EFM 520 Has Landed

 
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billw
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Post by billw » Sun. Jun. 08, 2008 8:08 am

I picked up my EFM 520 yesterday. It's providing warmth already. I sweated my butt of getting it off the truck. :) My wife's first reaction when she saw it was 'It's huge'. My mind normally goes right to the gutter but I kept my sarcasm to myself. After 30 years I'm tired of the dog house.

Hopefully by the end of July I'll have this project wrapped up.


 
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LsFarm
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Post by LsFarm » Sun. Jun. 08, 2008 10:05 am

Congratulations,, !! progressive photos of the install would be nice to add to this thread... first,, the one with your 'sweat rings' all the way down to your belt ! With the EFM under one arm of course !! :D :D :lol:

Greg L

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billw
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Post by billw » Sun. Jun. 08, 2008 10:21 am

Posting pics is a good idea Greg. Hopefully I can illustrate my amateur mistakes. Maybe it'll help the next DIYer. Besides, I can keep all of my dumb questions in one place. As far as the EFM under one arm, uhh it's bigger than me. Pun intended. :)

 
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LsFarm
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Post by LsFarm » Sun. Jun. 08, 2008 11:10 am

A few items I learned with my AA install,, forget pipe dope,, every threaded joint leaked.. I took it all apart and used 'Ultra-Black' gasket-sealant sold by 'Permatex'.. It's the sealant I use on all my automotive/truck work,, and I've never had a problem.. It works wonders on threaded pipe fittings..

Greg L..

 
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Post by billw » Sun. Jun. 08, 2008 11:31 am

We picked it up June 7, 2008. It was all together at the shop but had to be disassembled for shipping. My plans are to install this in series with my current oil unit. The oil unit has a DHW coil supplying a 50 gallon electric water heater. I set this up when energy was inexpensive. We raised three children and never ran out of hot water. Now that energy prices have skyrocketed I'm considering replacing the electric heater with an indirect water heater. This will be done when money permits, however, I'm installing the necessary pump and flow check valve now.

My only construction experience is in my own home. I've done all of the electrical, plumbing and carpentry. This thread is set up to provide other DIYer's a chronicle of what went right, what went wrong, and the way I remedied them. Hopefully you find my experience useful in planning and installing your own system.

Currently I'm only working on this project on rainy days. My first priority is the installation of a masonry chimney for the coal unit. Once that phase of this project is complete I will devote all of my spare time completing the plumbing and wiring of this installation.

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Freddy
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Post by Freddy » Sun. Jun. 08, 2008 3:50 pm

Congratulations!! Wooohoooo! Ohhhh, this is gettin' exciting!

Greg, you didn't need better pipe dope, you needed more arm! (or bigger wrenches) :P

 
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LsFarm
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Post by LsFarm » Sun. Jun. 08, 2008 5:22 pm

Nope,, the pipe dope just plain didn't 'set'.. once the pipes got hot, the pipe dope ran out of the threads like 20wt oil... I use pretty good size pipe wrenches :D :D . and even the few threaded fittings that I re-tightened to the point I thought I might crush the pipe with the wrench's jaws.. still leaked.. The 'Ultra-Black RTV sealant works like it creates a continous 'O' ring seal all through the thread,[thanks Yanche!] , works like magic... Not one leak with the RTV..

Anyway, maybe a better quality pipe dope would do the job,, but a single tube of RTV only costs $3, and I used only one for the whole reseal.''Well worth the $$

Greg L


 
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Post by billw » Sun. Jun. 08, 2008 5:28 pm

Thanks Greg and Yanche,
you just eliminated one potential problem for me. :)

The plan changed for moving the oil unit. I realized that installing a circulator pump was much less expensive than abandoning a perfectly good chimney and installing a power vent. The oil unit is about 30 feet from the coal unit. Piping, a pump and possibly an aquastat is much cheaper than a power vent. So the oil unit will get freshened up with paint, a new stack and stay in place.

