good2go

iTrader: (2)

Well sure, one should never underestimate the resourcefulness of the man, metaphorically speaking.

Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of karmic justice though.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Did you know that they sold compression tee fittings designed to do exactly what I needed? Me neither. But they do: BrassCraft 3/8 in. x 3/8 in. x 3/8 in. Compression x Compression T-fitting-CT2-666X P at The Home Depot



Getting the old hose decoupled from the lower outlet and the dishwasher hardline re-attached while water was gushing out made a bit of a mess, but after that was cleaned up, the tee installed on the upper outlet (the one which feeds the faucet) gave me a place to then install a secondary valve to regulate the feedwater through the system so that the wall-valve can remain fully open. This one is rated as a boiler drain valve, so I assume it can handle some temperature and pressure.



I must say that I find the presence of the dishwasher quite annoying here. This is an extremely small kitchen, and I'd have far preferred that space be given over to a double-basin sink and a bit of extra storage. Who the **** uses dishwashers, anyway? They might as well have installed an automatic alpaca shearer for all the use I'll get out of it. (And then I could tell people about how my apartment has an built-in alpaca shearing machine, which would be an interesting conversation starter.)

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

I lived without one for almost 2 years. never again.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Karmic justice is that someday, years from now, someone is going to enter this apartment for the purpose of servicing this stupid, pointless dishwasher. They're going to turn that valve fully clockwise and assume that this has shut off the water, and then they'll uncouple the compression fitting without thinking anything of it.

Except they won't have a pan and a bunch of towels at the ready.

You know what would have been nice in that hole instead of a dishwasher? A combination clothes washer/dryer. That is something that most normal people actually use on a regular basis. Hell, I'd have even been ok with just a big empty hole, and a little plaque saying "feel free to purchase your own washer/dryer combo and stick it in this spot."

good2go

iTrader: (2)

I'm still amazed you were able to pull off such a feat without the water pressure turned off. Is there not a lot of pressure in your apartment there? Or is the angle stop still able to hold back quite a bit even though it's imminently failing? Anytime I have ever tried replacing a pressure valve with the system still under pressure, it has resulted in massive failure and one sad, soggy kitten.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Well, think about the procedure for capping a blown wellhead. You don't just plug the thing directly, you install an open valve over top of it, then close the valve. A valuable lesson which I learned as a teenager.

Since I was re-attaching the dishwasher to its original supply port, I used the dishwasher itself as the valve. Turned it on and set it to the beginning of a cycle, causing the solenoid inside to open. That, plus the fact that the faucet on the wall is stuck at perhaps 1/3 capacity (just guessing based on what I observed coming out of the drain line after the failure), made it possible to get the fitting re-installed. It was messy, and squirted quite a bit while I was getting everything lined up, but it worked.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Without what, a dishwasher?

I guess...

Personally, I've never seen the point. Every place I have lived has always had a dishwasher, and I have always used it is a dish-drying rack. In this kitchen I can't even do that, as the door sticks out right into the middle of the kitchen, nearly touching the opposite wall. Still, It's not as though washing a few dishes is especially difficult or time consuming. If I were running a commercial kitchen and producing 5,000 pre-packaged airline meals a day, then I might feel otherwise. But for the volume of dishes that any young couple and their nine cats are likely to use in a day, it just seems un-necessary. As I said, I'd much rather have a machine there to do something which I cannot easily accomplish by hand in a few minutes.

Pinky

iTrader: (1)

See, there's your problem; Everybody knows that kittens simply cant handle the torque required for a job like that, you need to use a full grown, sizable cat. Preferably a neighbors, because who wants to go to sleep in a house with a very grumpy sizable cat waiting to exact it's revenge?

Not me.

I suppose an extremely large and particularly durable kitten might do the trick in a pinch, say a Maine Coon Cat or a Domestic Shorthair With An Overactive Pituitary, but for a good safety margin I always go for a grown cat. Again, not your own grown cat if possible.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

So I came home last night to find the carpet under the radiator to be somewhat moist.

Puzzling...

Shut down the system, drained it, and had a look down the filler neck:



I'm going to pause here for a moment to reflect on the wisdom of my insistence all these years on running nothing but distilled water in the cooling systems of my various engines.


It would appear that the radiator has become almost entirely plugged with the precipitate resultant from the reaction between our high-mineral-content water and the aluminum of the radiator. I can only speculate at this point (having not yet performed a teardown and failure-mode-analysis) that the core became so plugged that its resistance to the flow of water become so great as to cause a pressure differential approaching that of the line pressure at flowrates sufficient to produce a satisfactory delta-T across the core.

I don't have an accurate measurement of the pressure of the potable water in this building, however 50-70 PSI seems to be a typical standard, and that is many times in excess of the relief pressure of the radiator cap. I suspect that the core has been continuously exposed to a pressure differential of 20-30 PSI (or more), and that this cause a minor failure at one of the core-to-tank seams. (The cap is on the low-pressure side of the core, or else I'm certain it would have started venting long ago.)


I suppose I could redesign the system such that the cap is on the high-pressure side, and the overflow line acts as a bypass across the radiator back into the low-pressure side. That would leak-proof the system, though it wouldn't prevent the radiator from becoming blocked by condensate in the first place...

Can someone with a better understanding of inorganic chemistry than I propose a solution to this problem which does not involve the purchase of a water softener?

good2go

iTrader: (2)

^^ Vinegar injection

crimson_yachiru

Use a copper radiator.

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

All home water heaters (and many outboard motors) have a sacrificial anode to prevent corrosion. I'm not sure if that will help with what appears to be calcification, but from looking at it it couldn't hurt. Is there a chemist in the house?

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

I wish I know enough about chemistry to actually know whether copper / brass is going to be less readily affected by this phenomenon than aluminum.

I have to assume so, given that the plumbing pipe in this building is copper, but then I don't really understand why the aluminum attracts these minerals so readily in the first place.

crimson_yachiru

Nanosized particles catalyze the Aluminum + Water reaction. If you send me a nice sized sample of the residue, I can confirm that it is probably bayerite or a similar mineral.

Here is an interesting article that has almost nothing to do with what we are talking about.

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogen...r_hydrogen.pdf

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

seems like the man has started sticking it back to Joe...

rleete

iTrader: (21)

Why not just stick a cheap in-line filter into the supply hose? Something like you'd find at any big box home improvement place. Filters are cheap.

Use CLR to remove the buildup in the radiator. Stuff works great.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

I'd be happy to send you a chunk of it if you think there's something useful to be learned from that process.



And to think that over the weekend, I was complaining about the exceedingly soft water coming out of the shower at the GF's place up in the mountains- I can never quite tell when I'm actually rinsed off, because it still feels kind of oily.




Are those effective at removing dissolved minerals? And can they handle extremely hot water?

crimson_yachiru

Probably not.

Further research seems to suggest copper radiators are still soldered together, and that the solder is susceptible to similar degradation when in contact with shitty water.

If you can check your copper fittings and they don't seem to have any deposits, then one solution could be to buy some copper hardline and bend it into a loop, thus making your own radiator out of material which has proven immune to the catastrophe.

rleete

iTrader: (21)

I believe it would filter out the majority of the calcium, which is what most scale is comprised of.

Not sure if it would stand up to the heat, though. Most undersink ones are for the cold side only.

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

I do not believe that a filter that is not actually a water softener will remove dissolved calcium.

In for picture of large coil of thin copper tubing in the corner of Joe's apartment that makes it look like a distillery. Or Joe trying to pass it off as a piece of industrial art to girlfriend.