who's in vegas. heating help meetup for lunch on tuesday or . . . ?

archibald tuttle

or breakfast, loads of time before the exhibition opens in the AM. I'm in the cheap seats at the Mardi Gras on Paradise and there are some other HVAC solids staying here and they got reasonable breakfast, but any starbucks or whatevah works for me.

brian

Erin Holohan Haskell

We can't make it to AHR this year, Brian, but have a great time!

Zman

I can't make Vegas this year. If I was in Vegas, I would want to join you for breakfast at this place, it is awesome! https://www.hashhouseagogo.com/locations/

archibald tuttle

Zman said:

I can't make Vegas this year. If I was in Vegas, I would want to join you for breakfast at this place, it is awesome! https://www.hashhouseagogo.com/locations/

Thanks for the recommendation. I reckon that's where we'll go for 'eating and cooking's w whoever responds. I can Google map it but do you know which one is closet to convention center?  Thanks again. Next year in Jerusalem . . . Eer Atlanta . . . for you

archibald tuttle

@hot_rod you guys not make it. There's a bar where the caleffi booth is slotted.

hot_rod

We, Caleffi, did not exhibit this year.
Show felt well attended today, at least in the C hall. North hall was a bit slow, it usually takes a day in both halls. I found a handful of never seen before products in my quick walk around.

I'm showing a group of students from a local High School around the show floor tomorrow or I would connect for lunch.

archibald tuttle

@hot_rod you want to catch a beer or dinner after the show. i'm not out of here until tomorrow. met some kickass cooling distributors from miami and service some service techs. the show was well attended I thought. what are the new products that impressed you. i want to try to catch 'em today.

thanks,

brian

veteransteamhvac

Bad on me for forgetting to check this forum before I left for the Las Vegas AHR show! Oh well, it was a hectic time anyway. I thought the show was really well attended considering. As for new things (to me at least) did you see the Lochinvar (I think) display of hot water boilers run by Honda motors? Amazing contraption and, per the reps there, incredibly efficient. There was a really cool manifold system called Linear X, interchangable and expandable and easy to install. There were a number of solutions to address cold and hot water recirculation, there were also a few new flue gas venting systems meant to address new standards. There was some interesting new insulation products such as rFoil Big 8 (bubble duct wrap) and Insul-Tarp (for radiant slab).

I enjoyed talking to the Burnham steam guy for quite a while. They were quite curious about how particular brands were specified in residential installs. I told him that for steam we quite often match the brand of the unit being replaced. For hot water we are seeing more and more customer specified brand choice as they have been wooed by flashy advertising usually related to efficiency and environmental issues. But the bottom line is that we install what we can get our hands on from the distributors.

I was in the North Hall on Monday and, man, the amount of cool gedunk available was phenomenal! I walked away with so many great tshirts and hats! Happy hour time in the Central Hall was good, lots of booths with beer.

cross_skier

You need to tell that Burnham steam guy that Burnham could gain a lot of market share by putting a gas gun in the Megasteam.

archibald tuttle

veteransteamhvac said:

lots of booths with beer.

surprised i didn't see you, or maybe i did and didn't realize it.

it was well attended. while I think you are right about some level of end user self selection based on flashy green advertising, i'm disappointed to see the industry buying into that at the level they are.

and, in any event, if you wanted to get lower carbon footprint hydronic you have to lower the temperature of the emitters and there was relatively little attention to that compared to flashy condensing boilers. Sure, folks with bucks can invest in superinsulation and low temp radiant emitters, but the costs of those technologies as currently practiced are prohibitive for the vast majority of people and I really don't see that the industry is rounding on that problem.

one minor but notable thing I did see was that some of the combi manufacturers are upping the capability of their heat exchangers so they can run cooler set-temps to produce DHW and you can theoretically condense.

Meanwhile the programs, like the one on national refrigeration day I attended, are an orgy of self-flagellation over the GWP of refrigerants. I don't have a problem having industry discussion of externalities; but, if we're having a discussion, we don't start from the conclusion. The HVAC industry has nothing to apologize for, keeping people warm in the winter and keeping them and their food cool and preserved as needed. Refrigeration is civilization. Carbon emissions and GWP should be a second tier issue. But they are instead the tail wagging the dog and very few in the industry seem willing to take on the dominant paradigm. If that continues to be the case I don't see that much future for hydronic and steam heat.

veteransteamhvac

archibald tuttle said:

surprised i didn't see you, or maybe i did and didn't realize it.

