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Many big buildings in our older cities use vacuum pumps to create a negative pressure in their condensate-return lines. This below-atmospheric pressure, which averages ar...

The most-immovable object I ever merrily walked into in the moist darkness of an old building's basement was the downturned, fully extended stem of a large OS&Y steam val...

We still have a landline because we get it as part of our TV/Internet package and we also have Caller ID on that phone, which helps us avoid most of the spam calls. I jus...

Does Maintenance Save Money?There are many numbers thrown about estimating the savings by performing certain maintenance activities. I remember meeting with a potential c...

A debate has continued in the industry about whether boiler jacket loss should be factored into the calculation of boiler efficiency. Most of the old boiler rooms were ve...

John was a custodian for a local school district. We used to call him “20 Questions” because he would constantly ply us with questions about the boilers when we would per...

As we are entering the time that most commercial boiler projects are being planned and installed, I would like to share some common steam boiler oversights that I rarely ...

"Something is wrong with the boiler control. I have to keep pushing the reset button,” the frantic school custodian said when I answered the phone one cold January mornin...

You'll sometimes see a thin, reflective insulation barrier between a radiator and the outside wall of a building. The Dead Men installed these to reflect the radiators' r...

Here’s how you’d pass a steam main over a steel beam: The pitch is in the direction of the flow. The steam goes over the beam through a pipe that’s the same size as the m...