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Jan. 6th, 2007 01:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickBusy morning.
I went to the hardware store and bought a Taco circulating pump for the downstairs apartment at 136 -- her B&G pump (the big, red kind that look like this) bit the dust last night and I needed to replace it so that she'd have heat today to fend off the sixty-degree totally arctic winter we're having. The Taco pumps (the small, green kind that look like this) fit right into the B&G fittings, so it's a fairly simple matter to switch from B&G to Taco. (We use the small, green kind to replace the big, red kind because the small, green kind are smaller, lighter, cheaper, and just as effective. You can still buy B&G pumps if that is what you want, but they're expensive and weigh a ton. The small, green Taco pumps work just as well and are easier to install because they weigh less. Plus, cheaper.) Here's a howto guide...
1. Turn off power to the circulating pump that is dead.
2. Turn off valves located above and below circulating pump. (If you do not have these, you will have to drain the system, which will be wet and messy. However, it will provide you with a jim-dandy opportunity to put in water shutoff valves above and below the circulating pump since the system will be empty anyway and doing so will make the next time you replace the circulating pump a ten-minute affair where you probably won't even get wet. If installing shutoffs, I suggest the ball valve kind instead of the gate valve kind.)
3. Open box for new circulating pump. It will hold a small greenish pump and two rubber gasket things. Place these near where you are working, on a fairly clean, dry surface. The top of the furnace is usually good and certainly a cut above the basement floor in most cases.
4. Using a screwdriver (and possibly other tools as appropriate), remove cover and wires from dead circulating pump.
5. Using a socket set and crescent wrench, remove the four bolts that hold the dead circulating pump in place. (CAUTION: If replacing a big, red circulating pump, note that they are quite heavy and may fall on your feet if you aren't paying attention. It might be nice to summon a helper to catch the damn thing when you're down to the last bolt because it just might fall the hell out of the fittings.) Do not lose the four bolt-and-nut pairs. You will need them to put the new pump on.
6. Remove and set aside the dead pump. We tend to stow the dead circulator pumps around the edges of our basements as a postindustrial stockpile of arms for when we're up against the wall after the Revolution. At that point in the indefinite future, we will fling the heavy, nonfunctional B&G pumps at the approaching mob of revolutionaries to defend ourselves for the last few minutes of our lives. You may wish to attempt to recover the copper inside and sell it to support your crack habit or maybe you want to throw the whole thing away. Whatever. Just get it out of the fittings so that you can proceed with the repair job.
7. Put the little rubber gasket things in the spaces for them on the new (small, green) pump. Put the pump into the fittings, making sure that the arrow on the pump is going in the correct direction. In most cases, the arrow should point towards the furnace. (If you do this wrong, the pump will run and run but the radiators will stay cold. If that happens to you, take the pump out, flip it over, and reinstall it upside down of how you had it the first time. THEN, verify that you have hot radiators. THEN, and this is the step everyone forgets, write on the pump using a sharpie marker that the arrow points [whatever way makes there be heat] so that you don't have to fuck around like this next time but can just look at the old pump to see what to do.)
8. Tighten up the bolts. When they're pretty tight, like almost as tight as they go, turn the waters back on (top and bottom). Observe for leaks. If there are leaks, tighten up the bolts some more. These do not usually leak a whole lot. The gaskets are pretty useful and the fittings are nicely made. You should be able to tighten things up to where there are no leaks without the use of power tools or excessive force*. If you have tried and tried and cannot make there be no leaks, perhaps you were an idiot and nudged one of the gasket things out of place when you installed the pump. Turn water off, reseat everything, and try again. When there are no leaks, proceed.
9. Hook up wires to the circulator pump. There's a wiring diagram for you, but it's not terribly difficult even without the wiring diagram. When that's done, put the power back on and see if the pump runs. The pipe that is opposite the direction of the arrow should eventually get warm, as the warm water circulates through the house. It should (if you've been out of heat for a while) get COLD first (as the pump pulls the cold water out of your cold radiators and back to the furnace to get heated up again) and then gradually, after a decent interval (usually less than ten minutes unless you live in a mansion or something, in which case why are you not hiring this done?), get warmer and warmer. If you're still not sure that it's right, go feel up your radiators, as discussed in step 7. If the radiators are hot, you've got a working circulator pump.
