We Got Inspected!
Okay so its been awhile since we've done any work or posted anything to the blog...you see we have this other project that got started a little bit earlier than expected and well....that ones a gonna take precedence from here on out....
And though nothing got finaled (except for the lame-o earthquake valve) it was a good experience with the building inspector.
The Radiant System passed its Pressure Test! First off I want to talk about this fricken radiant heating system and chasing down leaks... Its only supposed to leak where you connect the red tubing to the manifolds and yes we did have some leaks there but those were found and fixed in short order. The leaks that really blew me away...click on the pic for a bigger version. Everywhere where there is a red asterisk there was a leak in the valve body or from the packing nut in the valve! These are supposed to be quality made in the USA webstone valves and a bunch of them were leaking from their casting marks!!! Once I realized this I had to go thru every single inch of the control panel piping with soapy water and check every single blasted thing....this took a loooooooooong time and I had to do it several times. When I would find a leak at a casting mark I would mix up some clear epoxy and paint it on. I'm sure its not an official cure but I'm not going to fricken take this crazy-ass control board apart to replace the valves...Yes I'm a lot annoyed about it...
In the pic the entire thing is hooked up and ready to go. It finally holds air 80psi and the inspector gave us the go-ahead to fire it up!! Course I have no idea how to do that as its complicated as heck and all computer controlled and what not...going to have to do some serious RTFM'ing. At least the weather has turned cold again so now we're motivated to get it done. It was in the 90's here a couple of days last week and wow hard to work up the energy to finish a heating system in that kind of weather...
The Tankless Heater Passed its inspection!! The inspector saw our old jury rigged heater and was like, 'Geez you gotta get that outta here..' You've heard of spaghetti programing? Well here's spaghetti plumbing! Actually those white lines are temporary PEX lines to tie the new tankless WH into the house lines. Its soooo nice not to have to worry about running out of hot water when we shower...we both realized that showering had become stressful because we were always worried about running out or the next person running out of hot water. How silly showers should be the opposite of stressful. I was worried that the tankless was going to be loud when it fires but standing outside near the vent it just sounds like a dryer venting really. Or neighbor has a Noritz model externally mounted and you can hear that thing from the sidewalk its loooooud.
The Gas Lines Passed their Pressure Test!! I don't have any clever pictures of non leaking gas lines to show you so I thought I'd show you version uh, 3.0 of the fire pit. Now its plumbed with nat gas from our main line!!! I built a new burner out of 5/8 flex copper tubing and think it came out pretty well. The flame is nice and even. One thing though, house pressure is 1/2psi and we were running the thing at 9psi earlier...not sure if its going to put out enough heat...but hey, no tanks to ice up so it'll be a constant all night long heat. We'll just have to build more heat producing art pieces to keep us warm in the backyard when the sun goes down.
