My foreman in Tulsa swore by a 3/8-inch gap for boiler tube expansion joints, and I did it that way for a decade.

After a joint on a 500 psi unit failed last spring, I switched to a 1/2-inch minimum and haven't had a callback since. Why are so many crews still sticking to the old, tighter spec?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_willow23d ago

Tell me about it... saw the same stubbornness with roof nail patterns back home. Guys would swear by six nails per shingle because that's how they learned, even when the new materials only needed four. Watched a whole crew waste a day and a box of nails before the boss showed them the spec sheet. Sometimes you just gotta have the old way blow up in your face before people will listen to the new numbers.

the_ben23d ago

That "old, tighter spec" thing is everywhere. I mean, my dad still changes his oil every 3,000 miles because that's what they did in the 80s, even though every manual now says double that. People just get a routine stuck in their head and it takes a real failure to shake it loose.