This section is your comprehensive guide on steam heating systems with articles about proper steam piping, boilers, pressure, venting, radiators, water quality, and more. We'll also walk you through troubleshooting steam system problems like noisy pipes.
Some suggestions from contractors who post on The Wall: We use newspaper, red rosin paper and kitty litter. We are as careful as possible, but spills do happen. Because w...
Always ask, "What can cause this?" I once looked at a house in New Jersey where the first-floor ceiling had caved in due to a disagreement with the steam system. This was...
A question asked on The Wall: "Is it okay to use copper on steam systems?" Brad White replies: It is not so much temperature as cyclical heating and cooling. Hot water ru...
One of biggest challenges in working with vintage heating systems is to put them into balance so that everyone is comfortable. This is especially true when it comes to on...
I was once on a problem steam job where the water seemed to vanish from the boiler as soon as the pressure hit its high limit and the burner shut off. There was an automa...
A guy called me to ask if I had any output ratings for some oddball steam radiators he needed to measure before he could replace the boiler. I looked them up and told him...
Due to the efforts of many sharp minds in the steam heating industry and simple economics, standing cast iron steam space heating systems are no longer wastefully being t...
Billy was having a bad day. Mario the Baker had called him first thing that morning to say he was going to drive to Billy’s office and punch him in the face. It seems tha...
Old boiler rooms often are home to steam-heating boilers. Our older cities are loaded with these, and lots of people (knuckleheads included) have had decades to mess with...
I started my career in the heating industry in 1970, when I was 20 years old. I was fresh out of college and my number in the Draft Lottery that year was 355. My father w...