New York’s skyscrapers soar above a century-old steam network that still warms the city.

CoachBoilermaker

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/steam-networks/

Long history article of NYC steam:

Since 1882, Manhattan has delivered steam into the homes and businesses of its citizens. It is used for: pressing linens at The Waldorf Astoria; cleaning crockery and heating food in restaurants; washing clothes at dry cleaners; sterilizing medical equipment at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital; by the Metropolitan Museum of Art to control the humidity levels and temperatures around its artwork. And it is used by Manhattanites, in both iconic buildings and regular apartment blocks, to heat their space and water.

Steam functions like any other utility: produced centrally, metered, and delivered into homes and businesses through a 105-mile-long grid of pipework. Like electricity, sewage, and water, it plays an integral part in the daily operation of the city.

Today, the Manhattan steam system is responsible for heating 1.8 billion square feet of residential, 700 million square feet of commercial, and 90 million square feet of industrial floorspace. This represents over three quarters of Manhattan’s total residential footprint.

Steam enabled the growth of Manhattan, providing efficient heating to an increasingly vertical city. Many other cities have adopted district-level heating systems, but very few use steam to distribute that energy. Why does some infrastructure survive while others become obsolete? 

Jamie Hall

Manhattan is not alone. There were a surprising number of district steam heat systems — and equally surprisingly, quite a number of them are still around.

For how long? Kind of hard to say — since in the beginning they were most commonly low pressure (relatively speaking) from electrical power plants — and those were fuel fired… and district systems still are fuel fired, where they still operate, even if the power plants have been shut down.

Steamhead

Downtown Baltimore has a district steam system.

leonz

Cornell University is another district heating system with a 15 PSIG system.

Grallert

Smith Collage as far as I know. I haven't had the pleasure to visit the plant.

BobC

I worked for the post office (Boston P&DC) as a technician from 2001 till 2009 when I retired. That Building on Dorchester Av is on the Keolis district steam network.

As a kid in the 50's we lived in the Quincy projects The 50 ea 4 family buildings were heated by a central steam plan across the street from us. The distribution failed and the plant was replaced with boilers in each building in the late 90's.

Intplm.

I enjoyed this article. Especially how it explained the history of how we have become, to the projected thoughts of where we will be in the future. Well written.

old_diy_guy

Philadelphia has one as well. I was property manager for a number of years of a 1926 Art Deco 250,000 sf office building that had an original Webster heating system. The boiler was removed in the 1960's and the building was hooked up to the district steam system.

CoachBoilermaker

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1848710#Comment_1848710

Glad you liked it.

It was a long article!

Mark Eatherton

Denver is home to the oldest continuously operated district steam system. I've had the privilidge of touring the physical plant that serves this system. Modulating and staged steam boilers are awesome. Single use, condensate is metered, and then cooled down before dumping into the city sewer. We discontinued a high rise building that ws on the system, and traded a tour of the new physical plant for a tour of their physical plant. There is a significant waste of thermal energy on these systems that a large reverse indirect could recover for DHW preheat on the buildings they serve. It's also THE most expensive heat per therm. More than electric heat. The project we switched over to natural gas (Steam to HWBB) had so many problems, the very expensive retrofit paid for itself in energy savings alone in less than 2 years. And this doesn't include the benefits associated with satisfied residents not ringing the phones off the office wall due to DHW shortage, under heating, over heating etc. Very few people know how to work with steam, and this system ran at 100 PSI, and then reduced to 20 PSI. Scary stuff, and it looks, according to the article, is going away… Surprised that NYC isn't mandating the elimination of their system. Here's an article on Denvers system. https://www.ksby.com/news/national/one-of-the-oldest-heating-systems-in-the-us-could-soon-disappear