The last paragraph sums it up...

Todd_9

Haven't heard that name in a while. He is a genius. Where did you get this article??

Unknown

This is the same Henry that wrote about the Gifford Loop on stea

IN THE BASEMENT

THE BOILER MAN

Issue of 2003-03-17

Posted 2003-03-10

One thing that distinguishes Henry Gifford’s New York City Boiler Tour is the fact that there are no boiler tours quite like it in New York City, not to mention anywhere else in the United States or, possibly, the world. Another is the singular passion for boilers that is exhibited by Henry Gifford, of Gifford Fuel Saving, Inc. Gifford came to boilers late in life, when he was twenty and had already worked as a bicycle mechanic, a window-gate welder, and a landlord. As a landlord, Gifford had calculated that the biggest variable in terms of expenses was the boiler. He observed that in the boiler arena there seemed to be what he called a “knowledge vacuum,” and he set out to fill it. “I miss having buildings,” Henry, who is now forty-two, said the other day, as his tour was about to kick off. “But I would have gotten tired of it by now, and I would have missed all the fun I’ve had with boilers.”

Not surprisingly, some of the forty-one people who signed up for this inaugural boiler tour did so as much to be with Henry as to see the boilers. Tim Baker, the managing editor of a mechanical-engineering magazine, flew in from Cleveland. “I mean, you can just sense the love that this guy has for boilers,” Baker said.

The three-day tour started early on a cold Thursday on the ground floor of a multifamily apartment building on East Fifth Street. Over coffee and bagels, Henry introduced people. “You know when you want to see what kind of an airflow you’ve got in a room, so you measure it with a blower door? Well, this guy makes them,” he said, pointing to Gary Nelson, who had flown in from Minnesota, and who was scanning the room with an infrared camera, searching for heat leakage. There was the usual run of boiler enthusiasts: architects, alternative-energy marketers, officials from the Building Performance Institute, and a landlord named Ralph, who looked like an old sailor.

Henry began with a lecture, accompanied by slides. In his view, the two most prominent New York City heat-related phenomena—open windows in overheated apartments, and clanking radiators—are prime examples of boiler ignorance and waste. To no one’s surprise, Henry’s talk went long.

When he was done, the tour group set out to look at some boilers. There was a quick stop at a building on Avenue C, to watch a boiler-related film, “Carmelita Tropicana: Your Kunst is Your Waffen,” starring Carmelita Tropicana, a superintendent/performance artist. That was followed by a lunch break at Katz’s Delicatessen, on Houston Street, where a woman in a fur coat said to the group, “What? Are you bird-watching?” Someone told her what they were up to. “Boilers!” she said. “Oh, that’s not very exciting.” In the afternoon, Henry sneaked his people into the basement of an old church, where they saw the history of boilers encapsulated: turn-of-the-century coal to eighties super-efficient natural-gas-fired pulse combustion, then back to oil. On the way out, an engineer from Massachusetts said, “I feel excitingly illicit.”

The next day, everyone met up in Harlem, in a brownstone with hundred-year-old radiators, each with a thermostat attached, a detail that made Henry ecstatic, even though Con Edison hadn’t hooked up the gas and everyone was shivering. In the basement, with a single light bulb dangling above his head, he described the Gifford formula for calculating pipe friction and flow, a formula that, despite Henry’s best efforts, has yet to be embraced by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning.

All told, the boiler tour went on for seven days—four days and many heating systems more than Henry had planned. But it was during the lecture/slide show, on the first day, that Tim Baker, the engineering-magazine editor, asked the question that seemed to sum it all up. “Henry,” he said, his pen in the air. “You’ve talked about the ignorance, the dishonesty. Why is this?”

Henry’s face broke into a grin that was bright enough to heat a loft space. He turned to an associate, who was working the slide projector. “Put the Madonna slide on,” he said. The slide showed young people standing in line on a Greenwich Village sidewalk. “O.K., so these people want to be dancers with Madonna’s world tour,” Henry said. “Look at this—the line stretches around the block. I asked these people, ‘How much does this job pay per hour?’ And none of them knew. This has to do with what I call the Gifford Status-Money Ratio: the amount of money a job pays is inversely correlated to the amount of status the job has. The dancers get paid with social status. Boiler work has zero or negative social status. And this ratio also influences the quality of work to be gotten from a person working in that field. In the basement, there’s money, but there’s no status. This doesn’t mean you’re dumb if you work in the basement. It just means that you’re not expected to be smart. The fact is, excellence is not expected in the basement.”

— Robert Sullivan

Unknown

searching the web for something else.

Just thought I'd share it.

Noel

Firedragon_4

One of the best people,

and one of the best minds we ever will see, FACT!

c.t.kay

henry is, alive and well, in nyc.

Ranger

Buhler,Anyone?

Does Mr.Gifford have a web site?(No Luck w/Google)I'm very
intrigued,indeed!

Larry Weingarten

Henry...

teaches with Affordable Comfort from time to time. The next conference is at Indianapolis in May. They don't have a list of presenters yet.

Henry's a real charmer. The first time we met he tested me on my water heater knowledge to see if I was all right. I think I passed? ;~)

Pat K

Google search

If you type in Henry Gifford boilers into Google you will get quite a few hits.