Bending HERMS coil to line up ports

siestakey · Joined: 10 Mar 2017 Posts: 49

In the HLT build instructions, it says that the holes for the ball valves on the HERMS coil don't need to line up vertically on the kettle. I'd like to keep mine lined up if possible. I purchased a pre-made HERMS coil and the pipes aren't quite lined up. I'm wondering if it's OK to position them in such a way to get them lined up vertically, and if the added tension on things will be problem since it's not sitting in it's natural state. It's not being moved too far, just a few inches to get things lined up.

Also - when I say "bend" - I'm not permanently bending the metal, more like applying pressure to get it where I want it. If I let go, the HERMS coil will go back to the way it was.

**kal** · Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2018 3:19 pm Post subject:

It's normal for the HERMS coil to have some spring to it such that the ends don't line up 100% as in your picture. Simply torque the coil a bit to line them up when installing. There's lots of play.

When I coiled mine by hand it looked like this:

But then I installed it with the two ends lined up vertically:

Torque on the coil is perfectly fine.

There's definitely no reason to not line them up vertically. When I mention that in the instructions, it's because some people may choose to have make their own coil (or use a custom coil) and have the input on one side of the kettle and the output on the other side (makes no difference).

Good luck!

Kal