gas line inspection question
well my inspector showed up yesterday and rejected the whole gas line installation,because i had put my drip lines in front of the shutoff.he said all the drip lines had to be between the shutoff and the furnace,hot water heater etc. plus he wants the shutoffs installed [which they have to be now to get the drip lines in]. i didn’t argue with him i’ll just fix it the way he wants, but in everything i read and pictures i look at it shows the drip in front of the shutoff. plus my booklet that the city issues also states that” no appliance or shutoff shall be installed at rough in inspection”any body know which way is right? thanks larry
Replies
Peter Hemp (a better plumber than I) shows them downstream of the shutr-off valve (page 168, Plumbing a House, Taunton Press) and I've never gone wrong following his practices.
The advantage I see with your approach is that the drips pipes get pressure tested with the rest of the fuel-gas piping. Otherwise they are one of the less tested components downstream of the shut-off valve.
"no appliance or shutoff shall be installed at rough in" So do you have to cap your lines instead of leaving the shut-offs closed? Seems to me that testing the shut-offs if both a convenience and more thorough than not pressure testing them.
Larry, if you're talking about putting the drip legs upstream of the main entry point for the gas, that is incorrect and the inspector will not pass it. Drip legs should be downstream of the main entry, usually near the appliances themselves. On inspection, you have an inch or so of pipe sticking out of the house for the utility company to connect to, and you have your appliance stubs completed everywhere and capped. Drip legs are within that and are part of the test.
My gas piping is black pipe. It's all underfloor, following the bottom of the joists. When there's a riser to an appliances, it's done using a Tee, with one side of the Tee pointing up to the appliance and one side pointing down into a 6" nipple with a cap--the nipple and cap are the drig leg. One for each appliance.
the way you desribe the rough in is exactly like i did mine,as i would drop to the aplliance i would put a tee,then extend straight down with a six inch pc for the drip leg with cap. then would come off horizonally with a 2" nipple and cap it. my understanding of the reason to not install the shut off is,a gas valve is rated for 5psi, with a requirment to pressurize for the test of 30lbs psi. now with the shutoffs all installed with drip legs after that, i'm only going to pressurize to 5 psi and ask the inspector what he wants.if he wants 30 i'll air it while he's standing there. thanks for the reply. larry
I'm confused. Where the hail does he want the drip legs? It sounds like you put them in the right place.
You don't pressure-test the shutoff valves, they don't like it. Around here, the building inspector signs off on the pressure test of the piping, without the propane regulator attached to the house and without appliances shutoffs. Then you install your shutoffs and flex connectors to the appliances. Then, the propane company comes out and installs the regulator and connects the gas. They put gas to the system and run all the appliances. Last, they use a manometer (sp?) which gives them a low pressure test for leaks. They're responsible for the integrity of the system after appliances are connected. How do they do it where you are? It sounds... different.
he wants the drip leg between the shutoff and appliance. my understanding of how it's suppose to be is just how you stated it. the only difference is once it's tested at rough in with pressure,i believe nobody ever checks it again. maybe the gas co. checks it and i've never noticed. i reall y could care less where the drip leg is unless i get a different inspector at final and he hits the roof becuase the drip legs need to be before the shutoff,then i'll hit the roof.i just hope i don't blow the shutoffs with 6 times the pressure that they are speced for. thanks larry
Most gascocks or shutoffs are rated for 150#. The appliance gas valves are not. Most are rated for 1/2 pound.
I think's he wrong and doesn't know it. Call the chief building official in your town and get his opinion.
the inspector is definitely wrong here, if you install a drip leg downstream of a gas valve (shutoff or gascock) how do you install the flex connector if it is not to be hard piped to the appliance?
are you supposed to hard pipe a dripleg after the gas valve and then adapt to a compression fitting for a flex connector? that just doesn't make sense.
i have worked on gas appliances for over 20 yrs (as well as other things) and i have NEVER seen a drip leg that was not just ahead of the shutoff for the appliance it serves. of course i live in cali so there ya go.
also, all fittings installed after a pressure test should be soap tested under gas pressure, which is about 1/3 of a pound, as well as 2 fittings upstream of where work is done. this means that after initial pressure test, when you put a wrench on the pipes to install flex connectors and gascocks, you retest with soap upstream to make sure you haven't created a leak on previously tested joints by turning wrenchs.
