YOU CAN LEAD A HORSE TO WATER

Jackmartin

I am posting out of what seems to be the overriding emotion I have lately, frustration. This apartment house has presented the tenants with nothing but heart ache. The building is now 106 years old and up until 2 years ago it performed poorly ,but nothing like the following two years. They replaced the original steam boiler with an “ engineered “ design ,two little 22 horse power Weil McLean boilers and the biggest condensate tank I have ever seen outside of an industrial setting, it calculates to hold 350 gallons. The engineered system plus the thirty k the management company charged them for “ site supervision” came slightly over 500 k. They contacted me because the system was not working well. The initial complaint was too much heat, they were running a bastardized single pipe system at 5psig, it was so hot they had their windows open at -40 below F.

The water hammer was so bad you would have sworn Thor was in the building with his hammer ,they literally could not sleep. I solved the water hammer, changed the two inch trap draining the header, another engineered goodie. Lowered the pressure to 2 psig and things ,while not correct, were at least liveable. Last winter they were complaining ( do people do anything else? ) that the old boiler was warmer. I tried to explain the system at shutdown pulled a -6 psig vacumn and no matter what changes you made to the operating control settings the system was not going to run correctly. That is why I installed a vacumn breaker on the header to overcome ,at least for the moment, this problem.

How do you have a group of lay people ,understand the water hammer had distorted the Maid of Mist venters ,and all 360 should be replaced? Now to add insult to stupidity ,they inherited a new property manager, the former person has been promoted and this new broom is hell bent to show how poorly the previous person had performed,sound familiar? I of course do not know what I am doing ,according to this kid ,and every one else knows more than I do. I will readily admit ,Dan and Jacob Myron have nothing to worry about in the knowledge department from me, but how come I was the only heating person who made the building at least liveable. I think I am getting too old for this business, the song lyrics ;the older he gets the better he likes ,children ,old dogs and water melon wine, is really making sense to me. Thank you one and all for letting me vent, it would not be so bad if I was of a vindictive bend of mind and took pleasure in these peoples plight, but foolishly, I realize I care. Yup, pass the water melon wine.
All the best Jack

billtheplmbr3845

I feel for ya brother

DZoro

Please pass the melon and wine. Understand the pain....
And then you get the sweet little old lady who can't say enough praise for you, and you leave her place with the biggest grin and smile.

EBEBRATT-Ed

We have been doing these jobs forever. Why are the same mistakes repeated over & over??

The engineers are worse than ever. No pratcile experience

Good engineering means to me a system that works well at a reasonable price. Not necessarily a Caddilac, not overbuilt and over done. just give them what they need