Leaking joint temp repair

[Jim Post]

The coldest weather of the season was bearing down on us and that *&%# bottom joint on the elbow on my tarm supply piping was starting to get serious about leaking....a steady drip of about a gallon in 24 hours. :bug: I really didn't want to drain the system and try to resolder this elbow but that is what it would take to fix it proper. Well, I'm not a plumber, and fixing it proper was gonna take me some time in hopefully warmer weather, so I got to thinking about using PowR Wrap. I have used it before on a couple of other leaky joints that were in "painful to fix" locations.

Yesterday I let the Tarm go out and fired up the LP boiler when I got home from work around 5 pm. At about 6:30 I started investigating the leak and cleaning the pipe surfaces....I used a small wire wheel brush on a dremel tool to quickly remove the scale from the area around the suspect joint. Upon further review this joint looked good. However, the upper joint looked like it could be the leaker. There was no visible water since I had taken the pressure off in anticipation of the repair. I went down to the lp boiler and opened the ball valves to let a little system pressure back into the tarm supply piping and help identify the leaker. Sure enough it was the upper joint...apparently the water would leak out of the upper joint flow down the elbow to the lower joint (low point) and drip.

By 7:45, I had cleaned the piping within two inches of the leak, closed the ball valves at the LP boiler, opened the air bleeder at the top of my piping to remove any pressure, and reviewed the instructions for using the Powr Wrap. It's pretty straightforward, kneed the putty into a uniform mixture and press it into the repair area. The putty didn't want to stay where there was any moisture but I kept working it back into place and eventually it would stick. Next, take the fiberglass wrap and soak it in water so it is completely saturated. Then wrap up the putty covering the leak and overlapping back onto the cleaned areas of surrounding pipe. Finally start tightening the wrap by twisting it in the direction you wrapped it. Keep that up for 10 to 15 minutes until the wrap stops trying to unwrap. It starts to get quite tacky towards the end and you have to be careful to not inadvertently loosen the wrap while trying to unstick your glove.

At 8:30 I began adding water back to the system and bleeding air from the key vent at the top of the tarm and also the key vent at the top of my system. My wife helps me do this using walkie talkies since the system fill is at the LP boiler in the basement and the vents are in the garage. The temp gauge on the tarm was reading 135 so I bled the air out and let the pressure come up to 8 psi or so. I got busy building a fire in the tarm and getting things operational. Once we were up to temp and I was convinced the leak was stopped, I had a beer, bragged to my wife, debated moving snow, stoked the boiler, and went to bed.

At 4:30 this am, I checked the boiler, pressure and temp were good and there were no drips from my repair. Yahoo! Bring on the ccccCold!

So what caused the leak? This piping has been in operation since 2005.

Well, over time and many cycles of the tarm, my lack of experience, poor plumbing technique, and lack of research on the boiler room forum got the best of my set up. I neglected my pipe anchor points....mostly cause I wasn't sure what to use or how to go about anchoring my copper pipe yet allowing for expansion and contraction. Last night I anchored this section of piping to the wall by using a metal pipe strap with neoprene wrapped around the pipe for protection.

This summer I plan to repipe several sections of my system to take advantage of some to the things I've learned right here in the boiler room.

Thanks for your attention, awesome install pics, and constant discussion of every aspect of efficient wood heating.

Stay Warm,

jp

PS: remember PowR Wrap can work in a pinch.

 

[Eric Johnson]

Good call on not panicking and draining everything to fix a leak just before a cold snap. As long as you can keep the water in the system, it beats trying to address a problem that could easily get out of hand and compromise your ability to heat your house. It's the kind of common sense approach I should probably try to use more often.

 

[Jim Post]

I have come a long way in regards to house heating panic...Several years ago we drove to FL in April and I decided that it was warm enough and I was cheap enough to not even light my LP boiler pilot light. Well we had a good time basking in the FL warmth and sunshine until that Wednesday when I caught the WI forecast and saw that lows were gonna be in the teens. Uh-oh I thought this is gonna be a very expensive lesson when I get back to find frozen baseboards and cracked pipes...However when we got home 3 days later, the house temp was a balmy 42 degrees. That gave me a good benchmark for our house heat loss but you can be sure I will light the LP boiler well into May from now on. ;-) Our house is a one story ranch with a walk-out basement so your mileage may vary.

I guess I look at the house as a big storage tank and as long as the envelop is well sealed, it will take a lot of cold weather to drop the temp enough to freeze anything.

All bets are off if we get down to the negative teens like they are predicting later this week. It'll be nice to have the tarm at full strength for that! Although those temps would be an improvement for jebatty I bet. ;-)

Stay warm,
jp