Remorse w/ My Decision: Single Pipe Steam Radiators Kept and Home Renovated

ChrisJ

KC_Jones said:

BobC said:

The first thing Ia guy did after getting his first real job was to buy a Sears Craftsman tool kit - $39.95 for a complete kit (100 pieces including that grey steel toolbox) I still have all the sockets and wrenches from that kit but I did eventually wear out one of the ra6chets which they replaced.

Piss poor management did them in, they closed their catalog sales just before the internet took off. I still have and use the Fluke 77 meter I bought just before the catalog sales was shuttered

I've said it many times. Sears could have been Amazon. Sears missed the boat, huge.

Sears basically was Amazon.
And then decided to get rid of mail order just as mail order was becoming popular.

JakeCK

One name, Eddy Lampert.

The Steam Whisperer

BobC said:

The first thing Ia guy did after getting his first real job was to buy a Sears Craftsman tool kit - $39.95 for a complete kit (100 pieces including that grey steel toolbox) I still have all the sockets and wrenches from that kit but I did eventually wear out one of the ra6chets which they replaced.

Piss poor management did them in, they closed their catalog sales just before the internet took off. I still have and use the Fluke 77 meter I bought just before the catalog sales was shuttered

Another likely example of the piss poor management at Sears was moving the headquarters from downtown Chicago ( Sears Tower) to suburban Hofmann Estates ( word is the executives wanted to cut their travel time). They ended up losing a huge chunk of thier employees that worked downtown ( the tower had a population of around 12,000 to 15,000 during business hours), likely because the only way to get to the new headquarters was to drive, forcing people to buy a car, and the commute was much longer. They ended up having to replace thousands of employees and having to pay more due to the increased costs of getting to the new Sears Hofmann Estates campus.

Stupidity at nearly its greatest scale. A number of large companies moved back downtown from the suburbs (i.e. United Airlines, Sara Lee International). They are tapping into the lower commuting cost and multitudes larger potential employee base available due to mass transit.

FStephenMasek

Sears sold the insurance, credit card and other financial companies which were very successful to try to prop-up their dying mall stores. How much did they pay the executives who made those decisions?

Mad Dog_2

You're so right, KC..Corporate stodgyness and complacency...Tragic, unnecessary disintegration.  My Sears genuine rubber hoses I bought in mid 1990s...still using them to drain water heaters and boilers.  Mad Dog 🐕 

Rusty2

KC Jones said : I've said it many times. Sears could have been Amazon. Sears missed the boat, huge.

Sears WAS the "amazon" of their time.

jumper

Sears also gave up on Prodigy which could have been almost Google. I say almost because Sears cannot be as evil as Google. Sears also started Allstate and DiscoverCard, each big moneymakers now. Downfall had multiple causes.
Management jobs were sinecures and nuts to company, customers & suppliers. Sears tried to sell everything from low end up. World changed to wreck Sears's appliance business.
What's a working Sears kit car worth?

Mad Dog_2

Does anyone remember "Montgomery Wards" ?  I knew of the from Upstate NY.  They were a competitor of Sears
..had a catalog...Their own Toilets...et cetera.  We called in Monkey 🐒 Wards...Mad Dog 🐕 

Steamhead

Mad Dog_2 said:

Does anyone remember "Montgomery Wards" ?  I knew of the from Upstate NY.  They were a competitor of Sears
..had a catalog...Their own Toilets...et cetera.  We called in Monkey 🐒 Wards...Mad Dog 🐕 

Oh yes. IIRC M-W bathroom fixtures were made by Eljer, while Sears were Universal-Rundle. Two more names we no longer see.

Mad Dog_2

I miss Monkey 🐒 Wards AND Sears Roebuck!  Mad Dog 🐕 

ChrisJ

Mad Dog_2 said:

I miss Monkey 🐒 Wards AND Sears Roebuck!  Mad Dog 🐕 

I'm not really sure what you miss about them.

But....... here ya go.

Many many many Sears, Montgomery Ward and JC Penny catalogs.

https://christmas.musetechnical.com/

New England SteamWorks

jumper said:

Boilers ought to come with piping kits.

Wouldn't help. They didn't read the boiler manual. Why would they read the piping kit instructions?

New England SteamWorks

I particularly like the main vents on the drips...

What a mess. I am with @edtheheaterman. 1st step should have been to cut away all the old legacy piping. 2nd step should have been to select a boiler with top supply tappings. But that didn't happen because those boilers cost more.

Dan_NJ

New England SteamWorks said:

jumper said:

Boilers ought to come with piping kits.

Wouldn't help. They didn't read the boiler manual. Why would they read the piping kit instructions?

I can hear it now, alot of "what do we do with all these leftover parts anyway?"