Dan Holohan: Heating Help

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Hello, old friend. I’m writing today to say thanks, and to say farewell. This will be my last column.

Kids have a way of dragging us old folks back in time. My grandson, Brendan put me back on the road, 40 years ago, when I was spending most of my time teaching tradespeople about the joys of steam and hot-water heating.

Another photo appeared and this one had a woman in it. She was holding a long wrench and the business end was attached to one of the risers to the boiler’s drop-header.

I spotted a story in the newspaper last year that made me smile with a memory that was bittersweet. 

Not long ago, Ray asked the Wallies who post daily on The Wall at HeatingHelp.com what advice they would give someone just starting out in this business. Here’s some of what they had to say. There’s a lot of street-smart experience here.

Over the years, I've had many homeowners read my books and then write to tell me they knew more about their system than the contractors that came to their houses. This was particularly true when it came to steam heating.

It was one of those days at HeatingHelp.com when the old guys had the floor. One of the regulars, a retired (and understandably crotchety) fella from Canada had this to say:

Morris had me on the phone. It was 1974 and he was calling from Brooklyn, New York. I had a waxed handlebar mustache that year, and my workmates at the manufacturers’ rep were calling me Rollie Fingers because he was pitching for the Oakland Athletics in the World Series.

In 1885, when you could still buy a milk cow for $29.70, Albert Butz, a Swiss immigrant living in St. Paul, Minnesota, invented what he called the damper-flapper. He patented it the following year. The flapper opened a damper that allowed outside air to enter a coal-fired home furnace. This increased the oxygen in the furnace and made the fire burn hotter. When the temperature rose to a desired point, the damper closed.

People who knew Capt. Montgomery C. Meigs said he was occasionally pompous, but when the job was done to his satisfaction, he said, “This was the most difficult piece of engineering and construction that I have yet to undertake.”