10. When everything is working to your satisfaction, put the little cover housing thing over the wiring part and attach it to the pump. You're done. Hooray!
*Here, excessive force is more torque than you can muster with normal tools. You should be able to get these tight enough to not-leak with just normal tools, no pounding, leaning, or cheaters required.
Other than that, I went to the grocery store and the post office. I forgot to buy cat food, but I figure I'll pick that up tonight when I go into town. The cat is not going to starve to death in one night.
When I got home, I addressed the problems with the HoHI. You've not been hearing about the HoHI problems because I've been mad at the whole project for a while. My gauge, swatch or no swatch, was actually 12 sts. to the inch instead of the projected 10 that I got from doing a fscking swatch. That doesn't sound too hideous, but when you're talking 14" of around-the-calf sock, that's a difference of (168-140=28) 28 stitches or about TWO FREAKING INCHES. Yes, Virginia, that is enough to seriously fuck up the fit of the socks. The HoHI have been tight enough around the calf to squish the design out of orderly cartesian goodness and into some mushed-out-of-shape thing since their inception and I thought I would get happier with that state of affairs as time went by. I harbored some vague plan of losing enough weight to make my calves skinny enough to fit into the socks without deforming them. (Reality is a place I visit some of the time. I don't live there or anything like that.) I also decided that I wanted corrugated ribbing on the tops... after I'd done the plain ribbing. Somehow, I thought that I would get happier with the plain ribbing as time went by. I did not get happier with anything as time went by. I got more pissed. Eventually, I stopped working on the HoHI.
Note to self: You will not become more happy with the non-right project as time passes. It will piss you off and piss you off and piss you off until you either abandon the project or rip it all out to start over again. (Ribbit, ribbit.)
I can start on the ribbing today but I need a new chart with more motif on it, some 14 sts. per side motif, so seven stitches on each side of each side motif. I hope like hell that the book *has* that, or I'm going to have to resort to the time-honored practice of making shit up...
I went to the hardware store and bought a Taco circulating pump for the downstairs apartment at 136 -- her B&G pump (the big, red kind that look like this) bit the dust last night and I needed to replace it so that she'd have heat today to fend off the sixty-degree totally arctic winter we're having. The Taco pumps (the small, green kind that look like this) fit right into the B&G fittings, so it's a fairly simple matter to switch from B&G to Taco. (We use the small, green kind to replace the big, red kind because the small, green kind are smaller, lighter, cheaper, and just as effective. You can still buy B&G pumps if that is what you want, but they're expensive and weigh a ton. The small, green Taco pumps work just as well and are easier to install because they weigh less. Plus, cheaper.) Here's a howto guide...
1. Turn off power to the circulating pump that is dead.
2. Turn off valves located above and below circulating pump. (If you do not have these, you will have to drain the system, which will be wet and messy. However, it will provide you with a jim-dandy opportunity to put in water shutoff valves above and below the circulating pump since the system will be empty anyway and doing so will make the next time you replace the circulating pump a ten-minute affair where you probably won't even get wet. If installing shutoffs, I suggest the ball valve kind instead of the gate valve kind.)
3. Open box for new circulating pump. It will hold a small greenish pump and two rubber gasket things. Place these near where you are working, on a fairly clean, dry surface. The top of the furnace is usually good and certainly a cut above the basement floor in most cases.
4. Using a screwdriver (and possibly other tools as appropriate), remove cover and wires from dead circulating pump.
5. Using a socket set and crescent wrench, remove the four bolts that hold the dead circulating pump in place. (CAUTION: If replacing a big, red circulating pump, note that they are quite heavy and may fall on your feet if you aren't paying attention. It might be nice to summon a helper to catch the damn thing when you're down to the last bolt because it just might fall the hell out of the fittings.) Do not lose the four bolt-and-nut pairs. You will need them to put the new pump on.
