The Homemade Heat Pump Manifesto

[Hugh Jim Bissel]

Originally Posted by Hugh Jim Bissel

I'll have to look when I get home to see what the recommended temp was, but it was in the 450-500 range.

So I've looked, and even though I saw that booklet just a few weeks ago when looking for something else, now that I'm looking for it, it's nowhere to be found! I did find this website though which has the temp from 400-450, so you're probably better off sticking with that. It also has more info and pictures about bead sizing, what good welds should look like, and a good step-by-step fusion procedure.

It doesn't have heat times though, but you should be able to figure that out easily enough once you start test-welding: for 3/4" pipe 30 sec is probably way overkill: keep making welds and adjusting the time by a few seconds until the bead is close to the right size per that website. When you get close, you might go in each direction by a second until you know min and max time (per bead size), then use the middle of that range for the welds that count. (the range will change by a few seconds depending on the weather conditions: temperature of the pipe and if there's a lot of wind).