GSMT - Dan Holohan, Author: "The Lost Art of Steam Heating"
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- Опубликовано: 7 мар 2015
- Dan Holohan began his career working with his father at a NY-based manufacturers representative. Big Ed Holohan encouraged him to join the heating industry saying, “Kid, this is the best business to be in because people are always going to need heat, especially in the winter.” Dan couldn’t help but agree and so he got to work.
While Dan worked he’d listen to the old-timers who stopped by and they became teachers of a lost art. They’d tell stories about old heating systems they’d come across. They’d also pepper in tips and tricks they’d learned on the job. Dan wanted to learn even more, so he went to the library and poured over books about how heating systems (particularly steam- and hot-water heating systems) were invented and how they’d evolved over time. Those long-gone authors, whom Dan fondly refers to as the Dead Men, told him the story of the industry.
Dan worked at that company for 19 years and spent a lot of time in the field working with contractors. There are so many older heating systems in New York City, and each job was different. Dan would figure out what that strange object in that dark basement was - that big, cast-iron device with the 19th-Century patent date on its side - and research how to make it work better. The goal was to undo what so many people who didn’t know what they were doing had done over the years, and to put it back to the way the Dead Men had intended it to be. And oftentimes, the fix was as simple as a clogged air vent.
Dan decided to share the knowledge he’d gathered from the Dead Men. He knew that while these older heating systems weren’t going away anytime soon, the stories behind them were in danger of slipping away. So Dan preserved this knowledge and shared it through his seminars, his books, and the website found at: heatinghelp.com/
Filmed by John Rokosny and Andriette Redmann for NewYorkMVP.com
15 years ago I bought Dan’s book, which emboldened me to try a boiler install. 15 years later, still running fine.
As a 7 year HVAC tech who loves working on steam, this video is fascinating.
Dan is a genius.
Who would put a thumbs down on an amazing informational video 🥺
As a new owner of an old home, and an engineer, I found this video extremely gratifying. Thanks for the video.
I stumbled upon this video because I just bought a house that has steam heat and I wanted to learn more about how it works. I never expected to get such a fascinating insight into NYC history. Very cool stuff.
This should be taught as history in school.
What a fantastic and satisfying presentation. I understand when he said You cant help but feel a connection to these old buildings. It’s something special to be able to see and touch the same relics our forefathers did. They were hardened by toil but they generally had hearts of gold.
I get pretty good access to old buildings in Toronto; I take care of pipe organs and spend very long hours in churches and other institutions. I invariably read about the history of the churches I work in and I discover fascinating information. My Grandfather was a pipe fitter and worked with steam systems- what a great talk by Holohan, I live for the kind of info he reveals and I run into my fair share of steam heating in many churches. One church I take care of had a forced air system installed to work with the churches steam heating. The fan is huge and was installed in the year 1900. They’ve replaced the bearings a few times but it works just as well as the day it was installed..it even survived a massive fire in the 1930’s. The fan was built in Chicago and I’m pretty certain it may have been one of the first installed in Canada.
interesting. Sadly not too much steam in TO. We do have enwave and a comparatively small district heat system like con ed in NYC.
It was just a totally different ethos and approach to design and work in those days.
Was it by chance a Columbus Heating and Ventilating/ June Aire system?
I traveled for ch&v for decades. We used several blowers. Many were so large that one could crawl up in to them and pretend one was a gerbil!
Boiler batteries were huge. I upgraded systems from hand fired coal, to stoker fired (still have stoker parts in my garage), coal systems to fuel oil, or to propane or natural gas. During the energy crisis I was involved in r&d with controls for hopper feed systems for corn cobs, designing a level switch to control augers - they obviously aren't as dense as coal.
Mechanics Institute is the best school in the world! Class of 86
@33:28 Who is watching this in 2020 during corona virus pandemia
Geo M. Me
me
😲🤔
Thank you
Hey - we bought a 1920,s SteamPlant building - it’s been gutted; neglected; and forgotten until now !! We love STEAM ( ours is in Butte, MT - heated about 12ish different buildings of the Northwest’s LARGEST meat packing plant ( Hansen’s Packing ) in the teens, twenties, thirties, ,,, Thanks for being emphatic about STEAM ! Butte SteamPlant Event Center - 390 Holmes AVE, Butte-America ( MT )
Thanks for the address. I had to Google Map it, to see your gorgeous building as it was in 2012. Homesick for Montana, and wishing to move back, I've been looking at houses in Butte because it's so rich in history.
I've been in 3 Dan halohan's heating seminar, also i have all the books and some seminars like the Dead men's Steam School in VHS and i keep my VCR just because those tapes.
I love this picture because everyone in it has something in common: "They're all dead."
Just found this and would like to say that I have followed Dan for many years and read all his books. Dan's knowledge has made my steam troubleshooting skills what they are today, and for that I am very grateful. Thank you for all the hard work and research you have dome that benifits and touch so many of us in the industry.
What a great video, Its amazing how steam works and how they figured it out 150 years ago.
I was in Russia at the end of the Soviet union .What I found fascinating as some one who lives in the tropics were the towns that have steam , heat plants .A lot used incinerators to get rid of household garbage and they used this to run big boiler plants .Most are probably gas fired today .
