Boiler Mayhem

Team Gus and Johnny installed our high efficiency boiler on the coldest day of the year. By evening when Dix was huddled over an electric heater, I turned on the power switch. That tripped the breaker. After ten minutes of head scratching, Gus called his electrician brother Bob for help. Bob was here in five minutes - he lives two blocks away. The man is a CSI of amateur electricians. He methodically questioned each of us, who did what, while inspecting the wiring. It came down to me back at the sub-panel. I had wired the power to an arc fault interrupter, which is a no-no for motors, and did it wrong on top of that. Bob cross-examined me on various idiosyncrasies of my wiring system, saying occasionally, "I didn't see that...". He was all hands in the sub-panel, pulling wires here, putting them there, and when he was about to turn the breaker back on, he warned us "Look away" in case there were big sparks I suppose. Lo and behold the boiler lit up. Pumps hummed. Steam billowed from the flue pipe. Temperatures rising. Then a drip here, a drip there, then a leak. Who did that solder? - Gus. Who soldered that valve? Gus. My electric boo boo's were now history and Gus was the red faced one. But in his defense it might have been old defective solder. We drained the system again and re-soldered the leaks with new solder. Cranked it up again and the pipes were steaming hot in 30 minutes. Dix asked Bob what do we owe you and he said "I didn't give you a bill did I?". I gave him a bottle of wine. The rest of us toasted the boiler with a bottle of Conundrum. Gus and Johnny invoiced me for their labor and Operation Boiler is a success with no contracts or record of enterprise except for part receipts necessary for a $1500 Energy Tax Credit.

Gus said he would come back later with his stepson to horse the old boiler out of the basement. There is no way two humans can lift that 800 pound beast! That gives me four days to do it before someone is injured or he has a heart attack. I removed the cover and and am now breaking down the tubes. Dix and I will carry out the individual 80-pound pieces.