Steam Heating → Vacuum Help Topics

I had written a story for Plumbing & Mechanical a while back about a fella in Canada who sent me this email: "Our problem is that five out of hundreds of univentilator co...

Back in the old days when most folks burned coal, vacuum was just about everyone’s friend. That slow and steady coal fire produced a steam that gently nudged the air from...

Why do we work on heating systems during the winter? Because we’re working on air-conditioning systems during the summer! Makes sense in a last-minute, panicky way, but i...

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...

Igor Zhadanovsky is one of the brightest people I have ever met. This paper is one you should read if you're involved with buildings that have steam heat, regardless of t...

So let's say you're in one of America's older cities and scratching your head over an antique building that has a very confused steam-heating system. What to do? Of cours...

There are sags in the mains between the boiler and the main vents. Sags in the main give condensate a place to lay. This creates water hammer when the system starts again...

1. Long ago, a Dead Man decided to heat a big building with a steam system. Since it was such a big building, and since pipe, valves and fittings have never been cheap, t...

Steam systems that make vacuum with pumps have been around for more than 100 years. In 1899, D.F. Morgan wrote an article in The Metal Worker magazine, suggesting that de...

I heard from an old friend the other day. This guy works in Brooklyn, NY, and usually on some very interesting stuff. He's not one to say fuggedaboutit when there's a pro...