Winterizing for the first time - Page 3

mainah · 11-21-2018, 05:13 PM

Nothing more that some black tape on the clear flex hose to fit the hose from the vac. To me putting water into a tank with no bottom drain didn't really cut it maybe there is enough turbulence to mix it all up but a hose on the bottom sure sucks it up, personal I guess but it made sense to me. I had an old Toyota MH it's drains were under the coach they were threaded valves I made an adapter to fit a vac hose to them and use the vac to drain the plumbing just opened all the taps and turned the vac on. I do strange things like that.

Draughty · 11-21-2018, 06:19 PM

Strange? Sounds smart to me!

mainah · 11-22-2018, 08:47 AM

Well if you stop to think about a vac if you lower the pressure then the atmospheric pressure begins begins pushing down with some pretty good force. I have watched a co. known for making high end houses apply vacuum (pretty serious pump) to basically a large plastic bag with a veneered door inside to apply clamping force for glue up he estimated a ton or more of equally distributed of pressure so basically it is about 15 pounds per square inch.

JerryJ · 11-22-2018, 10:30 AM

A few years ago I used to own and older 1985 T1350. I sold it but I'll still refer to stuff I've done.

About half way into our ownership I discovered I had a leak in the hot water heater while we were camping.
When we got home I removed the tank and found a crack. Age? Fatigue? Constant road shake? Anyone's guess.

I used a product on the tank that I have used in many other mechanical applications.
I use The Permatex brand called Cold Weld. Basically it's a super heavy duty epoxy glue (two parts). This stuff you can only apply small batches at a time because it sets quickly. I'll lightly sand down the surface to be covered just to clean the surface and give the surface more of a chance to adhere.

I'll apply batch one. then go make another batch until the surface is covered entirely.
Then I make a second batch (second layer) and go over the first layer and add 30% to 50% overlap. Actually too much is a good thing.

You may end up going through 2, maybe 3 tubes of Epoxy, resin and hardener, but consider the value of the tank versus the value of the epoxy...do the math.

2 years later my tank was as dry as a bone

I have used this epoxy on many mechanical applications and has never let me down. Once cured, it can be drilled and painted

Draughty · 11-22-2018, 10:37 AM

Yeah I use two versions of that one is JB weld and the other is a 3M Panel Bonder that comes in a dual tube and has a mixer nozzle.
Either one will easily handle the heat of a hot water tank but I'd keep it away from the gas flame heat source. It would probably be ok but it could scorch.
JB Weld is strong and machinable when used correctly. I used the Permatex stuff many years ago on a gas tank leak and it never leaked again!

JerryJ · 11-22-2018, 10:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Draughty

Yeah I use two versions of that one is JB weld and the other is a 3M Panel Bonder that comes in a dual tube and has a mixer nozzle.
Either one will easily handle the heat of a hot water tank but I'd keep it away from the gas flame heat source. It would probably be ok but it could scorch.
JB Weld is strong and machinable when used correctly. I used the Permatex stuff many years ago on a gas tank leak and it never leaked again!

Truthfully, I think they're all good and no I would not use any of those near any open flame. I do notice if I keep this stuff in my shop it gets cold and not malleable. I keep it in the house so it's room temperature at all times

Draughty · 11-22-2018, 10:46 AM

Yes I keep mine from freezing but have let it freeze and it still works fine...

**JohnB** · 11-22-2018, 11:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mainah

Nothing more that some black tape on the clear flex hose to fit the hose from the vac. To me putting water into a tank with no bottom drain didn't really cut it maybe there is enough turbulence to mix it all up but a hose on the bottom sure sucks it up, personal I guess but it made sense to me. I had an old Toyota MH it's drains were under the coach they were threaded valves I made an adapter to fit a vac hose to them and use the vac to drain the plumbing just opened all the taps and turned the vac on. I do strange things like that.

Thanks.

The water hose flush does have a "level" of working. It stirs it all up and if you flush long enough a good quantity floats out the hole. It for sure helps, just I cannot truly say how close to 100% or even 80% effective etc it is.

I do know for a fact a camper water heater that has not been flushed in many years, when I flush it the first time stuff piles out in very large amounts. The last one I did when I got the camper, I did it in the barn so I used a large old wash tub to collect the drain off. Well it took at least 15 gallons of flushing (as carried out by the tub) to get the water to run clean. Seeing all that sediment in the bottom of the tub was so bad the first 4 to 5 gallons you could not see to the bottom of the tub! Seeing this makes one a true believer in annual flushing or vacuuming etc.

At work we use to have a compressed air venturi shop vacuum. It had about a 1/2" ID hose on it. You could suck up drill chips, sawdust, water, light oil etc. Great for getting loose crud out of deep blind holes. That could work really well in the this water heater deal. Just I have not been able to find one since seeing the shop mechanics use them years ago. I'll have to hunt some on the web and see if I can find one. In my case, my shop vac, which is a wet/dry one it's a pain going wet then back to dry. I have to deal with the filter setup it has that turns into mush when in wet mode. The air venturi one you do not have to clean out much pending what one sucked up last with it.

