Dead Men Tales: How to Embarrass a Beautiful Old Radiator

HeatingHelp

How to Embarrass a Beautiful Old Radiator

In this episode, Dan Holohan takes us to a seaside Victorian estate and meets a beautiful old radiator with tears in its eyes.

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cubbydog

My favorite part of the story when the lovely Marianne calls you ridiculous. A couple years back we did a tour of the Biltmore in South Carolina and I took the basement tour, my wife called me ridiculous! Of course it wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last time she called me ridiculous.
Ridiculous, crazy, one track mind, I’ve heard them all!!

Ironman

The guy who did that should be publicly flogged.

Ironman

cubbydog said:

My favorite part of the story when the lovely Marianne calls you ridiculous. A couple years back we did a tour of the Biltmore in South Carolina and I took the basement tour, my wife called me ridiculous! Of course it wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last time she called me ridiculous. Ridiculous, crazy, one track mind, I’ve heard them all!!

Cubby,
The Biltmore’s in North Carolina. They’d be highly upset if you moved them to SC. 😉

RickCiervo

Wonderful. Thank you Mr. Holomun. When I feel like no one understands me, I come here, and all is right again with the world. I once had a torrid love affair with a one-pipe steam system, but, alas, I had to move on and leave it in the hands of philistines who surely do NOT love it the way I did (and still do). My current house has both a two-zone hot water system AND a scorched-air system that keep me busy, but not in love. Now I can only love vicariously through your stories. Keep them up. Wonderful.

DanHolohan

Thanks, guys! 😂

EricForman

Good to know I'm not the only one grieving such things and enduring the eye rolls of spouse and company. Alas, too few appreciate the beauty and functional elegance of all varieties of art (sometimes referred to as engineering.) Thanks for sharing this poignant tale...

Peter Rozano

Dan: Love your articles but you missed the boat on this one. You should have told the Physick doyenne that you have a substantial, rabid following and that looking into old basements heating systems is exactly what you and your nerd acolytes are all about. And if the basement contains ancient hidden treasures you would photo & write about it on your expansive blog, thus promoting her principal. And, for a nominal fee, you could educate the staff about their basement treasures so they could expand their tour intinerary to include exactly the kind of people who read this comment.

I have been following you since the early 1990's. You are one of my unsung heroes

Gordo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4eSUQXJnDk

Labenaqui

By coincidence, I knew the merchant marine radioman who took the SOS from the Moro Castle, an ocean liner off Cape May, NJ in 1933. A catastrophic event of its time .....

DanHolohan

Thanks, @PeterRozano. Maybe I’ll give it another try. Hope springs eternal. 

Vegas

and the first thing that gets cut when the funds are thin,
the in-basement "maintenance program!" (-:

Pumpguy

Many years ago I was driving back from a service call at a power plant along the Wabash River in Indiana and passed through the town of Watseka Illiinois. Saw an interesting building / museum so with a few minutes to kill, I went in and wandered around. Saw the old china, wall paper, & furniture, and radiators. Hmmm..... radiators? I wonder....?

The tour was self guided, and I noticed some stairs going down so I went. Found the boiler room but was disappointed to find something other than a 2 pipe vacuum return steam system I was hoping to see.

But whatever it was, it was still in operation.

We have a museum in a converted small hydro power plant just north of me in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Lots of interesting historical artifacts. Could I see the old hydro generating equipment in the basement? NO!

Why don't the people that run places like these understand that preserving and showing this historical technology is just as important as old farm tools, coffee grinders, and wood burning kitchen stoves?

GGross

Pumpguy said:

Why don't the people that run places like these understand that preserving and showing this historical technology is just as important as old farm tools, coffee grinders, and wood burning kitchen stoves?

Most of us here are probably pretty weird even in our own circles in this regard. I can't set foot in any building without looking around for what is heating the place, and if it's a historic building? well try not to slip on the metaphorical drool. Sometimes when I am on big jobsites I wonder if the guys installing all this wonderful modern HVAC equipment have any idea that someone like me 100 years from now would do anything to ask them about the system they are installing.