Central heating systems

[toggleswitch]

Cybrvanr-

Yes technically it applies to landlords in muti-family buildngs, where the heat is not indiviadually controlled and metered.(i.e. Landlord pays). However it is the de-facto expectation of all tenants even those renting space in a private (read: laws not applicable) two-family home where the owner pays for heat.

Normally lasnlords provide more than the minimum temps (during the times they are obligated to do so to avoid legal entanglements) however the theimes the heat comes up and gets turned off is pretty much to the minute as pescribed by law.

Sometimes a nice landlord will let it run later on Thanskgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve or other holidays celebrated by the majority of the tenants. No extra heat provided /required on Valentine's day. HA HA HA LOL.

 

[toggleswitch]

Let me explain how my old landlord got around the heating requirments-

It the building is owner occupied or has the owner living within XXX feet of the property, a superintendent is not required. (He himself is acting as the superintendent).

He would sit in his (heated) retail store adjacent to the (cold, unheated) apartment building. If the inspector came during the day, his wife would go out the back way and into the buiding the back way, and she'd turn on the boiler. then he would call her and say, "Honey would you kindly bring us the keys to the boiler room?" In the ten minutes it took to play this charade, the boiler was ignited, hot and pushing steam into the radiators in the residences.

Of course now he could call into a modem and turn it on by phone right in front of the inspector and get sway with it.

so by providing heat from 5 to 10, twice a day, he got away with murder and managed to get the old people (who were home all day) to move out. This worked equally as well for pepole with young kids, and those who chose not to work (read: secion 8 et al). The tenants were basicaly all working couples. Hugely ideal, hugely illegal.

 

[bostonwash]

So much knowledge here.

I read that in NY , at one point, they also had interconnected pipes from a circuit of buildings for freon gas for air conditioning in the summer.
I'm thinking that didn't work too well. It seems like most of these skyscrapers have massive air handlers on the roof for AC.

What an interesting history there must be under the streets of old cities.

 

[launderess]

Nice story but, in NYC it is not the just the boiler operating,but the temp in the apartments which matters.

If a tenant files a complaint regarding lack of heat/hot water an inspector will show up with a meter in hand to check the indoor temp of that and perhaps other particular apartments. They will also turn on and stick a thermometer under the hot water tap to see what temp is coming out.

Even if say the boiler room was a sauna and one could "hear" steam in the pipes, the landlord could be sited for lack of heat until he "repairs" the boiler.

Tenants whom have contacted NYC to complain about lack of heat are always advised NOT to turn the oven or any other heat source on before the inspector arrives. This is because if the indoor temp of the apartment is over a certian temp, regardless of how it got there, a violation cannot be written. The code only specifies what the indoor temp must be, not how it is arrived at, so off the oven goes.

It is going to be interesting if this winter is very cold with heating oil/gas prices what they are. Large landlords with many properties to heat probably have locked in oil prices already. However the small landlord is going to be in for a rude awakening. Also many large apartment buildings have dual fuel boilers, which are set to use the cheaper fuel when temps drop below a certian point.

Launderess

 

[toggleswitch]

Many tenants IMHO are used to 72*F to 76*F and anything below seems cold to them. Reaching the required 68*F minimum room temperature from say 66*F would take only a few minutes with a steam system. These older systems typicaly had "overkill" sized radiators, perhaps to facilitate a quick temperature recovery from the nightly set-back temp, and to be able to maintain the legal minimum when outdoor temperatures are in the teens.

 

[toggleswitch]

If rising interest rates don't kill the price of real estate, heating costs just may!

 

[kenmore1978]

temps

In my house 68 degrees is whenit starts to feel "chilly' and I turn on the forced air gas furnace. I then set it to 72 degrees with the fan constanly running to even the temps throughout the house and keep air flowing past the thermostat for more accurate cycling.

 

[Brent-Aucoin]

Interersting topics!

This is all so interesting. I have always loved heating and cooling for houses and buildings also.
Does anyone know when this program will run again on the History channel? I would love to see it, and hate that I missed it.
Steve, do you have any pictures of dangerous boiler rooms, and furnaces? There was a website a few years ago that posted pictures like this, but I can't find it anywhere.
Thanks for all the interesting chat!
Brent

 

[Cybrvanr]

I don't have anything like that, as I don't get into the basements of older homes and building too often anymore. I do remember that someone here did post something like that. The curious thing was that while other kids were afraid of going down into the basement of an old house...that's where my parents could find me when I wandered off at a visitor's house. I found the huge, fire-breathing beasts in some of the old city homes absloutely fascinating with all the pipes, gauges, valves and stuff. When they lit up...awesome!

