New guy!

[Bernie2]

Dear All,

I'm new to the forum.

I was working as a JIB Technical Grade Plumber before I was medically retired about 10 years ago. Been in the industry virtually since I left school in 1961. I just come on the forum to learn what's going on today.


Bernie

 

[stevetheplumber]

welcome to the forum bernie

 

[buffy27]

whats the craic,
what type of systems were most common back in the day.was it all open vented, back boilers ,plumbers used to do alot of lead welding. what was that like?

 

[traineedrip]

welcome along mate

 

[uug197h]

welcome to the forum

 

[shepster]

Hi Bernie,

Welcome, i'm new to the forum too but have quietly been reading it for a year, some of the language and tech' stuff sounds foriegn to me but thats because like everybody else I don't know everything, but wish I did!

good luck

shepster

 

[REDSAW]

owd' bernie welcome.
we could learn a lot of old tricks from you then.
it was coal fires buff. n tin bath. (i remember them hanging out in the yard).

 

[buffy27]

were the coal fires plumbed / back boilers or what .when did the first of the central heating come about for the ordinary joe soap?when was the gas main lined in the uk. i have no gas here only lpg which is farely rare.when were the first heating systems introduced and what were they. come on lads -don t bring it to the grave , twill be lost forever.
what about that lead welding. so many questions , not enough answers.

 

[Bernie2]

Dear All,

Thanks for the welcome

In my early days, it was as somebody said, all back boilers, lead pipe, lead flashings and really old plumbing stuff if you where on the repair said. The new housing work was mostly copper but still back boilers, open vent, stored water and all that.
It varied a lot depending what firm you worked for and what their line was. It was also a time of rapid change but lead was still widely used for many jobs.

The lead burning or as some call it lead welding, was just that, welding lead, usually with oxy acetylene, the same as you would weld anything else, but it was slower. In point it was quite therapeutic a bit like writing. You couldn't use much heat or you melted the lead, so BOC sold little OO tips and short welding torches. The thing was of course, this was in the days when Health and Safety was never really heard of. So if you where lucky, you might or might not get flashback arrestors fitted.

Its all a bit much to explain in one go. I'll try to post bits and pieces, some of it may be interesting.

Bernie

 

[Dave]

Hello Bernie and welcome..

 

[migoplumber]

welcome bernie,

i do mainly commercial stuff bernie, large buildings, all the pipes have temperature sensors in bulbs on the pipes, 3 way mixing valves on the flow and return, for each seperate zone in the buiding, connected to room stats in the zones, outside temperature sensors, water flow meters on hot and central heating pipes so the heat supplied can be charged to the actual customer. all this information is fed to a central computer, which in turn sends the information over the internet to a central computer, that runs many buildings. somebody sat in front of the computer can decide what temperature is reqd and where! he presses a few buttons and before you know it, i get a call out because its too hot or cold. go to the job, all mechanically working great, but the computer has turned a bit off somewhere. so you ring the computer man, and guess what he works nine to five!!

 

[buffy27]

welcome bernie,

i do mainly commercial stuff bernie, large buildings, all the pipes have temperature sensors in bulbs on the pipes, 3 way mixing valves on the flow and return, for each seperate zone in the buiding, connected to room stats in the zones, outside temperature sensors, water flow meters on hot and central heating pipes so the heat supplied can be charged to the actual customer. all this information is fed to a central computer, which in turn sends the information over the internet to a central computer, that runs many buildings. somebody sat in front of the computer can decide what temperature is reqd and where! he presses a few buttons and before you know it, i get a call out because its too hot or cold. go to the job, all mechanically working great, but the computer has turned a bit off somewhere. so you ring the computer man, and guess what he works nine to five!!

is this a bms system

 

[migoplumber]

yes buffy bms system it is. the idea is good in principal, energy effiecency and all that, but in practice at the moment it may save them a couple of hundred thousand in fuel bills, but we are eating into that with our call outs, tho im not truly complaining!!

was on one system a while back, one pump on a twin body had gone down, so i had to remove the head, cap it and take it away to be rewound, id just switched over pumps on control board, tested to make sure it was safe to work on. half way through the other pump stopped working. mr controller had seen a fault, ( because i had isolated the pump body, the sensors detected no flow) decided to switch over pumps, making the pump im working on live!!

now when i arrive on a bms system the first thing i do is unplug the modem. lesson learnt!

shaun

 

[traineedrip]

decided to switch over pumps, making the pump im working on live!!

now when i arrive on a bms system the first thing i do is unplug the modem. lesson learnt!

shaun

blimey! that was nice of him! last thing id have thought of , it all being controlled down the road

 

[buffy27]

Dear All,

Thanks for the welcome

In my early days, it was as somebody said, all back boilers, lead pipe, lead flashings and really old plumbing stuff if you where on the repair said. The new housing work was mostly copper but still back boilers, open vent, stored water and all that.
It varied a lot depending what firm you worked for and what their line was. It was also a time of rapid change but lead was still widely used for many jobs.

The lead burning or as some call it lead welding, was just that, welding lead, usually with oxy acetylene, the same as you would weld anything else, but it was slower. In point it was quite therapeutic a bit like writing. You couldn't use much heat or you melted the lead, so BOC sold little OO tips and short welding torches. The thing was of course, this was in the days when Health and Safety was never really heard of. So if you where lucky, you might or might not get flashback arrestors fitted.

Its all a bit much to explain in one go. I'll try to post bits and pieces, some of it may be interesting.

Bernie

still like this in ireland