage so it's faster to heat the water in the summer inthe winter than it is in the winter because the air temp in summer is generally 80's while in the winter it's in the 40's in the garage.
Why not dump the condensate into a Tee on the T&P drain line? Would the T&P drain pressure have the potential to blow back out the Tee?
I think I remember something about code saying you can't have anything on the T&P drain. Right now, the condensate has been nothing. I put a bucket under the tube and so far I've had a few dribbles that evaporated in the bucket.
I've wondered if having a bucket on the floor would be adequate for our dry climate and the small amount of condensate that comes out of the HPWH. Because my house was built new and I needed a drain for the HPWH, the condensing furnace, the air conditioner and the water softener, I had a drain preinstalled for all of them to feed to. It's basically a 2" PVC Drain with a P-trap, near the floor that then has a 4" - 2" reducer attached to the top of the drain pipe and about a 6" tall section of 4" PVC above that. All my drain pipes gets routed to that 6" extension which acts as a collector for all of them.
The condensate that comes off my furnace and AC is signficant. Up to 2 gallons a day. I harvest it to water plants.
I thought the condensate from a condensing furnace was acidic?
Yep, carbonic acid. My plants love it.
alia176
SILVER Star
Now that's funny!
