Denver Sluice 3 July 2013

This morning I drove into town to visit “Pryce’s” a proper supplier of most trades from plumbers to engineering. Walked up to the counter and said to the chap, “Have you got a 3/4” Essex Flange fitting please” 2 minutes latter it was laying on the counter to be checked against the mangled one I removed yesterday. A match.

Back home to pick up Diana and back to the boat. After a quick sandwich I was into it. First job clean the tank where the old fitting was remove and then set to fitting the new one. I comes with copper and rubber washers as below and an important piece of wire. First the body of the fitting is hung on the wire, This is then worked into the hole in the tank by feeding first one lug through and wriggling it until its inside the tank suspended on the wire. Next the first copper washer is fitted, this is larger than the hole but has a split in it so that it can be fed in. This is also threaded over the wire. Next in line is the rubber washer, this is easy as it can be bent up and pushed, again threaded over the wire. The three items are now drawn up with the wire so that the thread sticks out of the hole. It is important not to lose the wire still or the whole lot ends on the bottom of the tank. It is now time to assemble the outside bits, First the rubber washer is slipped over the thread followed by the solid copper washer. Until now everything has been assembled clean and dry, at this point just the external thread is smeared with jointing compound and the lock nut fitted and tightened up. Now and only now the wire is removed by pulling it through the fitting. You now have a 3/4 BSP female threaded outlet in the tank that you can connect the rest of the plumbing to.The system was refilled with water and checked for leaks. For those of you that paid attention you will see the kit had white washers and the finished item black, that is because the standard white washer is rated at 60°C and the black ones well over 100° which is why this job was necessary in the first place.

While I was doing this Diana went over the roof with the white primer undercoat painting all the rust treated spots from yesterday.The system was still holding water but only cold, so we spent an hour and a half running down to the Jenyns Arms for dinner tonight.