15 ms·
A lot of the winter overheating comes from poorly insulated pipes, unmaintained steam valves, and broken radiator controls. I lived in Boston for a few years an
by nhf 6y ago
A lot of the winter overheating comes from poorly insulated pipes, unmaintained steam valves, and broken radiator controls. I lived in Boston for a few years and had the same issue in my first spot - old apartment complex, big boiler in the basement, and way too hot in the winter.
Afterwards, I moved to a nicer but even older building where the landlord had bothered to retrofit a modern boiler with separate heating zones for the different apartments. Crucially, the radiators had new control valves the lines had modern insulation. It was like night and day. I think the retrofit cost over $10k, so like you said, the path of least resistance is often crappy heat.
- milesvp 6y agoThis. There was a great video posted on HN a couple years ago, by one of the few guys around who tunes up these old radiator systems. Apparently a lot of them were quite genius in design, but years of neglect make them not work very well. Was a fascinating video to hear him talk about common problems, and the amount of troubleshooting and problem solving involved with making these radiator systems work as designed again. Dan Holohan, for those interested. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18430512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18430512
- elliekelly 6y agoWhat a cool video and thread! Thanks for sharing! Sometimes I wish HN had a “random old thread” button like Wikipedia so people could stumble upon the hidden discussion gems like this one.