House in Progress Diary

Cutting a Steam Radiator Pipe, Part 2

(Part 2 of the entry "Cutting a Steam Radiator Pipe."  Continued from here)   

And the Big Guns were.....?

Two huge pipe wrenches.  Wrenches are a tool used to exploit the physics of leverage.

But even the very large, very long pipe wrenches (or plumbers wrenches, as they are sometimes called) needed a boost!  So, in quick and creative fashion, Ted used two more long pipes and slipped them over the handles of the wrenches.  This made the handles of the pipes even longer and increased the leverage.  (We used a similar technique to bend rebar in Costa Rica when we were building a house for Habitat and didn't have tools...but that is another story.)

He placed a wrench on either side of the threaded connector.

And then, he pulled the wrench closest to him in the photo towards the red wrench in order to loosen the pipe, forcing the pipe to turn to the left. ("Lefty loose-y, right-y tight-y!")

And voila!

After applying a liitle pipe dope to the threads of the plug, he twisted it in and the pipe was, once again, sealed off and ready for business.

No more sauna in the crawlspace.  Oh well.  But we have a more efficiently functioning boiler once again! 

Ted has also cautioned us to watch for leaks in the horizontal runs of our radiator pipes.  That's where they tend to show up if you have a leak.  Why?

When the steam cools in the pipe, it condenses back to water.  It can sometimes sit in pipes that are horizontal, instead of moving all of the way back to the boiler.  Wet iron can corrode...in this case, the pipe would corrode from the inside out.  It doesn't happen very quickly, it happens over years and years.  But these pipes have been here for years and years, so, well, it could happen.

Anyway, no more leak right now.  Happy me.  Thanks Ted!

Posted by jeanne on March 26, 2006 at 7:31 AM