Who is this guy down on steam heat?

Dave_4

Not much different than some stories by Dan... Doesn't he say that the "double-hung thermostat" is a <I>very</I> common method of temperature control in NYC apartments even in the dead of winter?



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Dan_15

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2007/03/12/PM200703125.html

Steamhead (in transit)

Henry Gifford

is the guy's name... here's their company e-mail address:

chris@architectureandenergylimited.com

Yes, I've e-mailed them..............

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Steamhead (in transit)

That's where

Dan recounts what is ACTUALLY happening, rather than what SHOULD BE happening.

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Dave_4

And isn't the problem still common? Perhaps because nobody's really listening? Or perhaps not enough people who understand the problem? Or perhaps the idea that it's easier--and certainly cheaper--to pass the energy costs on to the tenant than to find someone who will listen, understand and actually repair the problems? After all--the boiler still fires and it's not too cold inside...

I honestly didn't read that article as bashing steam in any way. Knowing what little I do about steam I read it as a sorry and dare I say "typical" state of the present art...





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Christian Egli_2

Stories like that make me cry

The problem is no where near the boiler, nor the radiators, nor the thermostat, nor the steam, nor the hot water, nor the hot air... it's in city hall as explained in the article. Let the landlord fail, just once, to heat all apartments fully to the set minimum and bam, fines and jail time ensue. You can always count on that happening, even if the no-heat cause is perfectly reasonable.

Add also the laws that forbid submetering of energy, forbids it even if tenants and owners individually agree to the deal... and is it any wonder where we should look first for energy saving schemes?

With landlords outvoted by tenants at the ballot box, is it any wonder, again, such screwed up housing rules get crafted by the demagogues in power? Go look at low income (meaning welfare recipient) housing, look at what these people think of the cost of energy which they don't pay. It is truly disgusting.

What is really amazing is that Mrs. Bernstein, the landlord here, can still find a way to function and make a profit and pay all the taxes that funds the system - on top of heating everyone to a crisp.

The missed opportunity: think of how much cheaper and affordable rent could be with lower heating costs, less regulation and less tax and happier boilers. Wouldn't that be good? Many people don't think so...

ttekushan_3

I didn't think

it was as much a trash job on steam systems as I was expecting. There was definitely plenty of blame to go around. Have you ever tried to deal with typical landlords or management companies? I am so often blown away by the utter lack of logic sometimes.

"I can replace $500 worth of parts that will pay for themselves in one week of typical January temperatures."
"No way. Too much money."
"Yeahbut you called me in for problem x and you said you had a $10,000 gas bill for last Janu--"
"Is it working? Fine."

I learned to stop banging my head against the wall. I now do a verrrry itemized bill for services rendered with combustion printouts plus a section on recommendations that were discussed verbally, and leave it at that. These people usually have some sort of expert on hand (usually a maintenance guy) who somehow couldn't solve the simple problem I was called in to fix. Then the LL usually indicates that my recommendations have been rejected by the in-house expert as being a total waste of time and money. It never occurs to them that the on site expert has "learned the wrong lessons from experience" as Dan H would say. They are masters of the self-fulfilling prophecy.

This is not seen in steam systems alone. You can see it butchered classic hydronic systems, filthy forced air, and the general lack of knowledgeable maintenance anywhere in the facility. The person on the windy side of the building with the sashes that flap in the wind like a bad toupee complain since they figure its cold in their apartment due to the heating system. Mgmt turns up the heat so said tenant can continue to wear Bermuda shorts all winter, and the others have their windows open. Great.

Do any of us here believe for one moment that the typical landlord would pay for the services provided by the architects and engineers in the interview? I think not.

My complaint has far more to do with the fact that since the guests on the program are in the business of recreating the whole structure in their own image, they prefer to gut the building and start over. And though this opportunity probably wouldn't exist were it not for the kind of landlord who runs the place into the ground, its clear that absolutely no effort's been expended on the part of the interviewees to understand any merits of what exists.

A halfway decent steam system is an awfully heavy baby to be thrown out with the bathwater!

I tell my steam heat clients that 100% of the fuel burned goes outdoors. We just want as much as is practical to hang around for awhile before going up the chimney, out the windows or through walls and cracks. Its hard to get into a discussion of comparative heating system merits when some of the tenants literally have snow blowing onto their heads while they're sleeping--all the while with a baking steam radiator in the room. (I'm not making that up. But you knew that).

From what I've seen, its the rare rehab that doesn't ditch steam and hydronic completely. Closet forced air is the common "upgrade."

