Electrocution possibility

I usually have a high regard for the old timers who came before me. But this is stupid. Forget the electrocution potential. I just wonder how many times the light bulb shattered over someone's head while they were taking a shower and a drop of water hit the bulb. Not to mention the bare feet in the shower with the broken glass. Who designed this? This is in a mansion in Shaker Hts. to boot.

Something you don't see everyday

I have to wonder what people think about when they are sitting on the commode in this house!

When radiators go bad

Sometimes radiators leak between the sections. This one did. This is a rare look at the reason. The push nipple is rotted thin enough to crack in one place and have a hole in another. We plan on attempting to fix this one. We found a source of push nipples and we plan on replacing all the lower push nipples. The upper nipples all look to be in decent shape. Its the condensate that eats the nipples up eventually.

Wooden radiator valve handles

We have received so many requests from people that they want original radiator valve (looks) that Paul has decided to manufacture custom made wood handles for radiator valves. The customers are ecstatic over them.

Sometimes the gauge glass doesn't reflect reality

When we run across a steam boiler whose gauge glass doesn't seem to reflect what is actually going on in the boiler, we usually find this situation. Thats a plugged gauge glass valve port. This is generally caused by a lack of proper maintenance. They do have to be cleaned during the boiler service.

Leaves and vent pipes

We had an interesting service call recently where the plumbing vent goes sideways in the attic for a while before going through the roof. The owner started to complain of sewer smell in the house. What we eventually found was the horizontal section of venting in the attic was packed full of leaves. We had to cut the attic vent piping and install cleanouts in it in order to snake the vents. This probably would not have happened with the old code which required full size stacks, but the new code goes by minimum sized piping. In the picture you can see where we cut the pipe and the dark area in the middle of the white PVC pipe is a pack of wet leaves.

Steam boiler return water

We recently removed this steam boiler (which was the original coal boiler), for a new owner who is moving into this house. The coal boiler was still working when we removed it. Take a look at these return connections on the boiler. How was it the returning condensate was making it back to the boiler? This is the worst clogging of return push nipple ports that I had seen. Yet the beast was still working!