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understanding pipe thread specifications
Tuesday, August 22 2023
My guts seemed to be better this morning, and, happily, they never relapsed over the course of the day, suggesting I won't be spending the rest of my life squirting foul liquid from my anus.
I made good progress on the garage cleanup, relocating most of the material removed from where it had been leaning against the oil tank back to the northeast corner where those luan doors had been taking up room for the last two decades. There was now so much room back there that I could also put the few glass-paneled doors (salvaged from the old SCA office in Red Hook) that I didn't take up to the cabin in that corner as well. I lashed some of the bigger pieces of OSB (which I was having trouble finding room for in the garage) to the roof of the Forester, where I could use it to help me transport styrofoam when we drive up to the cabin this weekend.
At some point today my brother Don called to tell me that he thinks our mother Hoagie wants to leave the old folks' home and return the trailer at Creekside to live with him. This idea had been put in his head by our friend Josh, who had called me yesterday to tell me that Hoagie's power of attorney Joy Tarder was trying to extricate herself from being power of attorney. (Joy recently had a heart attack while trying to deal with some of the chaos out at Creekside, so I totally understand.) Josh also thinks Hoagie should return to Creekside, stressing that one of Hoagie's fellow inmates supposedly "exposed himself" to her the other day (which isn't surprising in a building full of dementia patients). To me this seems like an impossible thing, since the trailer is barely inhabitable as it is and Don isn't equipped to care for Hoagie. She'd inevitably wander off or lie down and refuse to get up and be right back at the old folks' home again.
Hoagie's twin sister Barbara (who doesn't have dementia) called while I was talking to Don, so I switched to talking to her. She had the news that somehow Hoagie had managed to escape from the old folks' home yesterday evening. She'd learned this from her daughter Deirdre, who had learned it from Joy Tarder. I'd been to dementia wing of that old folks' home and knew it wasn't an easy place to get out of. One has to communicate with a staff member, who then has to unlock a door, before there can be any escape. So how had she gotten out? Supposedly she was found lying down in a roadway nearby, which is exactly how I'd expect Hoagie would squander such an opportunity.
This evening after taking a bath, I decided to grit my teeth and go through the messy business of replacing the expansion tank on the solar hydronic system. Fortunately there were valves and ways to drain water such that I didn't have to remove the tank from a pressurized system (which would've been a complete mess). As it was, though, I made a mess of things anyway because inevitably there was that one valve (in this case the manual release from a pressure-release valve) that I left open when I should've closed it, causing hydronic fluid to overflow a collection bucket onto the boiler room floor. But then when I went to test the new pressure release valve, the taped threads of its connection immediately began to leak. It turns out I'd made something of a rookie mistake with the 3/4 inch MIP connector at the top of the new expansion tank. In attempting to adapt it to the 3/4 inch FIP connector at the bottom of the "air scoop" it is supposed to hang from, I'd used what I thought was a suitable brass adapter. But no, that adapter was designed for "hose fittings," the kind you find at the end of a garden hose. The threads are compatible between a female hose fitting a 3/4 inch MIP, but such connections are, it turns out, impossible to seal, even with lots of teflon tape. (I did some research online to help me better understand the compatibility of all the various pipe thread specifications, including NPT, MIP, and FIP, which is something I'd somehow never yet needed to know.) I went through my huge collection of brass fittings from my golden age of shoplifting and found none that could be made to work, which then had me searching the Home Depot website to see if what I needed (a 3/4 inch MIP to 1/2 inch FIP adapter) actually existed. Home Depot didn't have exactly what I needed, but I could assemble what I needed from two parts, only one of which I had. Then I saw that, despite it already being dark and after 8:00pm, Home Depot was still open. So I immediately climbed into the Forester and hit the road. (I called for the dogs to join me, but they were moving so slowly that I left them behind.) I got what I needed at Home Depot, along with some thread sealant, foam board adhesive, and yet more spray foam.
When I got back to the house in Hurley, Gretchen was back from her prison teaching gig. She'd returned to the house and found me gone, something that almost never happens, particularly after 9:00pm. Intially she'd been freaked out, wondering if I'd had to take one of the critters to the emergency vet. In future, she said, she wanted me to be sure to tell her I'm going out in such situations. Fair enough, but I'd been in a bit of a time crunch when I'd left.
Using the thread sealant and two brass fittings, I was easily able to install the big new expansion tank without seeing any leaks. Hopefully this will fix whatever the problem was that was causing serious fluid loss from the old expansion tank.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?230822 feedback
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