For Webster System Enthusiasts (Steamhead)

t.p.tunstall

thanks steamhead! good find!, t.p.

Steamhead (in transit)

Found this site

which you may find interesting.

http://www.dvrbs.com/camden/CamdenNJ-WarrenWebsterCo.htm

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Christian Egli_2

This is a road trip in the making

Cool info, much better than from the AAA tour guides. Does anyone know if the Warren Webster factories are still standing?

I still have Webster thermostatic traps that are still operating. Thanks for the good stuff.

Ross_7

Interesting stuff

Interesting information, Frank!
I always like to read about how a lot of these guys got their start. One of the "Webster Branches" must have had a good salesman in the area, beacuse have a lot of Webster Vapor systems, in the area. That and some Trane Vapor systems. I love to work on them! Thanks for the link!
Ross

Steamhead (in transit)

Where are you located, Ross?

I see a lot of Trane and Hoffman systems in the Baltimore area, followed by Webster and Dunham.

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Ross_7

Webster

I'm located in Marquette, MI. There are some in some larger residences on the East side of town. Some are downtown in the historic building district, and the main systems, here at Northern Michigan University, used to be Webster Vapor. We have centralized steam now on campus, but it was there years ago. Some of the Trane systems are on the East side also. If I can post some pics, I will when I get chance. We're getting ready to install a "pressure actuated condensate pump" from Tunstall, i.e. a boiler return trap, here on campus. Engineering dep't is baffled because it doesn't use any electricity. "Where did you find this "new green" technology?" So I say to them, "Didn't you know?, these have been around for years!"

DanHolohan

That's a bookmark for sure.

Thanks for sharing, Steamhead.

Christian Egli_2

Green steam or greener steam

It is baffling to see how far ahead of it's time steam was, a long time ago already. Modulation, zoning, thermostatic control, submetering, all real old stuff. You're a genius, Ross, for "rediscovering" all this.

Steam is the hot power of efficient space heating.

Since you're way up there, does your steam plant in Marquette burn waste wood products?

Steamhead (in transit)

If those Websters on the main campus

haven't been substantially altered other than that they now use centralized steam, they can still run as Vapor systems. Might need another reducing valve to get the pressure down to 8 ounces or so, but the savings in steam input would be worth it. Many Vapor system manufacturers had their own hardware for use with district steam systems so the concept isn't new.

I think your engineering dept needs to go to one of Dan's steam seminars.

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Christian Egli_2

Good stories that end badly

How appropriate of Dan's to send the newsletter about the pressure lowering pitfalls.

High pressure (ok, I'm not a doctor) like high temperature is good for system wide efficiency. It is actually very good. For the steam production, the higher operating temperature is no detriment in a boiler house set up where you can install all the economizers you want and suck even the last bit of heat out of your fuel.

The same does not apply in residential set-ups, yet.

Radiator wise, there is nothing wrong with high pressure again. Quite the opposite. Boiling steam filled radiators are way more efficient than warm water filled ones, by about a factor of five.

That said, there is nothing wrong with decreasing the radiator pressure beforehand. A steam pressure reducing valve doesn't necessarily waste any heat (but it could). The advantage of running low pressure radiators is that you can use cast iron ones and that you get, perhaps, more manageable control.

The real big advantage of using low to lower than low pressure in your space heating application is that you can then make use of waste steam that comes out of a turbine or a steam engine. It's waste steam for the power production but still valuable for heat, meanwhile the power you extracted from the steam turbine is highly valuable. The most excellent cogeneration; new already in Warren Webster's days, rediscovered today.

Pressure reducing valves are evil waster of power producing opportunities, something to always look at with an evil eye. Replacing such larger valves with mini steam turbines (in big buildings) is like finding a gold mine in your backyard - all yours to pick up free.

It is a shame in the sad story of the newsletter that the owners were not told of all the wonderful stuff you can do with 125PSI steam. If you have it already, it's a real shame to just scrap it carelessly, particularly in an age as today where energy independence and flexibility is so important.

Steamhead (in transit)

There were also economizers

that could heat domestic water in houses and larger buildings, from the condensate before it went thru the district steam company's meter. But at least in residential use, district steam companies always reduced the pressure right inside the basement wall. For Vapor, typically they would use two reducers- one from street pressure to about 5 pounds, the second to reduce to Vapor pressures.

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Ross_7

Central Steam

On campus, our main boiler plant maintains at 85 psi. Then, at most of the buildings we use Spence pressure reducing stations and run between 5-7# for the buildings, which of course you all know way more than enough. Most of the old building on campus, one that had their own stand alone coal fired vapor heating systems, have been tore down. They started centralized heating here on campus right around the mid 1950's, the one excpetion is one of the old residence halls. There you can still see remants of the old system. The Sylphon steam traps have been changed out. To answer Christian's question..There is a co-gen plant in the work for coal, wood, and waste fuel. Right now we are installing 2 new English Boilers with Todd Burners at the existing heating plant, they are replacing 2 Wickes boilers that been in since the early 1960's.

Ross

Christian Egli_2

Dayton trivia that makes you smart

Thanks for sharing your numbers, it is always fascinating. Here is some about my town which used to be piped until the nineties when the EPA produced a hit list of all power plants that had to disappear, and oh boy they where crushed. Now, we're left with nothing but sky high natural gas rates. Who knew? converting all of downtown and most of the large factories and all our regional electric plants from coal to gas would tighten the natural gas supply for all of us at home. Nice going.

Today, the city is also strewn with abandoned EPA test stations -it turns out the pollution scare was a total hoax, the EPA was just acting in some sort of preventive action, because at the time, it was involved in a settlement deal in a lawsuit that had no basis. No cost, no care to them, it was all passed on to the consumer.

But not in Marquette, thanks to your system we can ween ourselves back to reason and back to using the most appropriate fuel for the most appropriate use.

Downtown Dayton had two steam plants feeding three types of mains. High pressure at 175 PSI for feeding the other networks and the industrial customers. A lesser 80 PSI in an earlier part of the system. And about 65% of the network filled with low pressure steam, the largest low pressure pipe at 20 inch in diameter. No condensate return to the plants. The whole system wasn't huge, about the same size as those of Baltimore and Pittsburgh but it had one of the top usage density. Getting heat and AC and power off of burning coal (or any kind of fuel including garbage from the county incinerator) would seem to be such a good idea today.

There, enough sobbing. Webster stuff is (was) popular around here, but there is mostly lots and lots of broken Hoffman thermostatic traps

Rodney Summers

Webster

What a great find.

Thanks steamhead.


Robert O'Connor/NJ