Starting over - again! (GrandPAH)

Dave Yates (PAH)

Like that's a surprise!

Just loaded up Siggy's Hydronic Design Studio 1.13 and HydroniCAD 1.01. Once again, the long learning curve road stretches out before me and I'm stuck in 1st gear. Grrrrrrrrrr

Man, just when you think you've got a handle on something, along comes someone to send you careening into a ditch filled with humble pie!

Bought another copy of Modern Hydronic Heating too cause my first edition got legs and disappeared :( That's a must-have for my substitute teaching gig at the Stevens College of Technology next month as the class is following John's text.

Gonna throw em a curve ball from the real world though. Snapped over a hundred pics today of a mechanical room and building that incorporates 1-pipe steam, hot water heating, hydro-air and a 1953-era copper tank water heater. One botched up mess of hydronic shenanigans that needs some serious unraveling - a forensic odyssey worthy of a hydronic Dr. Baden. Great gobs of wasted energy have been sent spewing forth from the chimney - for decades. Can the students save the day? Can they think outside the box? Will they be challenged? Can they handle the truth and put it into play? From book to boiler room to resolving real-world issues that directly affect the quality of life for the customer(s) and move the US towards energy conservation. A digital field trip into reality.








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Steamhead (in transit)

So when

do WE get to see the pics?

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Dave Yates (PAH)

The course

will be available for teaching purposes with video and slides in a Power Point format (or other suitable graphics) and pamphlets (for the students) that will include worksheets they'll need to complete. I'm hoping to produce a real-world experience that mimics what it is we do during the course of our work. This job site is quite unique in that it has such a wide variety of systems within one building and mechanical room. Yesterday, while doing sketches and taking pics, I was in the boiler room for more than an hour. As a result, I became attuned to the sounds and smells. The condensate return to the feed-water tank is FUBAR. I'd thought the arrangement and piping was odd, but witnessing it puke heated condensate down the floor drain - gallons & gallons - I quickly saw why and how easily that could have been avoided. Lots of Btu's being sent to the sewers and, consequently, lots of fresh water being sent to the boiler.

One of the things I'm planning on incorporating is parasitic energy losses beyond the boilers, hydro-air unit and water heater. Everything was over-engineered with mechanical devices that could be eliminated (thousands of dollars not needed and expensive items to maintain). This will be a system-wide approach to give them a more complete understanding of what encompases a thorough survey and design for retro-fitting with comfort, economy and fuel utilization coming into play.

Part of the fun and mystery on a site like this (with buildings constructed at vastly different times with spaces that overlap original footprints and mechanical systems of such diversity that, in this case, intrude onto one another for creating imbalances) is unraveling what was done, what the thinking was behind the design, and why the building systems have become so out of kilter.

No one & I repeat - NOT ONE - of the various mechanical contactors who have serviced this building and its varied systems have pointed out a single issue to the owners. Yet, they "knew" things weren't right and had begun to doubt the abilities of the many technicians who'd darkened their doors. The straw that finally broke that bond was a CO incident. Combustion air is an issue here (clue).



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