Thanks

John

Draughty · 11-22-2018, 12:49 PM

Yeah compressed air vacuums or eductor powered vacuum is amazing for this sort of work.
It would be easy enough to make one up that would suck the crap out of one of these tanks pretty easily..
It would work a bit like paint spray gun pickup. The pickup being placed inside the water heater tank.
Simple design with no moving parts.
I design large industrial vacuums up to 1000 gallon capacity with eductors (that's the Venturi) that need 2" compressed air lines to operate!
Massive amounts of vacuum available with a 4" eductor.

mainah · 11-22-2018, 02:49 PM

I had one once that I used for a short time on A/C systems it worked fine but it was unbearably noisy and demanded a lot of CFM. I figured it was cheaper to buy an electric one than run a 5HP compressor non stop!

mainah · 11-22-2018, 02:56 PM

"In my case, my shop vac, which is a wet/dry one it's a pain going wet then back to dry."

I take the filter off before using it, mine has a float that seals off the vacuum port before it can suck up any water into the works. I do wash it out before I used it so I don't end up with mud in the bottom.

Draughty · 11-22-2018, 03:52 PM

Mainah you are correct.. about the only place they are best is when the media they are vacuuming could be ignited by sparks from the electric motor ..or if plant/mine air is plentiful and more easily accessible than electric.
We do dewatering mine cleanup systems and mines have air everywhere to the point they even use it to generate electricity.
I do know of one guy that was working to power himself off grid with compressed air by using older windmills to pump and fill a large compressed air tank beneath his shop. Like 1000's of gallons large. High volume low pressure system he could use to store energy. It's a good concept but I didn't keep up with him on it.

mainah · 11-22-2018, 05:25 PM

Air turbine generator? Same concept of air powered tools I would guess but after years of using air tools that's why this guy can't hear! Yeah air powered stuff in explosive atmosphere would be a big plus how do they deal with static? Or is there enough moisture?

Draughty · 11-22-2018, 06:46 PM

Plenty of moisture in the mines.
I used a pneumatic in a powder coating booth to do cleanup and color changes.
We didn't have much trouble with static but was likely due to the booths themselves being grounded. Powder paint will burn just like flour or grain dust so we had to be careful of sparks but not overly so...
One operator let the guns with their positive electrodes get to close to the grounded bare metal product and it sparked hot enough to start a fire and the powder coming through the nozzles were like blowtorches...burned one of the booths to the ground.. fortunately we had two and a good fure suppression system in the paint room!

**JohnB** · 11-24-2018, 09:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mainah

"In my case, my shop vac, which is a wet/dry one it's a pain going wet then back to dry."

I take the filter off before using it, mine has a float that seals off the vacuum port before it can suck up any water into the works. I do wash it out before I used it so I don't end up with mud in the bottom.

Thanks, I may try that. Ours has the vacuum ball shut off thing too, as it works even with the filter on when enough water gets in the tank. Just the filter mess and the mud was the draw back but your method may solve all that.

Thanks again.

John

Thomascine · 11-24-2018, 09:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mainah

"In my case, my shop vac, which is a wet/dry one it's a pain going wet then back to dry."

I take the filter off before using it, mine has a float that seals off the vacuum port before it can suck up any water into the works. I do wash it out before I used it so I don't end up with mud in the bottom.

The last time I use the wet/dry vac, I did not install the wet filter and it did okay. I just made sure the clean it out when I was done. I have a LintWizard that I am going to see if the clear tube on the end will fit into the drain hole on the WH. If it does then I can use that. It sounds a lot like what Mainah made. Curious to see how well it works. If it does fit and does an okay job then I have another multi-function tool.

**JohnB** · 11-24-2018, 09:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mainah

I had one once that I used for a short time on A/C systems it worked fine but it was unbearably noisy and demanded a lot of CFM. I figured it was cheaper to buy an electric one than run a 5HP compressor non stop!

Depending on the one you get, yes they are air hogs. I have not been able yet to find the ones our shop use to use. Found a lot of cheap ones but I'm not sure they will do what I'm after.

Yeh, you do not want to be using one of these for long and big jobs or come with big air lines and lots of CFM behind them. At work we use to use compressed air blow off systems to clean debris out of containers. 2" air line running non stop just about 24/6 days a week. The issue in this case is to get the right velocity and CFM to be effective. We have replaced many of the compressed air ones but then when to 2 stage blowers to get higher velocity blow off for water drying. we had 2, 125 HP blower motors to get the pressure up to 2.5psi and mega volume (5,000cfm) . In this case the blowers where more effective then the compressed air.

As long as one is not after high volume, there has been a lot of advancements in vacuum chips in the last 15 years. Just they start costing more, use less air and make less noise. In fact they got so good at it we stopped using the noisy vacuum pump that would die every year. We just pulse the vacuum chip to run when we need it verses the pump running all the time and wearing out.

I'll try the shop vac less the filter and clean the dust out first to keep the mud under control....