A shop crane was used to lift the boiler section. The legs of the crane wouldn't go around the base section so the base was set on 8" cinder blocks. This provided enough clearance to fit the leg of the crane under the center of the base. Once the boiler section was set and the crane out of the way I used a 2 ton car jack to lift either side of the unit up just enough to fill the hole left from where the crane leg went under the base with another cinder block. After everything was in place I filled the block and gaps between the block with concrete. The unit is about 1" out of square with the garage wall but I can live with that.

 
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Post by jpen1 » Sun. Jun. 08, 2008 7:07 pm

Greg,

Been there done that with the dope but we use a combination of products to make the stainless threads seal everytime , which are much less forgiving than black iron pipe. The first thing to rememgber is to clean the threads really good with 91% isopropl alcohol or acetone. Then with the end of the pipe staring you in the face wrap good USA. made teflon tape clockwise around the threads starting at the tend of the pipe and working to the center. Then use rectorseal 5 or LACO slicktight industrial. Then put the joint togethre and tighten it. Rember the thread itself is what really seals the joint not the tape or dope they lubricate the joint to allow good mating of the threads.
Last edited by jpen1 on Mon. Jun. 09, 2008 9:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

 
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LsFarm
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Post by LsFarm » Sun. Jun. 08, 2008 7:47 pm

I used teflon tape and pipe dope,, no luck.. the quality of the threading on pipe today is pretty bad.. rough, with jagged surfaces.. I won't even try anything but the RTV now.. because you know that the fitting that leaks is the one that required the disassembly of about ten other fittings to get to the leaker... it's just not worth it..

I just put a thin layer on both the female and male threads,, as the joint is threaded together a small bead 'leads' the male thread, and when tight, mechanically tight, I know the RTV will seal the threads.. forget the threads themselves sealing I've tightened a Teflon taped, doped joint 'till I crushed the pipe with the 48" long pipe wrench.. and it stil leaked... :mad: :mad:

Anyway,, RTV works for me..

Greg L

 
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Scottscoaled
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Post by Scottscoaled » Sun. Jun. 08, 2008 9:46 pm

I like the idea of that gasket maker. I've done a couple boilers in the last couple weeks and used this black pipe dope that was just about the same stuff as that ultra black. It worked well also but was a nightmare because of the mess it made. Sort of like the Dr. Suess where the little spot keeps getting bigger. Anyway, the tube of gasket maker would be much easier to keep everything clean and increase the quality of the install. I'm going to be doing another unit soon and you can bet the tube of ultra black is coming along. Good idea Greg. :) Scott

 
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Post by jpen1 » Mon. Jun. 09, 2008 9:17 pm

Greg is right the quality of a lot of the pipe fittings availiable at big box stores is not very good. I buy mine from a local plumbing shop or a supply house like IPS. A good test for fittings is to see how many complete revolutions you can turn a pipe into the fitting . A properly sized fitting will only allow 2 complete turns by hand with no dope or tape. Also threads should not be jagged and if so they are probably cut to deep or at too fast a cutting speed. Some food for thought for those getting custom length pipe threaded.

 
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Post by e.alleg » Mon. Jun. 09, 2008 11:19 pm

whatever you do, never use the green pipe dope. It seals the joints OK, but it gets on your clothes and never washes off. It comes off skin with paint thinner if your lucky. I like the black RTV idea. Even better is to adapt to copper as close to the boiler as possible, if it doesn't leak when your done you can forget about it and it's easier.

 
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stoker-man
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Post by stoker-man » Tue. Jun. 10, 2008 7:56 pm

That is an OOOld efm.

 
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billw
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Post by billw » Tue. Jun. 10, 2008 9:40 pm

I found the plate with the model number below the coil plate. Unfortunately a lot of the numbers are illegible. On the bottom left of the plate was stamped 1959 and some letters. Could that be the year of manufacture?


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