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120 General Electric domestic oil furnaces in array

PRR
PRR Member Posts: 207

Unique Multi·Unit Heating Plant
The unique multi-unit central heating plant, consisting of 120 of the now familiar General Electric domestic oil furnaces all arranged to operate automatically in a single battery, which has been installed at Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts, is now in regular service.
Scientific American Feb 1935

Grallertmattmia2

Comments

  • mattmia2
    mattmia2 Member Posts: 10,201

    Wouldn't a couple large oil boilers on short vents have the same effect as 100 small oil boilers on short vents? Wasn't the tall vent just to spread the soot from the coal over a larger area?

  • retiredguy
    retiredguy Member Posts: 955

    I saw a boiler system designed similar to this at a High School east of Pittsburgh, Pa. about 35 years ago that had about 40 small boilers connected to a staging control. What a horrible design. Yes it worked but the maintenance cost was extremely high. They had a lightning strike near the school that "fried" most of the programming controls that were on each boiler. They were MH R7800 controls.

    mattmia2
  • bburd
    bburd Member Posts: 954

    I wonder how long that system at Mount Holyoke lasted, and what they replaced it with?


    Bburd