Hi all, new to The Garage Journal.
It’s nice to see people so passionate about their interests, hobbies and work. Really enjoyed reading this thread, especially MTW’s posts, very educational.
I am wondering about 2 things:
• At the beginning of this thread, it was about installing a better plumbing system that would help to eliminate the accumulation of water in the piping system. MTW mentioned a good black iron pipe system installed properly would help considerably at eliminating this problem. He seems to imply the more pipe used in the system, the better for the radiator effect. Ok, this makes good sense.
Strouty, then runs with this information and installs his system, but installs it in
isolated sections. Each section is insulated from the other through a rubber hose.
Correct me if I’m wrong here, but this seems to defeat the whole purpose of
building a continuous metal piping system that creates the radiator effect in order
to dissipate the heat.
Would it have been better to use back to back 90 degree ells swiveled into place
bringing the vertical drops back into the plumb position? At least it would have
kept a continuous metal pipe thus making for a better radiator.
(Just my 2 cents)
• MTW has been drilling and tapping metal piping systems at various locations and
plugging as needed.
Again, correct me if I’m wrong, but this practice seems a little dangerous. I
realize for the most part he is just trying to salvage a bad installation, but I don’t
think the pipe is made to be drilled / tapped like that especially as thin as it is
and still maintain its structural integrity and PSI rating.
Well, don’t mean to come off sounding a little like sberry…LOL. I think this entire thread is great, and very educational.
Strouty, keep up the excellent work. I think your system is great; I just personally would lose the red rubber segments and find a way to keep it all metal. Either way, a great system. Looking forward to seeing it fully automated.
Hydraulic/Rubber Hose. Hose is OK to use, but not preferred. We all use hoses in our systems, but they are a failure point. Cost is the main factor for most home setups. The industrial solution is metal hose, sometimes called a flexible coupling, there are pictures of these in the photos posted. There a high dollar item, but have never seen one fail, even when attached to a compressor actually vibrating. Hydraulic hose is a good choice since it is metal reinforced, as is steam cleaner hose, and not too hard to find. Rubber/vinyl composition is all over the map. For any permanent flexible systems connection use the best that you can find, so that you can reduce failures and leaks as much as possible. Good hose is heavily reinforced, with tough fibers, and oil resistant. I advise that you don't use vinyl. For the **** type, look for 600 PSI rating, that will get you a hose that is sure to last.
Using hoses to allow for piping slope. I believe, I covered this earlier but to reiterate. My preferred method to achieve the the small bend (kick) is to hang the trunk from the ceiling instead of the wall. Point tee's down, and use back to back ell's to offset to the wall. Don't point tee's to the wall and then use one ell down, this will trap some water in the bottom of the tee, with iron fittings. In a garage you may be able to place the trunk on the top of a truss, or hang it from the rafters, and keep it out of sight.
To the heat insulating effect of short sections of hose. This is really a moot point. The small loss of radiating surface is minimal and can be neglected. The remainder of the pipe is still conducting effectively. Make sure that the hose slopes just like the pipe, so that you don't create a trap. You use rubber hose on your daily driver radiator, enough said.
Tapping Ports. Use at your own risk. I don't know of any engineering standard or codes on this, but have seen it many times inside pieces of industrial equipment. I only use this for test ports or the drain manifold, in small sizes, never for a point of use connection. There are different thickness of pipe, schedule 40 (SCH40) is the standard, SCH80 is much better wall thickness for the threads, but only available at industrial suppliers. 1/8" NPT is much finer thread and engages much better. 1/4" NPT is the largest you want to go, coarser thread. Anything else needs a fitting installed. When tapping, I make a tight accurate hole, and only run the tap in partially to keep things tight and leak free. Again for the **** type, weld in a coupling, as a bulletproof solution. Cut a coupling in half, drill a hole in the pipe and weld it on, observe which way the pipe taper is facing. By the way I use this method on the side of my auto transmission pans, for a convenient drain port.
As a side note about building a drain manifold. While at the big box store I saw a header manifold made from swedged copper, intended for plastic plumbing connections, I made a mental note to try one of these on another build. Looked to be adaptable for the purpose with less work, and non rusting.
I'm glad to see continued interest in this thread, Thank Strouty for getting it going, and Sberry for keeping it down to earth. Post
your comments, builds and results so that others may learn from you too.
MTW
