Central Steam Heat

John Mills_5

For those interested in district heat, check out Indy's system, apparently the 2nd largest in the country...

http://www.citizensthermal.com/

40% of the steam comes from burning our garbage!

Dean_7

Detroit Central Steam heat

In Todays Detroit News.DETROIT -- Just as automobiles were making their debut and fire trucks were still pulled by horses, steam was the most efficient and economical way to keep Detroit's high-rise buildings, theaters and other structures warm during the bitter Michigan winters.
For older buildings in Detroit that are still part of the network -- the Renaissance Center, Detroit Institute of Arts, Wayne State University and the Fox Theatre among them -- converting to another system would be expensive and unnecessary, officials say.

The steam network works so well that there is no reason to switch to another energy source, said Gregg McDuffee, general manager of the Detroit-Wayne Joint Building Association, which owns and operates the Coleman A. Young Municipal Building. The 51-year-old building houses both Wayne County and Detroit government offices.
Go here for the entire article http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060914/BIZ/609140357/1003/METRO

DanHolohan

From the Library

Detroit Edison

Christian Egli_2

You don't know how good it is until it's gone

Here in Dayton, our downtown district system was forcibly scrapped by EPA rulings. That was a little more than ten years ago and our downtown real estate market hasn't yet made the turn around with the slew of buildings that became awkward with a boiler room patched on the side. Not many of these adaptations were successful and none I know of produced any efficiency gains and heating costs reductions for the individual owner.

It was a really sad story with lots of missed opportunities.

District heating can easily beat the efficiencies of any other individual boiler setup. It's real easy to conceive financially.

All those district heating schemes are for profit companies which on top of providing heat to their customers, provide returns to their shareholders. For the individual user, the comparative costs of home-made heat or ready-made steam is competitively the same. So, what does the profit get carved off of? Efficiencies.

Further more, the district steam company has to depreciate its capital assets (the boiler, the pipes...), all this included in the heat bill the consumer pays for. While, a home setup is usually paid for and forgotten, depreciation costs rarely being considered honestly. What's more, a public utility pays property type taxes on its assets, here in Ohio there is a further tangible tax that applies to utilities that is considerably expensive - the monopoly utilities are simply viewed as a taxing arm of the state. The consumer pays for all of this of course, but it does not apply (to such extremes) when you have your own boiler at home. All further handicaps that are overcome through sheer efficiency advantages, it couldn't be otherwise.

In the nineties, there was a confluence of problems all teaming against district steam, not the least of which was the abnormally low cost of natural gas. Those who hung in didn't have to wait long to see abnormally high natural gas costs, and so today, heating big buildings is cheaper in cities with district steam than it is in Dayton.

All the pipes are still here... perhaps some company might find Dayton a ripe market to pluck.

Nashville is also expanding its steam and chilled water system.