Chad Fabry

George, Share your wisdom with me... I don't see any issue with the two boilers sharing the same expansion tank if it has enough capacity for two running systems. If the tank were located outside the circulation loop the water in the line to the tank would be essentially static. As a benefit of a shared system, an additional valved loop could be created in case one boiler failed; both units could still be heated while the failed items were repaired. It may be a planned redundancy.

I've been involved in the installation of two of the "infiltrator" systems. It's fast and easy and considering that you don't have to buy stone or pay for trucking it's not much more money than a conventional system. The theory is that the system offers twice the drainage of a conventional system due to the fact that the gravel in a normal trench effectively eliminates 50% of the available soil for the effluent to seep into. So, leach beds can be much smaller. I wouldn't worry about trucks and such.. this stuff is strong as heck and I'd bet that it's less susceptible to damage than a conventional system. "Made from PolyTuffâ„¢, a proprietary blend of recycled polyolefin resins, our chambers are chemical resistant and UV-stable and support loads ranging from 16,000 lbs per axle with 12" of compacted cover (equivalent to AASHTO H-10), depending on chamber model." The quote is off the infiltrator website.

The washer discharge is probably a remnant from when the home had a septic system and the owners didn't want to tax the leach fields with the large volume of water that a washer produces. I have a separate line for my washer for the same reason. (mine is slightly more sophisticated) Lake property typically has poor soil with poor perc results. If the whole house is on a municipal system now, it shouldn't be too awfully difficult to route the washer to a drain somewhere. Depending on the sewer level it may be necessary to pump the water out of the home. Most folks (AHJ)would frown on the current situation. I have to admit that it doesn't bother me but I'd write it up just the same. I'm pretty sure you don't have to know a code to know this is wrong.

There are paints that'll stand 1500 degrees f. None that I'm aware of are glossy. I painted the flue on a wood stove when I was younger and when I had a good fire going the flue was positively glowing. The paint was "sparking" and producing a shower of hot bits that were burning in air. The paint on your flue would bother me for the fire hazard and the fume potential.

Terry posted that a while back and the link was responsible for a measurable drop in the gross national product. I hear there are withdrawal clinics that are out of methadone....

Two years ago, I was helping a friend dig out a leach line. I had my backhoe set up on the stabilizer legs about a foot from the house and was digging looking for the original line. Next thing I know, I'm waist deep in his hand dug, stone lined septic tank. Here's advice. If you've stuck your backhoe in a septic tank, don't ask any locals for help, because they'll never, ever stop telling the story every time they see you.

Hi Chris, I really like Inspect Express. It requires almost no training and is very intuitive. I operated the program reasonably quickly and effectively w/ o reading any of the instructions. The boiler plate is pretty good and for the most part when multiple comments are selected from the boiler plate, the sentence structure remains grammatically correct. I've also found Mike Brown @ Dev Wave to be VERY accessible, and as a result, had enough faith in him to ask him to design my logo, and he's currently building me a website that's going to be quite nice. I looked at a dozen programs, and from my "newbie" perspective, this one was by far the easiest to learn. I'm not a technophile so it was very important to me that there not be a huge learning curve in the program I selected.

Terry, In my house that's always an excellent question. My wife is lovely and temperate and contributes to my life in many ways. Seldom is one of those ways in the form of a prepared meal. When it is in the form of a prepared meal, the same question " what's for dinner" is frequently posed upon observance of the substance presented. To keep the thread on topic, variations of natural foods like vegetables, whole grain rice and the like are prepared with love and then extruded through polybutylene tubing, thoroughly masking their original identity w/o sacrificing any nutritional value. From here down are the words of a friend of mine who's a chemist, and general freak. Oxygen degradation of polymers is accelerated by UV light. Most free radical initiated polymers are heavily loaded to slow down the oxidation process. It’s not just the high temperature water, which contains oxygen scavengers, but even the exterior of the polybutylene which can be attacked. Polyvinylalcohol is often added to such systems for some anti-oxidant properties, but it’s main use is to help prevent scale from forming, which sets up a barrier that can flake off, taking some of the underlying material with it. Nitrites are often used as scavengers. For large commercial systems, a metal catalyzed hydrazine formulation finds favor. Boilers are ‘blown down’ regularly to remove the accumulated sludge and check the water for appropriate additive levels for the makeup water. Optimum alkalinity for many systems is often in pH level of 10-11. The sodium polyphosphates are often used for this purpose. They also help in providing a suspended sludge that can be gotten ride of by blow down. Some links: http://www.contractormag.com/articles/n ... newsid=328 Heating Systems A secondary concern involves the use of PB pipe for hot water heating systems. The pipe allowed the oxygen to penetrate the pipe and oxygenate the water. The additional oxygen in the re-circulated water was suspected of causing the premature rusting and deterioration of the internal components of the heating unit, including the boiler, heat exchanger and water pump. The PB pipe has since been modified with a coat to prevent oxygen from penetrating the pipe walls. http://www.nationalplumbing.com/tips.php

I know of two barrier materials, one is an encapsulated aluminum barrier that not only provides the barrier protection, but allows the tubing to sort of retain its shape after it's flexed. The other one I know of is EVOH (ethylene vinyl alcohol somethin somethin somethin) which is another plastic that some genius invented that has almost zero permeability. I'll look this stuff up later, but as I remember polybutylene for heating systems should be beige. I'm no chemist and the way I think about the diffusion may be skewed, but I always pictured it like cellular osmosis where the individual molecules get through the tubing wall, keeping fresh O2 in the boiler system. Wherever there's 02 somethings going to oxidize. In an enclosed system the 02 in suspension in the water gets used up as it "reacts" with the metal boiler parts, so there's very little corrosion after the intial reaction. Some corrosion is caused by 02 being liberated from the water itself as a result of stray electrical currents breaking the water down to its two original components. The only reason I know any of this is I was considering using polybutylene in a boiler I built. The above post represents my entire body of knowledge on this subject. So all other questions should not start w/ "chad"

Electric heat thermostats are often the same voltage as the element they control. If there were gfci protection at the stat shouldn't there be a test button?