Today's HVAC plants, although quite amazing in their capabilities...like being able to monitor and control each room's humidity and temperature though a web browser, they are actually quite boring from a visual perspective. Most mechanical components are covered up and are internal. They make less noise, and overall are simpiler in their assembly.

 

[foraloysius]

Steam pipes

I had no clue either what these steam pipes were for, but Steve explained that to me when he showed me around in NYC. Here's a picture I took this summer.

 

[Brent-Aucoin]

What happend to your favorite furnace Brands?

It is funny, but it is just like washers and dryers, etc.
Everything get's sold, and bought.
Here are names of furnaces that I had actually forgot.
Brent

http://toad.net/~jsmeenen/history.html

 

[Brent-Aucoin]

Oh and....

Click around on the bottom of the page.....
Very cool stuff.
Brent

 

[Cybrvanr]

Excellent site Brent!

That list was great! There's also all sorts of good information beyond that list that I clicked around on!

 

[toggleswitch]

and remember please..

(pet peeve of mine..)

FURNACES heat air.
BOILERS heat water. (originally used for STEAM, which was the only method at first. Name still applied to units that heat water for central heating.)

FURNACE
=================================
FOURNOS=> Gr. [oven]
FOURNEAU=> Fr. (how's my spelling?)
HORNO => Sp. [oven]

the Greeks may have a word for it...
but they tend to have XENOMANIA (love of things foreign).
a heater there is atually called a CALORIFER. Probably Fr.
as CALORIE and CALORIC means pertaining to heat in Latin, IIRC. Certainly Spanish as in "Hace CALOR" => "It's hot."

 

[foraloysius]

Overhere a tank heater is called boiler, I was surprised to see the word boiler used for the furnace. But I got used to that. Now I have to get used to something different again!! LOL

 

[neptunebob]

Hi everyone, I'm new here and interested in heating!

Hi, I'm from the Pittsburgh area and reading all this about the heating systems. In our area there was a place called Dixmont State Hospital where they plan to build a Wal Mart. At the bottom of the hill there is the original heating plant, built in 1950. If you go to the website you see it has the large windows to show off the system. They are starting to wreck it as I write but didn't get to the main building yet. The picture is at the bottom right corner of Gallery 1. This whole website is my kind of place, when other boys were interested in baseball (boring to me) I was looking at washers and dryers! Nep

http://www.ohiotrespassers.com

 

[launderess]

Louis

"Boiler" is only used on this side of the pond to refers to hot water heating. These boilers produce the steam or hot water to go up the pipes to heat homes that have have "steam" or hot water heating. Usually these boilers also provide the source if not actual hot water for the hot water taps as well.

Central heating via forced hot air systems are usually called a "furnace", though many here refer to any source of heat/hot water a furnace. Think so many on both sides of the pond refer to any source of heat as a "boiler" since hot water/steam heat was the most common method of heating (weather by coal, gas or oil), until forced are came upon the scene.

Launderess

 

[DADoES]

I've only heard two people that I can recall refer to central heating as a "furnace." Everybody else calls it a "heater" or "heat" or "central heat."

As in "my heat ain't working."

 

[tolivac]

I have been interested and fascinated by boiler rooms in buildings as well-when I lived in High rise apt houses-would sneak a peak in the "boiler room"other equipment in there as well-the chillers for AC.The Govt building boiler rooms I have seen were especially interesting-the older the building-the more interesting the bolier-equipment rooms are.Most also contain chillers to cool water for closed loop "air conditioning" in the rooms of the buildings.The chillers are just as interesting as the boilers.One of the buildings had steam piped to it(150PSI) from a central boiler-power plant.That plant served govt buildings in the DC area.It provided electricity and steam for the buildings-the power was used as well as commercial power-so the buildings would always have power.I have seen two generations of chillers in the building I worked in-first generation were Carrier 650 ton capacity centrifical units-they had open 700 hp motors on them.Then they were replaced with Trane units that had HIGHER cooling capacity with hermetic motors.-1200 tone capacity.The buildings hot water came by using steam loop coils in the "water heater tanks" By AO-Smith no less.Would heat 700 gal water at one time.Other equipment down there was steam condesnate return pumps-some quite large -since the water had to be returned to the remote boiler plant.Sewage ejection pumps and tanks to dispose of waste to the city sewer.And large water storage tanks and pumps for the building water.A separate chiller was used to cool the watrer for the drinking fountains in the halls.Also sepatate smaller chiller systems cooled computer rooms and the studios.knew how then worked.I spent many times strolling thru those areas sudying the equipment.Now those areas are closed off for security concerns-they are concerned terrorist could access the equipment.And that building had some impressive transformer rooms to step down "street power" med voltage 13.8Kv three phase to 4160V,2500V and 208V-120V,480V.