Coffee 10-3-15

windyhill4.2 · Post by **windyhill4.2** » Sun. Oct. 04, 2015 7:14 pm

Pacowy wrote:
windyhill4.2 wrote:Comcast finally found the problem about 1/4 mile from us............ a stupid squirrel chewed thru the aluminum clad line,water got in the hole & all kinds of issues.I wish I had gotten a pic of the line, freaking squirrel sharpening its teeth
Would have been better if it was a power line.

Mike

Maybe they should wrap their cable with an electric charged wrap,not just the aluminum shield

deepwoods · Post by **deepwoods** » Thu. Oct. 08, 2015 3:19 pm

windyhill4.2 wrote:WOW,I finally got internet & phone back & look at all that went on with you guys.Freddy gets washed out,Smitty gets rusted out,Rob gets into apple sauce making, I don't know how to catch up. Our phone & internet have been on/off since Sat. a/m,Comcast finally found the problem about 1/4 mile from us............ a stupid squirrel chewed thru the aluminum clad line,water got in the hole & all kinds of issues.I wish I had gotten a pic of the line, freaking squirrel sharpening its teeth

verizon UGH! I built my house well away from any area with phone lines back in 1986. They ran 6,000 or so feet to reach me. They had bright idea to bury the line along the one lane dirt road to my property. Old man on township backhoe cleaning sluice opening along road promptly cut it in half. Verizon "patched" it. Last year new pipeline came through farther down the road and you bet, they cut it in half! Verizon "patched" it

My phone makes noises like we are receiving extraterrestrial messages. Sometimes it's like an old fashioned party line hearing two or three conversations going on. It seems at it's worst when it rains. We have been battling verizon for at least 25 years. I am resigned to living with this lousy service but really pissed at what they charge me for it. They could care less about a single customer with a problem.

windyhill4.2 · Post by **windyhill4.2** » Thu. Oct. 08, 2015 3:54 pm

deepwoods,you have mentioned the lousy customer service by Verizon,that & price is why we switched to Comcast,we don't even have tv, just business phone & internet. Having the business class is beneficial when issues arise, their goal is to get things back to normal quickly for a business. I called them late Sat. eve. ,they were here Sun. a/m ,9:30 & spent most of the day till it was resolved. It works good now.

SMITTY · Post by **SMITTY** » Thu. Oct. 08, 2015 11:11 pm

Deepwoods, your description sounds EXACTLY like our VZ landline, except we're on the same phone lines that have been here since they ran utilities up here - I'm guessing 80 years or so ago. I've called VZ on it a couple times - one time they sent someone out that fixed it. Said it was a squirrel nest on a pole down the road, and they chewed thru the wires. Was good for about a year. Now it's been back for the past 5 or so.

I just dumped my landline phone for Ooma. Will cost me $4.19 a month! That's just to cover taxes - the service is actually free. The catch is you gotta buy the Ooma "Telo" box for about $130. Luckily I got a discount from my brother that took $30 off that, and gave him $20 for referring me. The second catch is, there's a $40 "porting" fee if you want to keep your old number ... plus about $4 & change in tax on top of that ... AND the really crappy part is, it takes up to 4 weeks to complete the port!! Lucky for us it only took a week. They give you an alternate number for the time being, which is a pain in the ass when a billion people have your other number. In the end, I'll be saving $42.89 a month ($29.99 for the phone, plus $17.09 in taxes, fees, and more taxes ... minus the $4.19 for the new bill). In less than 4 months I'll already be saving money.

anthony7812 · Post by **anthony7812** » Sat. Oct. 17, 2015 10:35 am

Smitty how did you ever make out with the leaks??? Curious I am...

Pacowy · Post by **Pacowy** » Sat. Oct. 17, 2015 3:10 pm

anthony7812 wrote:Smitty how did you ever make out with the leaks??? Curious I am...

x2, including info on the locations of the leaks.

Mike

SMITTY · Post by **SMITTY** » Sat. Oct. 17, 2015 7:29 pm

Sorry guys - I gotta get this thing set up so it emails me when there's a response. You'd think I'd have figured that out after 10 friggin years on the forum here ...

3 of the 12 tubes were dripping, mostly in the center of the boiler - maybe 5-10 drips in a half hour with 20 psi in the system. Not a real bad leak. As soon as I fired the boiler up, the moisture and leaks were gone. They were small enough to evaporate, thank God. Definitely will NOT make it another summer sitting cold - no question about it. Damage is done - no going back now. We'll see how this plays out in the coming months. As of right now, I'm warm and happy. The oil tank is about 80% full, so I have somewhat of a backup if there's a catastrophic failure, which I don't suspect is likely. Boiler is rated for 300psi, so it's pretty stout. No match for coal ash and moisture though ..

Pacowy · Post by **Pacowy** » Sun. Oct. 18, 2015 1:18 am

Could you tell whether the leaking water was coming from the middle of the tube or from the "seam" where the tube passes through the tube sheet?

Mike

Pacowy · Post by **Pacowy** » Sun. Oct. 25, 2015 10:59 am

If the drips were coming from the area where the tubes pass through the tube sheet, they may not have anything to do with rust. If the boiler receives big blasts of cold return water when there is a call for heat, the internal temperature differences can stress the connections between the tubes and the tube sheet. I'm not a hydronics guy, but you might want to look at the extent to which the boiler is experiencing shocks. Low limit setting? Circulator shuts off at low limit? Piping issues? Stuff I've never heard of? Maybe the real hydronics people can chip in on this.

Mike