Indeed, its enough to make you cry.

-Terry

William Faust

scorched air

My 1905 Philadelphia home was first heated by two coal-fired furnaces with an elaborate ductwork scheme that bought heat to each of thirty-two rooms. This system was doubtless state-of-the-art for its time, as the home's construction budget was $40,000. Those 1905 dollars are probably worth about $8 million today. I don't know whether blowers were used or rather whether hot air simply convected upwards through the ductwork. Maybe some heating history aficionados know the answer. I also don't know how much cleaner a modern furnace is relative to a coal furnace. I have heard that the latter could "belch" coal dust into the house, but I'm not sure whether this is true.

The scorched air system was replaced in 1947 with a 2-pipe steam system. In consequence of renovation on my shoestring budget (it will never be done in my lifetime), I have found and have been removing the old ductwork. The inside of the duct is caked with a semi-loose, medium-brown soot that looks like a thin layer of dried mud. A tiny tap on the side of the duct causes it to cascade off of the metal. Also, the metal duct itself (tin?) has corroded over the span of the forty-two years of use from 1905 to 1947.

I'm not sure how long it took to get to the point of being hazardous to one's health, but this ductwork is a poster child for the insanity of installing a scorched air system. I have a neighbor around the corner whose home still uses its original ductwork for both heating and cooling. He has three small children and I have told him to get someone to clean the ductwork.

Christian Egli_2

For air, poke holes in the closet

This is crying contest.

There is quite a few condominionizing projects going on around here, where, without fail, the heating and cooling gets hacked up into a forced-in-the-closet furnace/AC unit. The type common to hotels and mobile homes. It's noisy, expensive to maintain, and lacks much opportunity for smart energy usage.

The only real benefit to all this is that now residents each get their gas meter - a twisted way to get to submetering - at least now, the heat is no longer "free" and bill payers get to see and keep all of the energy they save by reducing the thermostat setting, just like people do in individual homes.

Engaging in boiler chitchat with the building agent is something that sounds to them like screeching nails on the blackboard. Sadly, promoters only follow the path of least squealing - laws that empower the few tenants from h... are what turns owners and operators cold to any mechanical suggestions. Rather, unleashing the local utility company on them with its marching wall of meters is sweet revenge.

This is all a shame, because mostly, we forgo the opportunities for the savings that come from pooling together our energy needs. All because of whacky laws that promote unreasonable behavior.

Note how Mrs. Bernstein does not find her whole building heating costs to be extravagant. They are not, central steam heat gets to heat buildings quite efficiently, and the little extravagances here and there in the form of tropical apartments come on the back of the hot steam efficiencies, not at the cost of huge fuel bill increases (Mind you of course, savings opportunities could be turned into cash just as easily as they are turned into no-complaint overheat margins).

Once the same building is chopped up into small accounts and small units everywhere, there is no way tenants can afford the old excesses anymore. Feeding miniature furnaces, to do what the mighty radiator did will eat the condo owners out of their home. Cute little girls all dream of hiding a pony in their closets, and you'll agree it's not a substitute for the old workhorse downstairs. The old efficient way of heating the building is gone, along with any future opportunity to implement true energy saving devices.

Here is a cynical proof of this.

Utilities are in business to sell gas. The more the better. Success measured in profit. Nothing wrong, and so, they go on promoting things that help their schemes first.

Which do you think the local gas company prefers? the one big meter in the basement feeding the efficient system, or the multitude of smaller accounts all with smaller bills, yes, but which collectively add up to a larger revenue stream than the past set-up? Are you still thinking?

Our local utility, used to sell gas and steam. Of course, with much fanfare the steam system was abandoned and smeared as being an inefficient money loosing proposition for the utility; they were of course charging enough for the service and it was sustainable. That's marketing. Read the real story as, yes, we make a profit selling steam to a large central district system, but, we'll make much more money selling gas to a multitude of smaller disjointed downtown systems. Are you still thinking?

I mentioned submetering. My local utility expressly forbids the reselling of any of their stuff. If relying on hordes of near powerless customers was not better than relying on big ones, you would see different rules on the books. Sadly, government happily grants these institutions total monopoly and it's in line with what demagogues are all about.

And another Kleenex wasted.

Christian Egli_2

Follow the dust trail

At least Bill, here, is getting good use out of his handkerchiefs, breathing all that duct dust must make for good snoot.

