What is the difference between a pipefitter and a plumber?
Plumbers work with domestic or commercial water & gas supply, sewage and storm water, generally at what would be considered "low" pressure by piping trades such as pipe fitter, (ASME) coded pipe welder or boiler maker.Plumbers mostly work with polyethylene, PVC and copper. Roof plumbing is a specialty dealing with sheet metal guttering. Typically, a plumber glues plastic parts together or brazes copper. Some sanitary ware may be steel or ductile iron - like the U-trap under your sink, and they usually screw together.A pipe fitter fabricates piping for industrial installation - nuclear and conventional power stations, petrochemical process plants, mines, ships, tank farms for fuels.Pipe Fitters work with steel and other alloys (copper nickel, chrome-moly, duplex stainless). They join parts by tack welding. Some Pipe Fitters are also pipe welders - they will fabricate the spool (tack weld pipe, elbows, tees, flanges together) - the guts of the fitter's job and then also weld the joints. A guy who can fit and weld pipe is possibly trained or qualified as a boilermaker, but happens to be working a job with pipe instead of making boilers or pressure vessels.Pipe fitters work with components that are rated up to 6000 psi. Piping can be as a large as 24 inch diameter without being considered unusual.Plumbers' work is covered by the building code, but pipe fitters are working on jobs covered by ASME B31.1, B31.3 and others. If their welds are left in the joint, they have to be able to qualify their weld to ASME BPVC Sec IX.Oldest pipe fitter I knew didn't even believe that "Pipe Fitter" was a trade all of its own. He considered it to be a specialty of the more general "Mechanical Fitter" trade.
I’m 18, graduated from high school. I don’t want to go to college. I’m living with my parents. I have 1000 dollars, what should I do?
If your parents are in agreement, I would suggest that you explore the options that are available to you as far as employment. You may decide to live at home and go for other training or get a job and work your way up. It would be an excellent time to live at home and save money for your future. College is not necessarily for everyone. If you were fortunate enough to live at home and save your money, in a few years you would have enough money to make a down payment on your own home. Meanwhile, you have a few years to mature with the support of your family. Honestly it would be a good situation if your parents approve. Of course, you would want to consider contributing to the cost of living.
Do you need licenses to weld for others, or perform other sorts of labors as a service?
It depends.If you are hired as a welder in a factory or a small fabrication shop, unless your welds need to be X-rayed and “hydroed (Water leak pressure tested) then you don’t need to be licensed. The company assumes responsibility and liability for your welds and if there any problems, they will be the focal point for them.If you are going to work contract as either a welder, a pipe fitter, or a welding engineer then you’ll need to be certified and you’ll also likely have to take an on-site test to confirm that your certifications are indeed valid. The certifications are usually available through a local union, through a major welding school or from your local community college. They are often valid for life; although some specialized certifications may have to be renewed after a set number of years.If you open a welding business where you do ornamental ironwork, minor welding repairs and occasional welding fabrication work, you may not need to be certified, but you will, of course, need to obtain a business license. However, if you plan on performing major structural work, most types of piping repair and the fabrication of nearly anything that will be used to support weight, be it a working platform at height or that involves any type of safety system, it would advisable (and probably legally necessary) for you to obtain the necessary certifications.
How high can you pump water?
There is no limit —-A cubic inch of water weighs about .5784 oz. at sea level. The pressure exerted by a column of water 1 inch square and 1 foot tall is 12 times that weight or 6.94 oz per square inch. Dividing by 16 this is equivalent to .434 psi. So each .434 psi of pressure from a pump will be able to pump water up one foot. If you have a pump that will produce 100 psi, it will pump water up (100/.434) = 250.5 feet. There is really no limit to how high the water can be pumped. The limit is only in how much pressure you can get from a pump and whether you have a pipe that can handle that much pressure.Said another way:Take height in feet to be pumped and multiply by .434 to get pressure neededorTake pressure in psi and divide by .434 to get the height it will pumpThis analysis is accurate for all practical applications, but does fall apart theoretically when the elevation becomes so large that the reduced gravitational force comes into play. I wouldn’t be too concerned about the impact of this. At a pumping altitude of 500 kilometers this would result in less than a 2.5% difference in required pressure. Getting a pipe to stand up 500 km tall would however be problematic! ;-)
What is the farthest you’ve seen somebody reach to be offended by something?
When I was 25, my widowed father married a woman we all knew who had lost her husband a few years earlier. From this my two siblings and I acquired two adult step siblings. Several years later, this happened…I had a two family house that I was planning to sell. My step brother had just started dating the woman who would later become his wife and he needed an apartment closer to her than where he was currently living. So I let him move into my then empty upstairs apartment rent free on the condition that he would paint that apartment so I could sell the house in a few months time. We struck a deal that we were both happy with.A few months later, he moved in with his girlfriend and left most of his stuff behind because her apartment didn’t have room. I would call him and remind him that I still needed the apartment painted as I would be putting the house on the market SOON. Sure sure sure, no problem.A few months go by, I have a buyer, we’re going to closing in a few weeks and I REALLY need that apartment painted. Also, you need to remove your stuff.It got to the point where I was tearing my hair out as this issue was, of course, not the only crisis du jour I was dealing with selling the house. I may have gotten a bit short with him over the phone but nothing major.Here’s the overreach….The family was going out to dinner for some celebration. He was there, of course, and I was civil. No need to ruin anyone’s dinner with a confrontation, right?A few days later, I’m talking to my stepmom and she mentions that her son, my step brother, is angry with me. Seriously? My stepmom knew about the arrangement and that he hadn’t painted the apartment yet. Okay, why is HE angry with ME?He’s angry with me because…he was freaking out that I was going to call him out over dinner and had planned what he was going to say to me about it and…I didn’t bring it up. I didn’t yell at him. I didn’t get angry with him AT DINNER. So he was pissed off.