Hot water pipe

“ The hot-water flow pipe close to a water back or coil frequently becomes thickly covered with scale. If the pipe is brass, it may be disconnected and treated with acid and then washed out with hot water. If the pipe is galvanized iron and in bad condition, it will probably be more satisfactory to replace it with new pipe. ”

“ Use of electric heating cable is a good method of thawing frozen pipe, because the entire heated length of the pipe is thawed at one time.
Thawing pipe with a blowtorch can be dangerous. The water may get hot enough at the point where the torch is applied to generate sufficient steam under pressure to rupture the pipe. ”

“ The whole length of cast iron hot water pipe is about 600 feet, and with the portion of the heater within the main air cell or reservoir, and the smaller wrought iron tubes connecting the extremes of each of the six pipes with the upper and lower ends of the boiler, constitutes a radiating surface of over 700 square feet. The effective fire surface of the boiler is probably about 30 superficial feet, and about 60,000 cubic feet of space above in the three corridors, and the rooms opening upon them, are to be heated. ”

“ Add more thaw pipe at the outer end until a passage is made through the ice. Withdraw the thaw pipe quickly after the flow starts. Do not stop the flow until the thaw pipe is fully removed and the frozen pipe is cleared of ice. A small force pump is often used instead of a funnel and is much to be preferred for opening a long piece of pipe. If available, a jet of steam may be used instead of hot water; being hotter, it is more rapid. ”

“ To avoid these conditions, the piping should be of brass or lead and the storage tank should be of copper. The installation cost of brass and copper is greater than steel, but they will not have to be replaced in two or three years, as is the case with other material. A valve should be placed on the cold-water supply to control the entire hot-water piping system. A pipe with a stop cock should be placed underneath the boiler and should extend [129] into a sink in the basement so that the boiler can be drained at any time for cleaning or repairs. ”

“ If the job is a large one, a pump may be employed to insure the proper circulation. After this the pipe sizes and connections can be worked out. The one great enemy of hot-water circulation is air. Therefore, no traps or air pockets should ever appear in the piping system. The boiler, as it is often referred to, is the hot-water storage tank. A copper or iron tank holding sufficient water to supply all fixtures, even when every fixture demands a supply at the same time, is installed in a convenient place and the heating arrangement connected with it. ”

“ The fresh-air inlet pipe usually terminates in a receptacle covered by an iron grating, and should be far from the cold-air box of any hot-air furnace. When clean, properly cared for, and extended above the ground, the fresh-air inlet, in conjunction with the open extended vertical pipe, is an efficient means of ventilating the air in the house pipes; unfortunately most fresh-air inlets are constantly obstructed, and do not serve the purpose for which they are made.
The Soil and Waste Pipes.—The soil pipe receives liquid and solid sewage from the water-closets and urinals ”

“ The one-pipe system is similar in principle, the pipe rising to its greatest height above the boiler and being then carried around as a single pipe falling all the while. It resembles in many points the one-pipe low pressure hot-water system. Radiators are fed directly from the main. Where, as in factories or workshops, there are already installed engines working at a high steam pressure, say 120 to 180 ℔ per sq. in., a portion of the steam generated in the boilers may be utilized for heating by the aid of a reducing valve. ”

“ No pump however good will lift hot water, for the reason that as soon [Pg 92] as air is expelled from the barrel of the pump the vapor occupies the space, thereby destroys the vacuum and interferes with the supply of water. When necessary to pump hot water, place the pump below the supply, so that the water will flow into the valve chamber. Always have a strainer at lower end of suction or supply pipe. A pump should be set up so that it is accessible for inspection, cleaning and repairs, and so that the shortest and straightest suction and delivery pipes can be used. ”

“ The planning of hot-water pipes is much more difficult than that of steam-pipes, but the general principle is that the pipes must rise all the way from the boiler to the farther end, where there must be an expansion-box or supply-cistern to allow the water to rise and fall and dissolved air to escape. ”

“ Hot Water Pipes.—It is generally conceded, among practical men, that the circulation of hot water in iron pipes is the best known method of heating plant houses. The property which heated water possesses of retaining for a considerable length of time its heat and transmitting it to the pipes at long distances from the boiler, renders it a most effective agency for such purposes: A perfect control of the moisture of the atmosphere, by means of evaporating pans attached to the pipes ”

“ The principle of the circulation of the particles of water being once understood, it is easy to comprehend how it is applied to the heating of buildings by what is called the "Hot Water Apparatus." A coil of pipe is enclosed in a proper furnace, and the bottom end communicates with a pipe coming from a second tube or set of coils, placed above it in another apartment, whilst the top of the latter coil communicates with the top pipe of the first coil. ”

“ In case the boiler feed should stop working, however, the hot well is provided with a pipe of large diameter, and called the overboard discharge pipe, so that the water of condensation may not accumulate a pressure in the hot well if the boiler feed ceases. ”

“ It is stated to be a fact, that in high pressure hot water heating the water frequently becomes red hot, pressures of 1000 to 1200 pounds per square inch being reached, and when the circulation of the system is defective the pipe becomes visibly red in the dark. ”

“ If the size of the house will not justify the purchase of a small heater—a second-hand one may often be had at a very reasonable figure—a substitute may be had by inserting a hot-water coil in a stove or in the house furnace. In one of the diagrams is shown an arrangement of pipes for heating a house 21 x 50 feet, and in another piping for lean-to described in the preceding chapter. With the small pipe sufficient for such a house as that illustrated in the latter diagram, the work can be done by anyone at all acquainted with the use of pipe tools ”

