A Dead Men Secret

HeatingHelp

A Dead Men Secret

The Dead Men had a clever solution for balancing gravity hot-water heating systems. They told each other about it, but they never wrote it down so that you and I, stuck in the 21st Century would know. In this episode, Dan Holohan shares this secret that was almost lost to history.

Read the full story here

hot1

I have learned a lot from Dan over the years. In fact I'm now one of the old guys and am, in the spirit of Dan, always ready to tell a heating story. My son is a young guy who was a facilities manager in a 1930s building. He would call often with questions. Great times for me!

retiredguy

I saw this same heating problem many years ago in a large commercial building in New Castle, Pa. a town north of Pittsburgh, Pa. The contractor was following a heating engineers drawings to update the heating system with a new boiler that was outfitted with a circulating pump. The boiler was installed and the system refilled with water. The boiler was fired and only the lowest floor radiators got hot. they were there for weeks trying everything the contractor could think to do. The company that I worked for had an "old timer" on staff who pointed out that the engineer was wrong and that the pump system was at fault. He mentioned that the orfices on the upper rads had to go and was ridiculed for his comment until they found out that he was right. We were not the installing contractor, Our guy had the answer to the problem.