The Limit To A Hot Water Zone Off A Steam Boiler
I once got a call from this contractor who was at his local wholesaler. He had the wholesaler’s heating man on the phone as well. The three of us talked about how far you can push a steam boiler
Understanding Primary/Secondary Pumping
Primary/secondary pumping has become pretty popular nowadays, especially with boiler manufacturers. They love it because it offers a simple way to protect their boilers against low-temperature return water and the resulting flue-gas condensation that low-temperature water causes
Why Compression Tanks Waterlog
When hot water heating was new (and this goes back to the turn of the century) the Dead Men installed gravity systems because Homer Thrush had not yet invented the circulator
How Steam Traps Can Bite You
In the beginning there was one-pipe steam, and one-pipe steam was pretty simple. The steamtraveled up the pipe; the condensate fell down the pipe. Size and pitch the pipes properly, don’t over-fire the boiler, keep the wet returns clean, and you were in pretty good shape
Radiant Heat And Wood Floors
More and more radiant systems going into existing homes as retrofit projects. On many of these jobs the tubing winds up getting attached to the underside of the wood floor. On other jobs, the tubing goes down on top of a subfloor, beneath the finish wood
Why A Radiator Is Not Heat
I once looked at a problem job in an office building on Long Island. It can get pretty windy here on the Isle of Long. This building had a wide driveway that passed under the first floor to a parking lot out in the back
The Golden Rules of Hydronic Heating
Ever notice how most of us head for the boiler room first? I figure this is a vestige left over the days when we all lived in caves. You feel safe when you can get underground and build a fire, right?
Radiator Stories You May Not Have Heard
The guy was wearing clean Docker slacks, a wrinkle-free, red golf shirt and boat shoes. He didn’t fit in with the plumbers and heating contractors who were waiting their turn to be helped
The Trick To Sizing Steam Piping
They built the place in the 1930s and heated it with steam. It’s always been a commercial building – part office, part factory. They heat the offices with one-pipe steam radiators and the factory with steam unit heaters nowadays, but it wasn’t always that way
Ten Steps To Becoming A Better Troubleshooter
Let’s face it, sooner or later you’re going to run into some tough challenges when it comes to heating. Instead of getting frustrated, try these 10 steps
Steam Trap Retrofit? Don’t Predict The Payback!
The building management agent looked at me the way a cop would look at a con man. “You can’t tell me how much we’re going to save?” he said
How That Steam Boiler Got To Be So Big
There was a time in America when people were afraid of the air that they found inside their homes, and with good reason
What color is your radiator?
First, those in which the pigment consists of small flakes of metal, such as the aluminium and bronze paints, most commonly used for painting radiators, which produce a metallic appearance and will be called metallic paints
Some Tips On Converting From Steam To Hot Water
Column radiators were perfect for steam heating because they had a lot of internal space and they allowed the steam to rise up and displace the heavier air
Four Common Problems With Heating Systems
The more steam heating systems I look at, the more I realize that nearly all the problems can be boiled down (couldn’t help myself there!) to these four areas