actually, my water heater is hooked up kinda like that. there's a long piece of flex that archs up off the supply line and back down to a tee next to the unit. the opposite end of the tee has a 6" drip leg, and the rt angle side is hard piped to the regulator. the shut off is at the supply end of the flex down by the floor.
m
i called for insp. for tommorrow,after he's happy i'm going to present him with about 4 things showing it different. my luck he'll want me to change back!lol thanks for the info larry
speaking of drip legs- do they really serve a purpose or are they just another vestigial appendix (figuratively and literally) that no longer actually does anything useful? i ask because in all the years i've watched various gas appliances being serviced i've never seen anybody open the drip leg to clean it out. my last house had a 42 yr old AO Smith forced air furnace and judging by the numerous service stickers- at least 15- and the pristine paint on the gas lines, that drip leg was never touched. is there any official recommendation to empty whatever crud supposedly collects in them- or in this day of extrafiltered everything is a drip leg just another code required waste of time and material? if so, how many millions of $$ and hours have been spent installing them to prevent how few potential problems?
m
Technically... if you took one apart after the initial pressure test, you'd be obliged to re-test the system. As far as I understand, they're for trapping moisture that's travelling along the pipe more than 'crud', but I think it would have a lot to do with what's in your gas.
see that's kinda my point- if 40+ years of usage doesn't typically produce enough moisture to fill a 1/2" x 6" drip leg to the level it needs emptied, then how big of a problem can it possibly be? surely any appliance ought to be able to handle that minuscule amount of water over the years without difficulty, don't you think?
m
I agree that it probably doesn't catch much dust or water or crud, but that doesn't mean it's useless. What it catches is DIY gas fitters who have plumbed their system with ever bothering to crack a book or consult with somebody who knows something about gas. If they omit the drip leg, who knows what else they've omitted.
I think the bulk of what's in a gas pipe is what gets in there while you're installing it. Small burrs from threading, dirt from lengths of pipe being shoved into the crawl space, little chunks of tef tape, whatever else. However, with propane I know there's a lot of water content and I gotta think that it's at least rusting the inside of the black pipe, so maybe a few little chunks of rust will break loose and get pushed into the dirt leg over time. Next time I have a chance I'll take one off and see if anything's in there. Anyway, we're bitchin' about nuthin' because all you do is use a tee at the riser location and drop a short nipple and cap. Takes a minute or two, no more, and it can be really convenient later if you're looking for a place to tap into a line and the plumber didn't leave you any freebies anywhere else.
my problem running a gas line to a new range the other day was that it was physically impossible to put a drip leg in any of the obvious places- not enough room in back of the range because the 'alcove' isn't deep or tall enough, barely space to get the valve, flex and adapters in and even then had to call bosch about moving (tilting up) the regulator to push the unit as close to the wall as spec'ed. can't put a drip leg directly below where the pipe comes up thru the floor because there's barely room for the elbow to make the turn over the top of the block foundation wall and under the floor joist that it must go up behind so that it will pop up close enough to the kitchen wall to meet the range install specs. can't put it in that first horizontal leg because it's not long enough to allow for a tee between the elbow and the union that makes even putting a gas pipe there possible and the elbow that must make the turn toward the supply (that didn't make any allowance for another appliance on the way to the water heater although it runs right under the kitchen)- soooo, the drip leg- for whatever it's worth- is a good 2.5' upstream from the valve and flex at the bottom of a short angled incline in the pipe (i figured it might as well go at the low point of the system as long as it had to be as far away as it did) whew!
theoretically, i could almost completely reconfigure the layout by cutting into the supply further upstream, staying low and then approaching the final vertical section at a 45 upward which would allow for a slightly better (at least somewhat closer anyway) located drip leg but i'm unconvinced they're sufficiently necessary on a natural gas system to go to all the trouble.
m
well i got through insp. i guess the good thing about the way the insp. made me do the drip legs is i can shutoff the valve and clean my drip legs!!!! yeah like thats going to happen in my spare time. larry
I don't know the codes, but recently had a house done with propane. The drip legs were all in front of the shutoffs for each appliance. The whole system had to be complete, including appliance shutoffs, capped at eash end, and under pressure for 24 hours for inspection. This was all done by an HVAC sub and passed on the first shot. The main shutoff outside and regulators were not installed at that point.