Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

[johnnyplumb]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

Always charge the customer for absolutely everything, & i mean everything.
some customers will waste your time by asking alot of dumb & stupid questions, you dont have to accept this sort of thing.

the other day, someone phoned me and asked, How much do you charge ?, i said to him, i charge £300 to answer 3 questions, he said to me, That's abit steep isn't it ?, so i said yes it is, And what's your 3rd question ?


you need to be absolutely ruthless in this game, dont let the brass-tards walk all over you.

 

[WHPES]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

How to repair a leaking Essex flange

For some reason, Essex flanges come with pathetic rubber washers which seem designed to perish after about 5 years.

I come across this quite a bit and have developed a technique for repairing them.

Firstly drain down the cylinder to below the level of the flange, and gripping the tail of the flange, unscrew the nut about 10mm and clean out the remains of the perished washers and the exposed thread so the nut can screw freely backwards and forwards.

Take some lengths of hemp and paste them up with Boss White or Hawk White. Screw the nut back on so that the flat washer is about 3mm off the face of the cylinder and disconnect any pipework to it so you can get your hand round it.

Centralise the flange in the hole and wrap the hemp tightly around the flange between the cylinder and the flat washer. Try to push the wound hemp along the thread into the cylinder using the flat washer, build up so you have filled the entire space between the cylinder and washer and have excess hemp wound past the washer.

Carefully hold the end of the Essex Flange with grips and with a large spanner wind the nut back tightly onto the cylinder to compress the hemp and paste as tightly as it will go. It needs to be VERY tight.

Reassemble, fill with water and allow water to heat up. Occasionally you may need to repeat the process again if you are slightly off-centre in the hole.

Once the hemp and paste has set, you've got no chance of redoing the joint without cutting it out and using a new Essex flange.

I tend to assemble new Essex flanges this way instead of using the washers that come with them.

A similar technique can be employed for repairing leaking coil connections on a cylinder.

 

[SafeGasInstall]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

will a roll of ptfe not do the job ? never had to repair one so that is why I am asking

 

[kay-jay]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

sounds like it would be easier to just replace it tbh

 

[ne1ls0n]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

isent boss white heating systems only>?

 

[stevetheplumber]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

isent boss white heating systems only>?

not for use on potable water but then who drinks hot water

 

[WHPES]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

PTFE won't work as you wouldn't be able to get it tight enough, and hemp and paste seals better. Hot water systems are classed as non-potable.

It's actually not that hard to do it the way I have described. You could replace the washer as Kay-Jay suggests but I consider hemp and paste a better means of permanently sealing it.

In the past when I haven't had an Essex flange handy, I have on occasion simply soldered a tank outlet connector onto the cylinder and if soldered properly it'll never come off.

 

[Mike Jackson]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

not for use on potable water but then who drinks hot water

Hot water is still potable, and some people do drink it.

 

[R1CKY]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

When you remove a part from a boiler, smash it to pieces! No way of mistaking it with a serviceable part!

A small piece of 15mm copper crimped at one end and a pushfit cap end at the other makes a great container for your flux brush!

 

[Whyme]

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

Never ever ever change an expansion vessal on a worc 35cdi unless youve got a morning to kill and dont mind completely gutting a boiler, unbelievable.