I lived once in a gravity air system, it was nice, but it was the dustiest thing ever. I don't really know the main reason - except that you can't put filters in them.

I've always suspected gravity plays a role. Heavy air is buoyant, like water, it can carry dust particle around, all around your underground make-up ducts. Then, cook the air in the furnace, in the case of a direct contact coal burning chamber, the passing air gets very very hot, burning hot (this is part of the comfort gravity air provides). Now, this burning hot air is lighter and less buoyant and now less able to carry dirty dust around: it gets dropped off in the air ducts. While the air will cool a bit in transit, it would not pick up the dirt it left downstairs.

In a way, the ducts would be dirty, but the air coming out would be somewhat cleanish. Add AC to this piping, and the monster show begins. The big danger of these systems was CO contamination. The lightweight air sucks at the burner level the same way the stacks does, and smoke can be dangerously sucked up into the living space. Modern forced air, has pressurized air near the fire chamber and the CO leaks are less likely - but still dangerous.

*

A better set up would have been the indirect steam heat. But this still would not have been better than plain radiators.

*

I consulted for the National Parks on one such gravity hot air system they had in an old place they were renovating. Dust galore. My surprise however was how no one knew what all the system was. Times change fast.

William Faust

I have a good central steam heating story for you

We have a steam company in Center City Philadelphia. They burn mostly fuel oil to produce steam that they sell principally to the University of PA. One of their steam mains runs in the sidewalk in front of my home and there is an expansion joint maintenance vault there as well. We didn't know this until after we purchased our home. Oddly, we found that our basement, 50% below grade, was warmer than the first floor. Additionally, our cold water taps would open at about 85 degrees, spike at 115 or so and then fall back to about 85 after about ten minutes of flushing.

Whoa! I couldn't contact the former owner because that was the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (the guru who taught the Beatles to meditate - not making this stuff up). So I emailed the last resident. He told me, "Oh yes, that results from proximity of the home's water service to the steam company's vault. When Winter ends, we would turn off the electric hot water heater whereupon we would use the cold taps for hot water and the hot taps for cold water." This guy had a PhD and thought that he would eventually be able to fly provided that he learned to meditate properly, so go figure.

I then went to the Water Dept. and found out that the steam company had built their vault a mere inches from our water service. I also tapped on our basement wall and found - aha! An old 64 c.f. ice vault that was our home's original "refrigerator." When I took down the sheet rock that had been used to cover over the ice vault, simple observation and logic indicated that the steam company had broken a corner of the ice vault wall to make room for their steam vault's form work. Ergo, I could touch the exterior of the steam vault wall from inside my ice vault (through the broken ice vault wall).

At that juncture, I contacted the City's law dept. They told me that the steam company had no right under City law to generate heat into either our water service or into our home. So I contacted the steam company. They first said that the former owner must have screwed up hot and cold pipes. Our plumber checked and said nope. They then alleged that a plumber had lowered our water service closer to the vault. The water dept. said that this was not true. They then claimed that the water service was originally elsewhere but moved to above their vault after it was built. The water dept. again said nope. After all of this and about three years of wrangling with them, they basically said that we could go F ourselves.

So I threatened to tell everyone along the route of their steam main. That got their attention. They quickly agreed to reimburse us the cost of a) moving our water service about 30' to the north end of our property away from their vault and b) filling and sealing (abandoning) our ice vault. I was happy that they paid because of their crappy attitude.

Okay, so where the heck is this story going? Oh yeah. As an alternative to being reimbursed, I asked them if they would hook us up to their steam line and give us free steam for a stated duration. They said no because the cost of the hookup alone would have exceeded the cost of remediating the heat problems.


Lastly, we have one neighbor who still uses their steam to heat his home. In fact, he actually has no boiler and no other heating system for that matter. His house probably is about 5,000 s.f. excluding the basement. He has spent $4,000 to $5,000 heating his house each of the last few Winters because the steam company restructured its rate plans to penalize small users. In other words, you're fine if you used a lot of energy, but you're screwed if you use a little bit or want to conserve. The foregoing having been said, I suspect that his piping system probably lacks any vents. It can't be just the cost of the steam. I'll ask. Maybe he likes to keep his house at 78 degrees.

Anyway, at the end of the day, yes, utility companies want to sell energy... lots of it.

Steamhead (in transit)

Got a reply to my e-mail

He says "teach me"!

You guys ready to pitch in?

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ttekushan_3

Oh, I don't think that'll be a problem

The esteemed steam crowd around here is never at a loss for words-- or ideas.