The Great Experimenter

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HeatingHelp
HeatingHelp Posts: 737
edited September 24 in THE MAIN WALL
The Great Experimenter

John Mills was one of the great-granddaddies of heating. He worked with the H.B. Smith Company as a freelance inventor and engineer from 1873 until 1897. In this episode, Dan Holohan shares why you may think of John Mills the next time you’re doing a heat-loss calculation or looking at an old steam heating system.

Read the full story here

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  • jumper
    jumper Posts: 2,624

    Overhead distribution also has advantages on two pipe systems. I suspect that giant screwed fitting had parallel threads. So another question is how was sealing accomplished?

  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Posts: 27,911

    It's interesting to look at the Mills Rule. It's handy, true — but also it's actually based on very sound science (or engineering, if you prefer). Consider just that 20 part for the cold walls. In an older building, you won't be far off to figure an R value of around 5, if it has plaster walls. For a delta T of 60, that will give you a heat loss of around 12 BTUh per square foot. So each 20 square feet of wall takes 1 EDR. Look familiar???

    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England

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