What’s in your radiant toolbox?
Ensure you do the job right the first time. "All I ever do is staple-up." That was my friend and competitor’s response after he asked me to determine why a recent radiant heating installation was not working satisfactorily because the owners were ticked off. Staple-up...
The Christmas turkey and the drain snake
The perils of industrial strength acids. Forty-eight years ago, I learned a valuable lesson as a plumbing apprentice. I had just begun my career in the mechanical trades when I was dispatched to lend a hand cleaning a kitchen sink drain in an apartment building. ...
Déjà vu
Do your customers a favor by educating them on the issues of PB piping. For you younger tradesfolk who have entered into a mechanical career within the past 20 years, you may never have encountered PB (polybutylene) tubing and fittings. To tell you the truth, it’s...
Dominoes
Failure of one part of a hydronic radiant system can cause the entire row to fall. The exhaust line should have a minimum of 1/4" fall per foot. Condensate is pushed forward and will pool potentially causing a safety lockout. As a designer/installer of any hydronic...
Honesty
The essential foundation for your business. Honesty is such a lonely word (from the song, “Honesty” by Billy Joel). It never ceases to amaze me when folks we deal with are not honest. As a new apprentice in 1972, Paul Strayer and I were doing demolition work...
The doctor is in
Contractors offer customers peace of mind with solutions to indoor comfort and plumbing problems. How to become a psychologist and therapist in one easy lesson: Open a mechanical contracting firm! With absolutely no disrespect intended towards those who are degreed in...
Heat pump mayhem
Two 2.5-ton air-to-water heat pumps were installed with each one connected to a 50-gallon indirect water heater. Both systems incorporated solar heat exchangers and there was a vacuum tube solar array mounted on the roof to, according to the installer, provide 100% of...
Corporate grand entrance
Success doesn’t happen by accident. After being contacted by the general contractor, we met on site to go over the possibility of installing a snowmelt system for the more than 2,000-square-feet of sidewalks, which also included two ADA-sloped approaches to the grand...
Deal or no deal
Crunch the numbers and have documented proof, then no one can argue. An architect, insulation installers, door and window salespersons/installers, and a mechanical contractor are in a classroom together, and the instructor asks: “Should you upgrade the building...
Figure it out
Ask Dave, he’ll know.” I had just walked into the inside sales area to give our salesman a list to quote. A friendly competitor was looking for answers and one of the salesmen told him to ask me for my thoughts. He had recently installed a new boiler with five zones...