throw backs

ALH_4

I'm not a throwback. I have no historical connection to heating. I come from a line of north dakota wheat farmers. My dad knew durum. I stumbled into hydronics by accident with a summer job while I was in college. That was only 7 years ago, and though I'm not currently working in hydronics, I think I will find my way back in the future.

I have great respect for what was accomplished during the age of steam, but I'll probably never have the fondness for it that others seem to have. Vitodens' excite me, maybe a little too much. ;-)

A salute to those who made heat work well without the electronic controls of today.

-Andrew

TGO_54

Throw backs



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TGO_54

Throw backs

Hey Dan,
I loved the piece you wrote about steam systems and the guys still installing them.

I did a job about three years ago where all the mains were removed, the boiler shoved in the corner and the radiators left on the floor. I had to relocate the boiler, figure and install all the supply and return piping, main vents and radiator vents as well as re-pipe and re-wire the boiler. The system runs on 12oz and is quiet as a mouse. Pretty close to a new installation in my book.

My clients took great pleasure in showing the job to their neighbors who had told them to convert to baseboard or burnt air, cause "nobody installs steam anymore"

You probably could guess, but I'll say it anyway - they found me through my FAP ad.

The club may be bigger than you think ;-).

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Mark Hunt

\"Hello, my name is..................


and I'm a throw back."

Dan's article got me thinking. There was one other steam system I did from scratch. It was the system I was working on when my Dad passed away 10 years ago.

A micro-brewery in Albany, NY. I installed a Weil-Mclain 788 and all of the piping that provided steam to the brewing kettles. I was on that job when my Dad had his heart attack. My wife was 7 months pregnant with my first born, a son.

My Dad built steam turbines for GE and I never knew that until about a month or so before he passed away. Well I knew he worked in the steam turbine plant, I just didn't know what he did exactly. He was helping me paint the flat that Linda and I lived in then. While we were panting the nursery, I asked him what exactly he did at General Electric. My Dad knew steam. High pressure stuff granted, but melted water is melted water.

I am a decendant of a "Dead Man".

Last line of the book "A River Runs Through It":

"I am haunted by water"

Excellent post TGO.

I'd like to know your real name though.

Mark H



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Brad White_130

Side Pitch

Beutitful post, Mark- Man, can you write! -And bring a tear, a nod and a smile in one sentence...thanks for that.

My dad, still with us at 81 looking 60-something, was a hydraulic engineer -hardly the same thing! When he took me to work one day when I was four, I envisioned riding the rails on a huge steam engine.... MAN, was I disappointed....

In 1961, Alan Shepard was about to be launched into space in a Mercury Capsule, Freedom 7. I knew my dad worked on the project (gantry hydraulics) and had gone to Florida for the launch. Naturally when you are 4 years old, information is incontrovertable. The astronaut in the capsule was born in NH, was in the Navy, was in his 30's...Dad was born in NH, was in the Navy, was in his 30's, was in Florida...Yup, had to be my Dad because there are no other men on earth, right? I had somehow convinced my nursury school class of that, ah, fact...


Not the least of it, he is a master cabinetmaker, worked construction, did and does all things well... his father and grandfather were farmers, soldiers, quarry-slaters, whatever it took. Probably never knew central heating until the 1920's being in rural NH and VT.

So hardly in my blood, I still get a thrill at a system light-off. And now wish I had a steam system, done right!

Thanks guys.

DanHolohan

You've been a member

for a long time, Tom, and I show your work during every steam seminar I do. You've always inspired me. Sorry I left you out of the story, which sprang from that Wall thread.

TGO_54

Dan,

"A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills, but never know my name....

And that will be good enough for me"

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