Sandy

crash2009 · October 2012

Looks like the weather channel wasn't kidding. How ya doin out there? Hope your well. Weather predictions say 25 foot waves in Lake Michigan, and we are half a country away from the storm.

JStar · October 2012

Sandy

Nothing but a drizzle in central NJ so far. Although, I slept through the last hurricane...

Hap_Hazzard · October 2012

Not as bad as we were expecting.

The track is just south of Philadelphia. I'm a few miles north of that, so we're just getting some rain.

It looks like Baltimore is getting hammered with rain and high winds. I hope Steamhead is riding it out okay.

Steamhead · October 2012

Started raining last night

now the wind is picking up. We cancelled work for today and tomorrow, have to make it up later. Schools, government offices and many businesses are closed. By Wednesday afternoon the storm should be gone, but who knows how bad the damage will be........

Paul48 · October 2012

Surge

They are concerned about the storm surge here. With Irene last year, there was a 4' surge, and some of the shoreline communities didn't fare too well. This storm is suppose to have a 7-11' storm surge, and CT has never seen that before. My fingers are crossed for the folks on Long Island, and I hope the whole thing fizzles. Stay dry, stay safe, and good luck to all.

ttekushan_3 · October 2012

district steam

Hi Steamhead!

I see via "teh google" that Veolia District Energy serves Baltimore with District Steam. How do they handle the potential for severe tunnel flooding, I wonder. Do you know any of those "high pressure" guys?

[I know we "low pressures steam people" have to keep a close eye on them when they tinker with low pressure heating systems! I can just see them encountering a heating boiler's pressuretrol, "hey, where's the zeros on the PSI scale? it should be 20, 50, 100! Oh, nevermind, I'll just crank it up to the top!" But I digress.]

For some reason, while others are worried about electricity outages and flooding, I always wonder what's going to happen to high pressure steam lines in a district system, what with the potential for catastrophic water hammer and all. I just figured that the utility can shut down affected sections of their steam "grid." I'll bet restarting after the event can be interesting, too.

IIRC, flooding in Iowa several years ago managed to severely damage district steam systems in Iowa City and Cedar Rapids.

Just wonderin'

Batten Down the Hatches, as they say.

Gordo · October 2012

Veolia Energy

Veolia Energy is just the latest of a long line of owners of Baltimore's District Steam System.

A fair amount of water already seeps thru the insulation of the steam pipes in the streets and flashes over to steam and softens the asphalt above.

Veolia seems to do a better job of running the "free" bus line circulating in the downtown area than running the steam system. They seem to be a bus company that owns a steam system on the side.

They run two sets of steam lines into various buildings: A high pressure line (130 psi) and what they call low pressure (35 psi).

The Bromo Seltzer Tower now has a 130 psi steam line enter the building that goes through their poorly designed pressure reducing station and is reduced to 35 psi to supply "my" pressure reducing station where it is reduced to 2 psi. The line pressure coming into the building used to be 35 psi. They have been slowly getting rid of their "low pressure" lines to their customers.

Their guys can't believe that anything less than 10 psi steam will heat a building.

Whenever I call Veolia to report issues and problems, the default mode of their answers is almost always that it is my fault or responsibility and never theirs. It gets old.

Sandy

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