Recently I had the great privilege of working for a client that wanted to preserve an existing vapor system.  This was in spite of the fact that they are planning on raising the roof and adding a small addition to their kitchen – a perfect time to modernize the heating system. They hadn’t moved into the house yet, and it was the winter, so they wanted to get some heat going so they could spend time there working and planning.

I ..read more

I was just going to a call and drove past a large house that we had done a 2 pipe steam to hot water conversion. That house had over 25 radiators. It occurred to me that a lot of people may not know that this is even possible. If more people knew about the possibility they would consider it. Can any two pipe system be converted?  That’s a firm maybe.

One of the best things about converting a large house, and ..read more

We’ve had a lot of questions over the years about turning down your heat, both daily and when you go away.

Does turning the thermostat down save money? The short answer is yes.   The flow of heat from the house to the outside is proportional to difference between the temperature inside the house and the temperature of the air outside. if you allow the house to cool down,  that difference is made smaller and therefore the heat flow to the outside ..read more

I’ll tell you a story about a steam system, which illustrates the need for a knowledgeable installer. This isn’t even about a bad BOILER installation, so much as an illustration of why you need to be careful with steam.

The client contacted us out of desperation. The plumber they used had installed a new steam boiler, and they had a lot of problems, like the ones I mentioned in a previous post, but also very uneven heating and ridiculous gas bills. ..read more