Meters, copper, valves and a wall of tools.
Harlow & Pike is a sample, so these six pictures are free-licence photographs by other people, credited at the foot of the page. None of them is our own work. The seventh plate is a drawing.
Meters on a wall
Each on its own branch, added when someone needed the water measured and never moved. A cellar in Quincy grows the same way, one fitting at a time.
Photograph: Godspower Abdulahi, Unsplash
A copper tee
The joint that splits one supply into two. A good sweat leaves a thin bright ring of solder all the way round. A leak is a gap in that ring.
Photograph: Magda Ehlers, Pexels
A wall of tools
Pipe wrenches, pliers, saws and hammers, each hung where a hand finds it. The shop pegboard is arranged the same way, with the cable and the press tool nearest the door.
Photograph: Lachlan Donald, Unsplash
Valves on a header
Iron gate valves on a boiler-house header, each one a place to stop part of the system without stopping all of it. The shut-off under your sink is the same idea, smaller.
Photograph: Peter Herrmann, Unsplash
A radiator on a sill
A radiator that stays cold while the rest of the house is warm is often full of air. Bleeding it is the first thing we try.
Photograph: Jonathan Cosens Photography, Unsplash
Pipes and a gauge
Insulated heating pipes, handwheel valves and a pressure gauge. On a home boiler the gauge should sit in a narrow band. We read it on every visit.
Photograph: Immo Wegmann, Unsplash
The card on the jacket
A drawing, not a photograph: the card taped to a boiler after a tune-up. It lists what was changed, so the next visit starts from the same page.
Credits
- Godspower Abdulahi, Unsplash. Meters on a wall. unsplash.com/photos/NoyKvHBb2JM. Unsplash licence.
- Magda Ehlers, Pexels. A copper tee. pexels.com/photo/copper-pipes-on-black-background-3721272. Pexels licence.
- Lachlan Donald, Unsplash. A wall of tools. unsplash.com/photos/hand-tool-on-wall-YVT5aF2QM7M. Unsplash licence.
- Peter Herrmann, Unsplash. Valves on a header. unsplash.com/photos/IukQrXhSvPY. Unsplash licence.
- Jonathan Cosens Photography, Unsplash. A radiator on a sill. unsplash.com/photos/a-close-up-of-a-radiator-in-front-of-a-window-oMVVjzTOPFQ. Unsplash licence.
- Immo Wegmann, Unsplash. Pipes and a gauge. unsplash.com/photos/a-room-with-a-bunch-of-pipes-and-gauges-2nsQWyPU6tw. Unsplash licence.
The real thing is in your cellar.
If something down there has started to clank, leak or go cold, call and say what it is doing.
Call, any hour617 555 0148