Believe me, I feel ya!

 

You can have your dry suits, caves, and black box dives. It's been awhile for me, now. I still have my equipment but I doubt I'll ever use it again.

Well, Crap! Got it assembled, pressurized it and I have a very small leak right in the middle at the tee. What's worse is trying to find it drove me nuts, the spray bottle of soapy water didn't work so I had to take the entire assembly out to the pond and submerge it. I only knew it was leaking because the gauge on my gizmo was dropping.  Next steps? I'm almost afraid to try and tighten it further, since I'd have to go a full circle to get everything lined up again...I can hear something cracking already. I guess I'll disassemble the joint and take a look at the threads to see if they are damaged, then replace as needed and reassemble...try again.

Edited November 18, 20178 yr by Fred W. Hargis Jr

Ugh. Sorry to hear that but, glad you caught it. 

replace the T...

OK, I went ahead and tightened the offending joint one more turn (a tad too much, actually) and that seems to have made the whole thing tight. Whew! I'll leave the pressure gauge on it overnight just for kicks, but the last submersion test showed no bubbles.

I have seen the black iron fittings leak from sand pits in the cast iron fittings, some fittings are made from porous cast iron and have tiny pin holes in the sides.

Why is black iron used? can galvanized iron pipe and fittings be used? is it the cost savings or does the galvanizing react with the gas? I like copper myself.

Herb

9 minutes ago, Dadio said:

can galvanized iron pipe and fittings be used?

 

depends on locale...

some places allow it while others outlaw/forbid it..

flakes of galvanizing may migrate to your equipment's solenoids/valves and case issues...

Good Fred.  Glad you got it.

Pressure still holding, Fred?

Yep, loks like we're good to go. Now I'll put it back in place and wait for the LP guy to hook it up ( a week from Wed.)

Great. Our LP guys do a system integrity test before signing off. Pretty thorough. 

 

Yeah, ours does too...that's why I want to make sure my part of the deal didn't leak. If he showed up and found a leak he'd leave without hooking me up...then it would be another 3 weeks before I could schedule him back.

Ahh, gotcha. Fingers crossed he doesn't find a leak. Better to know now, though.

On 11/16/2017 at 12:01 AM, schnewj said:

I still have my equipment

Me too. I keep a tank hydroed and filled. Use it to inflate car tires and a portable source for air powered nailers.

Well, the LP guy was here today and got me ready to go, everything checked out fine. I now have heat, if the insulators (for the attic) would only show up. At least i can warm it up to do some things, like get the DC set up and position my tools.

That's great. Nothing beats a warm shop in the winter. Well, maybe something else does but, I'm too old to remember.