“ The water in the pan should not be allowed to become stagnant.
If this pipe passes to a drain, it should not be attached to the drain, but drip into it. The small amount of fresh air passing up the drip pipe from the room is advantageous. Because some air does flow thru here, the drip pipe and the drain pipe must be clean and free from gases and odors.
The drip pipe should be straight and free from places in which dirt may collect. It must be removable, so that it can be cleaned. The doors of the refrigerator must shut so tightly that frost or dew will not form about their edges on a hot day. ”

“ But with hot-water pipes not even that is possible. From the security of ambush they merely heat, and heat whose source is invisible is hardly to be coveted at all. Moreover, the heat of hot-water pipes is but one remove from stuffiness. ”

“ To thaw a frozen pipe, the simplest and safest way is to pour hot water upon it, or apply cloths dipped in hot water to those points where the pipe is most exposed. The freezing will generally be found to have taken place near a window, or near the eaves of the roof, or at a bend. If pipes are frozen and a thaw is expected, care should be taken to close all stop-cocks as a precaution against flooding. To prevent kitchen boilers exploding, it is necessary to see that they always contain water, and that there is no stoppage in the pipes connected with them. ”

“ To regulate the heat it is necessary either to instal a number of small radiators or to divide the radiators into sections, each section controlled by distinct valves; steam may then be admitted to all the sections of the radiator or to any less number of sections as desired. In a hot-water system the heat is given off at a lower temperature and is consequently more agreeable than that yielded by a steam-heating apparatus. The joint most commonly used for hot-water pipes is termed the “rust” joint, which is cheap to make, but unfortunately is inefficient. ”

“ It would be infinitely better to run the pipes at once through the wall to the outside. Few persons have any idea of the carelessness of plumbers’ work—of the bad junctions, and of the rapidity with which pipes get out of order and decay. When a leaden pipe carrying water is led into a water-closet discharge pipe, it is frequently simply puttied in, and very soon the dried putty breaks away, and there is a complete leakage of gas into the house. Even if well joined the lead pipe will, it is said, contract and expand, and thus openings are at last formed. ”

“ A fire pressure is much greater. Therefore, all direct-pressure pipes of lead should be extra strong. Tank-pressure pipes, those which connect with a tank in the attic or above a water-closet, may be medium strong. The terms “extra strong” and “medium strong,” as here used, are definite in their meaning, and apply to regular grades of pipe. The interior fixtures of an ordinary dwelling-house are supplied with lead pipe five-eighths of an inch in diameter, or iron pipe three-quarters of an inch in diameter. ”

“ If the heat becomes more intense and steam is formed, the expansion is much greater, and some means must be provided to allow for it. This expansion can be allowed to relieve itself in the water main as explained above. When a check valve is placed on the piping, this means of escape is shut off and a safety valve must be employed. Without these reliefs, the pressure would be so great that an explosion would result. When steel pipe and steel boilers are used for storage tanks and connections, the pipe and tank will shortly start to rust and parts of the piping are stopped up with rust scales. ”

“ Pipes may be insulated to prevent freezing, but this is not a completely dependable method. Insulation does not stop the loss of heat from the pipe—merely slows it down—and the water may freeze if it stands in the pipe long enough at below-freezing temperature. ”

“ Before introducing the pipe into the opening of the tank furnace, the pipe-warmer must see that the hot end of the pipe is free from scale or dirt and must test, by blowing through it, whether the pipe is free from internal obstructions. He then places the butt of the pipe in the opening of the furnace and allows it to acquire as nearly as possible the temperature of the molten glass. When this is the case the pipe is either handed on to the gatherer, or the pipe-warmer, who is usually only a youth, may take the process one step further before handing it on to the more highly skilled workman. ”

“ The middle of a frozen pipe should never be thawed first, because expansion of the water confined by ice on both sides may burst the pipe. When thawing a water pipe, work toward the supply, opening a faucet to show when the flow starts. When thawing a waste or sewer pipe, work upward from the lower end to permit the water to drain away. ”

“ That form has descended to all modern piping for water, steam, and gas, because the best that a pipe can take. No other shape has, proportionately to capacity, so little surface for friction inside or rust outside. A locking-bar water pipe, devised by Mephan Ferguson, of Perth, Australia, is made of two plates of equal width, curved into semi-circles which are pressed at their ends into channel bars of [46] soft steel. As the locking-bars and joints are opposite each other, their joints can be tightly closed by a simple machine which exerts pressure in a straight line. ”

“ It is far from amusing to awake some zero morning and find the house without water because the well pipe has frozen. It can be thawed with a blow pipe but that means calling a plumber or a handy man who happens to have a tool of this sort. One such experience will keep you from forgetting or neglecting to provide a well cover. Similarly, if you are in doubt whether the pipes from water source to house are below the frost line, a carpet of leaves about two inches thick on top of the ground along the course of the water pipe, will obviate any such unhappy event. ”

“ In all properly built houses there is a tap by means of which the water supply can be cut off from the house, thus allowing the pipes to be emptied on a frosty night. The custom of leaving the taps dripping is effective, because the pipe is generally liable to freeze at some particular point where it is in immediate contact with the cold air, probably in the unclosed 100 chink where the pipe passes through the wall; keeping the water moving in the pipe prevents any part of it getting cold enough to freeze, but the practice should not be resorted to, as it wastes water. ”

“ Another arrangement is to employ, instead of a cast or wrought-iron pipe, a number of round or flat-iron bars, fastened together at the top and bottom by rivetting to metal hoops in such a manner that intervals are left between each bar, through which the water can pass. Sometimes a solid pipe without the openings is used, but it is not found to be so satisfactory as the perforated pipe, because the latter allows a greater amount of water to pass through it into the soil, thereby furnishing a larger area of moist earth. ”