I'm not sure why the above scenario wouldn't work, and I'd like a lesson. In my mind, the air from the forced draft rushing past the wye connection at the water heater would create a venturi effect, drawing either air (if the water heater is off ) or exhaust gas from the heater. The way I'm picturing the situation, it'd actually enhance draft at the water heater. The only way this wouldn't work, is if there was so much resistance down stream of the water heater that it was easier for the furnace exhaust to go backwards through the wye and out the draft hood at the water heater.

Polybutylene w/o an oxygen barrier lining allows a lot of oxygen to diffuse through the tubing leading to very rapid deterioration of the metal boiler parts through an electrolytic reaction not unlike metal plating. If it's an older installation it probably does not have the barrier. The other problem w/ polybutylene in radiant applications (beyond the well known crimp failures) is failure from differential expansion. The tubing can't expand in the thermal mass, but can outside the thermal mass. The point of entry is subjected to high stresses because some of the movement is transferred to this critical point. A system that runs at low temps (below 120 or so) w/ properly adjusted anticipators, should run at a relatively consistent temperature reducing the hot/cool cycles and the the resulting damage from expansion and contraction. Just the same, I'm awful glad it's not my house if it's old enough to not have barrier tubing. To answer your question, I have no direct knowledge of that brand.

Well, that settles it. I'm hanging out w/ Jimmy at the next ASHI conference. Then I'm finding one of you guys to drive us back to the hotel.

Does everything work? I don't know for sure what the requirements are, but given the fact that the small line is on the supply side of the regulator maybe it's OK. Higher pressures delivered through small tubing to a regulated low pressure, high volume manifold are pretty common in the machine world.

yer killin me.

yeah, what they said, and a picture of your wife or girlfriend too.

Your spelling errors went relatively unnoticed Dave, for I've seen plenty of caulky vinyl siding too. I spelled vinyl as vunyl once and I'm not fixing it. So there. George, I just bought my third pair of glasses for the last twelve months. Is four months the average life of glasses? I've bought so many glasses in my life that I now start the transaction w/ "show me your cheapest frames" You'll all have to pardon my typing, I cut the tendons in one of my fingers last Friday and while it wasn't one of my typing fingers (I use four total) the damn bandage is bulky. I still feel like using spell check is cheating...

George, get new glasses...the siding is vinyl. Ultra violet breaks down vunyl sidings, the chalky residue will probably wash off, but it'll come back. The wall that's showing degradation is probably a southern exposure that gets a lot more sun than the other walls. It's also probably a very low end vinyl siding. There are products to clean and protect the sidng available but many of them void the warranty. I'd tell the client to contact the siding manufacturer...even for a low end product seven years is a short life. I just read your post again... it is indeed the south side.. told ya.

I have two boilers at my shop and all commercial boilers must be inspected each year where I live. The fee for this mandatory inspection is 150 bucks per boiler. EVERY year I have to add some control or change another one to a new different type of device. I have so many safety devices on these things I have to say a prayer each day to get em fired up. I shouldn't say this out loud, but no one's ever called the fact that they sit on the floor in a vehicle repair shop where there's flammable liquids everywhere you look. But when the building's ablaze I'm secure in the knowledge that my boilers have manual re-set high limit switches.

Chip, I'm new also. Very new. The sum total of my actual home inspection experience is what most of these experts do in a week if they take Friday off. When I first came to TIJ I had the small advantage of sort of knowing Mike from the Journal of Light Construction forum (which I highly recommend as daily reading). When I posted a question or an answer here, I'd sit for 20 minutes and make sure that it wasn't something that'd embarrass me, and it was always w/ some trepidation that I hit the "enter" key. Since then, these guys have taken care of me like an old crippled dog and nursed me along. There is simply no better place to find the best of the best. There is also no other place where people will tell you exactly how it is. If you can take the lumps, the gravy here is excellent.

Hi Terry, First of all, there's no way my wife would let me go to the local CC on my own. Have you seen college girls lately? Even though the visit will be visually compromised, I'll take her and go looking for XP so I can stop begging photo enhancements from busy people. As far as Bill being a genuine rocket scientist... my business cards now read "associated with NASA scientists, on the cutting edge of home technology" Bill, I'll need a tile for a paper weight to prove my affiliation. I'm serious Bill. I NEED a tile. BTW, nice to meet you and I look forward to exploiting your knowledge in the future.

50%... I pride myself on my cultural stoichiometry.

Coming from a climate where a heat pump is plain stupid, I just learned something.

Thanks for the input folks. You've all confirmed that I don't want to do septic. Terry, ty for the link.

I don't quite get it and I know I'm showing my inexperience, but aren't those double tapped neutrals like 16 or 18 gauge? Where do they go from there?