Do you remember when I was stuck in a world of shit regarding my plumbing?... Yea... I rambled on about it every single damn post for a time... Even made a header with a plumbing theme... It was all about getting my heating system sealed... Yesterday, I discovered a leak... I don't know when the leak started, but I assume it wasn't terribly long ago, as the system had certainly lost pressure, but not too terribly much water... I had noticed more flow noise, which is indicative of air in the system, but since I hadn't seen any water, I thought I was losing my mind... So yesterday, there it was starring me in the face... Water, running down my basement wall... It was a flow control valve gasket gone bad... I hate those bloody things with an amazing passion... Fortunately, I have the upgraded gasket material I used on one of the other units, and the punch was still sitting on my desk... No pressure in the system, so after shutting all the valves to get as much of a vacuum lock as possible, I pulled the top off the valve, dropped in the new gasket, and lost less than an ounce of water... Sealed it back up, opened all the valves, and opened the fill valve... Now, I would have preferred to deal with this next summer when the system is going to be cold, but I didn't have much choice... So the only part that isn't quite right is now my cold fill pressure will be under 12psi... I managed a fill pressure of 15psi at 140 degrees, and the system runs at 180 max, so the pressure is now a little over 22psi when hot... Not perfect, and I'll get a bit more noise as a result, but livable, and I don't have to drain out all the hot water... I'll get the pressure right next summer, and all should be well now...
Just another typical day...