Running a house off the main was cool to watch. A large & heavy metal object (T shaped. The handle is the vertical) with one end sized for accept the outside of the house pipe & one end to melt a hole in the main. They heat it with a blow torch, and then melt the end of the house feed at the same time they pierce the main with the other end...
Then they pull the heated tool off & jam the house pipe in before too much gas escapes. And then test with some soapy water.
Joining two sections of house sized pipe was almost the same. Except IIRC they used a sleeve over the joint.
It was certainly easier & quicker than soldering...
I doubt I'm alone in turning straight to the 'Eye Spy' section of the comic each month a certain amount of 'schadenfreud' is the likely motivation. If there is a party line then it's on the lines of 'we need to keep working to eliminate these horrors', my guess
Memorable photos are the 'home made boiler'. The flue gases of a warehouse heater used to warm the office. Countless abuses of flue liners, flexible hoses etc. Vivisection of backboilers. Missing boiler flue.
That reminds me - I must take a photo of next door's gas meter: they're having an extension built where their garage used to be, and at the moment their gas meter - still connected - is hanging from a convenient bit of brick pier by some blue string.
There is a similar picture in this months Gas Installer. In that case it was spotted by a fitter who informed the owners to contact the emergency service provider (0800 111 999).
Yes, I meant 135 degree bends, somehow I think of them as 45 degree.
Possibly these do not acheive volume sales in the sheds because most professionals would use their bender and save the cost of a fitting, and amateurs stick to 90 bends, not envisaging the possibilties offered by 135.
I've seen bottled gas heaters that would be in that sort of power range. They don't have flues at all.
Its really a question of air volume and how much of the stuff is mixed with the combustion products. If there is enough it is safe (I would keep a CO monitor handy to detect the burner faults if I used one).
Their biggest problem is humidity. You get gallons of water from them and it condenses on cold surfaces all over the place. This makes them totally unsuitable for domestic heating which is why boilers have flues.
On Tue, 11 Oct 2005 16:23:11 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
My word, yet another project I have worked on. There is a box of tricks which contains (wild guess here) a gel-type lead acid battery, certainly one with a high current dump capacity. The ends of the pipe are scraped with a special tool which is like an ordinary scraper but the blade faces backward, i.e. you have to drag rather than push it. The fitting is placed over both ends and on it is moulded a "cooking time. The Magic Box is connected to a pair of contacts on the fitting, the box is programmed with the time, the Big Red Button is pushed, and a couple of minutes later the joint is set. There is a resistive element in the fittings which melts the inside of the fitting onto the pipe. I think the plastic is polythene as opposed to polypropylene, but only on account that the former has a lower MP than the latter. In short the process is nearly foolproof. You just need the kit. One of the aspects of the research was to investigate the effects of contaminants like mud and grease on the pipe ends on the quality of the join. All the contaminated joints took at least twice the design pressure, indeed most joints survived 100 psi, rather above 6-8" water gauge. We did not take things farther on that front. We also tensile tested the joints, and in all cases the joint was stronger than the pipe. On a 600mm testpiece (actually a touch longer, the joints have a shoulder inside to ensure correct depth of insertion and centring) they were pulled
100mm (the crosshead travel of the machine) without joint failure. The pipe itself necked but remained integral. In short, the system is simpler than most other pipe-joining methods. I believe the Magic Box cost about a grand at the time.
Great - thanks, John. I'd sort of guessed it was a sort of weld. Since the equipment doesn't sound outrageously expensive for a pro, I wonder why this pipe hasn't been specified for domestic use?
Because people would use water compression joints on it, and then the odd one would use it through the house too (when there is a fire?). If it has an expensive weld then that deters the cowboys.
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