6. Remove and set aside the dead pump. We tend to stow the dead circulator pumps around the edges of our basements as a postindustrial stockpile of arms for when we're up against the wall after the Revolution. At that point in the indefinite future, we will fling the heavy, nonfunctional B&G pumps at the approaching mob of revolutionaries to defend ourselves for the last few minutes of our lives. You may wish to attempt to recover the copper inside and sell it to support your crack habit or maybe you want to throw the whole thing away. Whatever. Just get it out of the fittings so that you can proceed with the repair job.
7. Put the little rubber gasket things in the spaces for them on the new (small, green) pump. Put the pump into the fittings, making sure that the arrow on the pump is going in the correct direction. In most cases, the arrow should point towards the furnace. (If you do this wrong, the pump will run and run but the radiators will stay cold. If that happens to you, take the pump out, flip it over, and reinstall it upside down of how you had it the first time. THEN, verify that you have hot radiators. THEN, and this is the step everyone forgets, write on the pump using a sharpie marker that the arrow points [whatever way makes there be heat] so that you don't have to fuck around like this next time but can just look at the old pump to see what to do.)
8. Tighten up the bolts. When they're pretty tight, like almost as tight as they go, turn the waters back on (top and bottom). Observe for leaks. If there are leaks, tighten up the bolts some more. These do not usually leak a whole lot. The gaskets are pretty useful and the fittings are nicely made. You should be able to tighten things up to where there are no leaks without the use of power tools or excessive force*. If you have tried and tried and cannot make there be no leaks, perhaps you were an idiot and nudged one of the gasket things out of place when you installed the pump. Turn water off, reseat everything, and try again. When there are no leaks, proceed.
9. Hook up wires to the circulator pump. There's a wiring diagram for you, but it's not terribly difficult even without the wiring diagram. When that's done, put the power back on and see if the pump runs. The pipe that is opposite the direction of the arrow should eventually get warm, as the warm water circulates through the house. It should (if you've been out of heat for a while) get COLD first (as the pump pulls the cold water out of your cold radiators and back to the furnace to get heated up again) and then gradually, after a decent interval (usually less than ten minutes unless you live in a mansion or something, in which case why are you not hiring this done?), get warmer and warmer. If you're still not sure that it's right, go feel up your radiators, as discussed in step 7. If the radiators are hot, you've got a working circulator pump.
10. When everything is working to your satisfaction, put the little cover housing thing over the wiring part and attach it to the pump. You're done. Hooray!
*Here, excessive force is more torque than you can muster with normal tools. You should be able to get these tight enough to not-leak with just normal tools, no pounding, leaning, or cheaters required.
Other than that, I went to the grocery store and the post office. I forgot to buy cat food, but I figure I'll pick that up tonight when I go into town. The cat is not going to starve to death in one night.
When I got home, I addressed the problems with the HoHI. You've not been hearing about the HoHI problems because I've been mad at the whole project for a while. My gauge, swatch or no swatch, was actually 12 sts. to the inch instead of the projected 10 that I got from doing a fscking swatch. That doesn't sound too hideous, but when you're talking 14" of around-the-calf sock, that's a difference of (168-140=28) 28 stitches or about TWO FREAKING INCHES. Yes, Virginia, that is enough to seriously fuck up the fit of the socks. The HoHI have been tight enough around the calf to squish the design out of orderly cartesian goodness and into some mushed-out-of-shape thing since their inception and I thought I would get happier with that state of affairs as time went by. I harbored some vague plan of losing enough weight to make my calves skinny enough to fit into the socks without deforming them. (Reality is a place I visit some of the time. I don't live there or anything like that.) I also decided that I wanted corrugated ribbing on the tops... after I'd done the plain ribbing. Somehow, I thought that I would get happier with the plain ribbing as time went by. I did not get happier with anything as time went by. I got more pissed. Eventually, I stopped working on the HoHI.
Note to self: You will not become more happy with the non-right project as time passes. It will piss you off and piss you off and piss you off until you either abandon the project or rip it all out to start over again. (Ribbit, ribbit.)
I can start on the ribbing today but I need a new chart with more motif on it, some 14 sts. per side motif, so seven stitches on each side of each side motif. I hope like hell that the book *has* that, or I'm going to have to resort to the time-honored practice of making shit up...