I was talking to the Navy seal who shot Osama bin Laden...

veteransteamhvac

archibald tuttle said:

If that continues to be the case I don't see that much future for hydronic and steam heat.

I'm not so pessimistic about that. We are seeing people re-interested in their old hydronic systems because now, due to mod con and domestic hw tie-ins, the efficiency ratings have gone up. Add a pretty picture of the green earth and people will buy into that. We had an old guy who wanted his hot water system running again and he was going to supplement that with solar panels in his back yard. Yee haw!

The irony is that because steam is so damn good at transferring it's heat you can run it at a lower apparent temperature and still feel the same. But you can't sell that very well.

archibald tuttle

@veteransteamhvac I was talking to an indian manufacturer and his brother, or at the beer party the day before to a great crew of cooling specialists from miami who export to central and south america.


I'm worried about hydronic because people touting the mod cons and DHW don't stress the emitter/heat exchanger design it actually takes to get that efficiency, and some of the best strategies are really cool but really expensive.

veteransteamhvac

archibald tuttle said:

@veteransteamhvac I was talking to an indian manufacturer and his brother, or at the beer party the day before to a great crew of cooling specialists from miami who export to central and south america.

I'm worried about hydronic because people touting the mod cons and DHW don't stress the emitter/heat exchanger design it actually takes to get that efficiency, and some of the best strategies are really cool but really expensive.

No doubt the hydronic mod cons will become 10-12 year appliances very similar to the current service life of residential AC systems. As all the experts here say, given the choice would you install cast iron boiler or mod con and they all choose CI for longevity. Oh well.

I was mulling over going to the Mexico City AHR convention coming up in a few months. Those folk are not only fun, they aren't constrained with some of the crap running through the industry now.

I might also go to the boiler show in Dallas in April, but I'm thinking Dullsville....

hot_rod

veteransteamhvac said:

archibald tuttle said:

@veteransteamhvac I was talking to an indian manufacturer and his brother, or at the beer party the day before to a great crew of cooling specialists from miami who export to central and south america.

I'm worried about hydronic because people touting the mod cons and DHW don't stress the emitter/heat exchanger design it actually takes to get that efficiency, and some of the best strategies are really cool but really expensive.

No doubt the hydronic mod cons will become 10-12 year appliances very similar to the current service life of residential AC systems. As all the experts here say, given the choice would you install cast iron boiler or mod con and they all choose CI for longevity. Oh well.

I was mulling over going to the Mexico City AHR convention coming up in a few months. Those folk are not only fun, they aren't constrained with some of the crap running through the industry now.

I might also go to the boiler show in Dallas in April, but I'm thinking Dullsville....

I'll bet a cast iron boiler installed today will experience the same parts supply as a mod con in 20 years from now.
The OEM electronic modules, gas valves, vent damper motors, electronic aqua stats will all be "no longer available".

Haven't we seen several high dollar German brand boilers being removed on this list recently, because parts are no longer available, 20 years old or less?

Not to forget the number of fairly new cracked steam boilers we see here

veteransteamhvac

hot_rod said:

I'll bet a cast iron boiler installed today will experience the same parts supply as a mod con in 20 years from now.
The OEM electronic modules, gas valves, vent damper motors, electronic aqua stats will all be "no longer available".

Haven't we seen several high dollar German brand boilers being removed on this list recently, because parts are no longer available, 20 years old or less?

Not to forget the number of fairly new cracked steam boilers we see here

While those specific parts may be not be available, I'm pretty sure I can get water to heat in a boiler without the oem parts and still have a safe, workable solution.

I worry about the quality of boiler chests and gas burner assemblies just like many others here. But, as manufacturing becomes more efficient, designed service life will decrease, it's just the way it's meant to be.

But just today I was looking at a (not original) boiler in a 130 year old house so who knows!

archibald tuttle

sorry, got covid for valentine's day and lost the thread.

@hot_rod although most of those controls can be replaced with generics. I just put in a pensotti and the supplied aquastat relay is like a complete mystery to me. I never thought I'd be begging for an old honeywell but . . .

as to cracks or leaks between sections, that seems to run with design. maybe there is an installed based of 20 year down the pike cast iron headaches that put the lie to that preference. i'll see ya in 20 to settle this 'bet'.

brian

PS my main point was emitters (and maybe thermostats) really confounding the benefits that could be gained from mod cons. what the world needs more of is insulation, that is for sure :-)