Don Holohan Books

Athana

Out of all his Steam Heat books..which is THE book.

I NEED to burn as little oil as possible to heat this house..Heeeellllppp!

P.S. Is there a phone number to call to arrange purchase of it?

nicholas bonham-carter

What steam books to buy

Try this combo:

http://www.heatinghelp.com/categories/Steam-Heating-Books/25/1

If you can describe your system, we can help to diagnose any problems, and find the solutions.

What sort of steam system do you have- 1-pipe, or 2-pipe?--nbc

Mark N

The Lost Art

I read through your previous posts. You state that your home is 5500sqft and your boiler is a Weil-McLain 478. You state that you have 22 rads but not your total EDR. You have a large home with a big boiler. It isn't going to be cheap to heat it. How much oil did you use last winter? What would consider a reasonable amount to spent to heat your house? I figured that the input to your boiler is probably about 500,000btuh. That is 3.5 gallons of oil per hour of run time. Last time I checked heating oil in NJ was over $3.00 per gallon. In the coldest part of the winter it is not unreasonable for the boiler to run a total of 4 to 5 hours a day. Do the math that is 400 to 500 gallons of oil a month. You might want to think about converting to gas. In NJ gas is quite a bit cheaper that oil, but who knows for how long. Do you have radiator covers? I used to have them and because of their design they caused the boiler to run 10 to 15 minutes longer each cycle to satisfy the thermostat. By getting rid of them I reduced my boiler run times. Every minutes the boiler isn't running you are saving money.

BobC

Books

I bought Dan's "The Lost Art of Steam Heating" several years ago and It's paid for itself many times over. The information in this book simply isn't available anyplace else in a single volume. I had to read it a couple of times and still refer to it a few times a year; there is just a tremendous amount of information in that book. I also bought Greening Steam a while back and found it to be a good adjunct to the early book.



Bob

Techman

Boiler run time?

During the coldest time of the year a steamer runs only 4-5 hrs a day. That's all?

Mark N

Run Times

Yes that is all, but I live in New Jersey, if you live where it is significantly colder your total amount of run time might be longer.

ChrisJ

I bought

both The Lost Art of Steam heating and Greening Steam and would recommend them both. 

Techman

Books

The very 1st I think should be "WE GOT STEAM HEAT! " Nice and simple and basic and easy reading and to the point and easy to grasp what's what and interesting and.......................

Athana

Thank you for your help.

Radiator enclosures..oh my..the first floor has half it's radiators built into enclosures of woodwork.This is very important advice ,thank you Mike.

The boiler is 400,000 btu..and Pierson Oil calculated that the 22 one pipe steam radiators require about 360,000 btu. Last year we used 1550 gallons(year before 1350) but kept the thermostat (first floor) at 59-61.It was uncomfortable.

The heating is very uneven in the house.

The 3rd Floor is warm but it is not used..the second floor all rooms are warmish except for one & its bathroom which is like a refridgerator in there. And first floor was mostly uninhabitable except for kitchen which is warm.Two of the rooms on the first floor(farthest from boiler) hardly heat at all and the other two rooms radiators are doing all of the work. Oil company was not certain of solution but suggested vents on longest run (where these rooms do not heat) be changed/increased.The air conditioner guy changed the vents on this line this summer. I hope this helps, as the largest original vent was clogged with white minerals. Am going to pick up a used cast iron radiator to replace the long Slant Fin that someone put there a while back which hardly produced heat anyway.

The radiator is 23"L X 36"H X 9"D..(room is 15' X15' 10.5 ft Cieling).

Anyway I just ordered "The Lost Art of Steam Heating" as a start.

Thanks for your kind advice everyone.

Athana

Reply to Mike

Thanks for looking at my previous posts & our issues in this house.

i've added more info.

You are in Nj...are you a plumber?

Thanks agian

Nick

Mark N

Boiler

I googled Weil-McLain 476 and this is what I found.



Input = 3.4 gph(476,000btuh)

Output = 400,000btuh

EDR = 1250 sqft.



Are you able to post pictures of your boiler and its piping? Are you able to post pictures of your rads? For the amount of money you spent on oil last winter you should have been comfortable. Have you been able to locate the vents on the steam mains in your basement? Are there vents at the ends of the mains or did someone replace them with plugs? Do the vents on all the rads work? Are they proper vent to get balanced heat. Do you use the boiler to make hot water or do you have a separate hot water heater. Many things can cause a steam system to run inefficiently. Poor near boiler piping and inadequate venting are the 2 main causes.