If you ever watch those Russian car crash vids ,you can see the steam pipes running over the roads, in many of them. At approximately 400mm diameter they have big U shaped sections that cross roads .Also the sharp eyed people can see the stacks in the back ground in most of the bigger towns .The system works well although some of the repair methods I had seen on plenty of plumbing sets were interesting.
I did see one pipe which must have been hit by an oversize truck load which was dumping water ( a return maybe?) and the locals would park their cars under the flow and get a free car wash. 😁
I may be overstepping into the realm of theoretical physics, but I think the mechanics and science behind the delivery of steam heating, broadly speaking, are the tunnels, pipes and fittings that go down into the earth's mantle to reach the "primary water cycle" (rising water).
What he's saying corresponds to my feeling regarding certain things. The original way it is set up is always best, and future improvements somehow always denigrate it.
I met him a long time ago. Great guy. I wish more hvac guys would pick up on his passion and ideas. These days it seems the hvac trade has gone to push button, thumb rule their way through while taking out the good stuff and replacing everything with crap like roof tops. "Stop texting" LOL
I loved this video. Most electric power plants use steam to drive the turbines. The industrial revolution was powered by steam. I am fascinated by James Watt. Now I am fascinated by Dan Holohan.
Such a great video that is incidentally about much more than steam heat! Holohan is the guy everyone wants. Become Holohan!
In my Business Class I have to read about Dan Holohan. who study the steam heating, and I got curious about it about the heating guy. Thanks for this video.
I'm an industrial instrument mechanic in oil & gas, and I have to say this lecture was one of the most fascinating I've heard. Even though I don't work in HVAC, this really makes me want to learn more, just because. Excellent.
Victoria your a wonderful speaker ! Dan is fascinating to listen to ! I could listen to his stories all day ! and steam , well who doesn't like to learn more about that! A great presentation !!! thank you
This was fantastic!
Thanks, Dan for the steam lessons, & I love this old architecture as much as you do.
It's great to learn .... so interesting
Dan rules
Great talk! (saw this on osnews!)
". . . pored over books about how heating systems . . ." I'd hate to think that Mr. Holohan "poured [something] over" those books. 😉
Unfortunately, I'm having to replace my old house's 50+-year-old boiler and yes, it replaced a coal system. I'd have LOVED to have it repaired but couldn't get anyone old enough to evaluate it beyond its suddenly impaired state. Ah, well--its replacement will supposedly be more efficient.
I am suffering from this oversized boiler steam heat in a new york city old apartment building. I asked the super of the building to turn it down, and he gives me all kinds of excuses like an old lady somewhere in the building is afraid of the cold. The heat is constantly on and my bedroom temperature is from 88-90 degrees with the window wide open. The landlord is throwing money out the window.
Fabulous. I am trying to figure out my steam home heating system and its eccentricities. Gotta blow down the system regularly.
Dan know is the head of mechanics institute(the old building she had the walk through) Dan is a good man !
Think about how many dwellings that are using steam in America. God bless the plumber / heating professionals out there.
Dan, I love this talk. Thank you!!!
Thought, if stream heat was instead termed "phase change heating" that might improve reasoning about steam systems and prevent some of the flawed fixes you discuss.
The p-trap joke cracked me up.
Everyone loved traps. Especially weeby engineers ^_^
Sounds like there's some kind of crosstalk on the microphone wire, like a radio is playing quietly in the background...
Built in the 1800s and works i have 2 replace my water heater ever 2 years they are built 2 break not last
The comments about the 1918 Influenza epidemic are now very insightful and relevant as we approach 350,000 dead Americans.
*dead from natural causes mostly but yea
Hi I really enjoyed this video, do you mind if I use it?
Home many HVAC techs understand steam systems today? Very few.
people dont care and dont realize how important plumbers are. fixing this. i am plumber and everytime that i have to move a steam radiator i feel afraid to fuck the whole system up
The diagram at 5:30 is incorrect. The steam main from the boiler slopes down from the boiler and the condensate pipe also slopes down to the boiler. The down slope of the steam main is to keep water traveling with the steam. Gravity will allow water condensed from steam that has cooled on its journey to the radiators to flow under the steam, back to the boiler thru a trap and pipe connected to the condensate line at the end of the main. The trap allows water, but not steam, to return to the boiler. This arrangement keeps water out of the steam rising to the radiators. Water with the rising steam causes banging pipes and radiators.
You wrong
This is the talk that was featured in the New Yorker! (Not this *exact* talk, but a similar one.)
www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/01/04/steamed-the-joy-of-steam-heat
This guy should be a comedian! I kid! I kid!
Is anyone else surprised how many women are involved in this organization? At least at the leadership level. I thought women were about 2% or less of the entire industry.
If one was to change Mrs. Singers hair color and style somewhat, she would look like a bit like George Washington I think...I wonder what Dan's comment would be on the covid issue of the past couple of years?
"closed windows cause radiators to put out more heat out than Shakira!" - joke of the week!
Anyone else watching this in 2022or after covid the influenza history hit home lol