heating history

In this episode, Dan Holohan reflects on the Dead Men who came before us and the legacy they left behind.

The Dead Men had a clever solution for balancing gravity hot-water heating systems. They told each other about it, but they never wrote it down so that you and I, stuck in the 21st Century would know. In this episode, Dan Holohan shares this secret that was almost lost to history.

From the paint-the-floor method to the American Radiator Company's Institute of Thermal Research, Dan Holohan explores how the Dead Men developed radiator ratings.

From explosions to inventions, Dan Holohan shares a timeline of events that impacted the heating industry and the fascinating stories behind them.

In this episode, Dan Holohan explains why this “history nonsense” gives us the insight we need to keep things in perspective and solve the toughest heating problems.

In this episode, Dan Holohan reflects on how his dad grew up, seeing his breath indoors on winter mornings. It’s only within a couple of generations that we’ve come to expect homes to be heated or cooled. Our work whispers; it doesn’t shout. We've gone far beyond protecting the health of the nation. We now also provide the nation with comfort, and when we do our jobs well, people don’t even know we were there.

At first, Eugene Bourdon was annoyed when he saw what his worker had done to the metal tube, but then it gave him an idea that would save countless lives. In this episode, Dan Holohan tells us about an invention that’s at the heart of every pressure gauge ever made (even to this day).

John Mills was one of the great-granddaddies of heating. He worked with the H.B. Smith Company as a freelance inventor and engineer from 1873 until 1897. In this episode, Dan Holohan shares why you may think of John Mills the next time you’re doing a heat-loss calculation or looking at an old steam heating system.

In this episode, Dan Holohan tells the story of Thomas Tredgold, defining the British thermal unit, and why it pays to develop a healthy skepticism.

At the turn of the century, the crowded quilt of lower Manhattan was teeming with manufacturers of heating equipment and the spirit of invention. In this episode, Dan Holohan takes us on a walking tour and shares little-known stories of heating history.

In 1899 an association of boiler manufacturers got together in the spirit of what they called cooperative competition. In this episode, Dan Holohan tells about The Carbon Club’s brazen (and very successful) efforts to not only control the price and supply of boilers, but to also set standards that would keep those boilers from exploding.

After the American Revolution, skilled craftsmen gathered in a tavern in lower Manhattan to discuss how they’d rebuild the war-torn city. They formed an organization that now supports NYC's oldest technical school. In this episode, Dan Holohan tells the story of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen and its lasting impact, as well as why 1880s steam heating is very different from 1930s steam heating.

In this episode, Dan Holohan takes us back to 1917 when the gas lighting industry, threatened by Edison’s lightbulb, branched into the business of gas boilers and furnaces.

The East River Homes were built by the Vanderbilts as a model tenement for tuberculosis patients in 1911. The engineers chose hydronic heating for sanitary reasons, perhaps making this NYC’s first large-scale hot-water heating system. In this episode, Dan Holohan recounts memories of how he later grew up in this housing development and why its heating system was unique for the time.

In the early days of hydronic heating, boilers were exploding left and right. In this episode, Dan Holohan tells how seemingly insignificant mistakes often led to disaster.

John D. Clarke knew how to heat a 70-room cottage in 1893. And he got it right the very first time. Then the Vanderbilts ordered all the mechanical drawings burned after construction so that no one would be able to copy the system. In this episode, Dan Holohan walks us through the history of the heating system at the Vanderbilts’ summer home, The Breakers.

You never know what you’ll come across when you’re the heating person. It’s a wonderful life. In this episode, Dan Holohan tells about the time he was making recommendations on how to save fuel in a circa-1905 voraciously steam-heated building and discovered a Paul System, as well as a piece of American movie history.

Did you know that the first pressure relief valve was invented in 1681 because the King of England really liked jelly? And that the first gravity heating system was used to warm chickens? How about the expansion tank that was assembled using an overstock of baby carriage wheel rims? In this episode, Dan Holohan tells the fascinating stories behind inventions that paved the way for modern heating.

In the 1940s, William Levitt built a community of 17,447 homes, completing one house every two hours. Levitt chose radiant heating for these houses because it was the cheapest heating system he could find. In this episode, Dan Holohan shares the story of Levittown and how those radiant slabs are doing now.

If you're staring at an odd, old device and you don't know what it is, put your hands in your pockets and back away until you learn more about it. In this episode, Dan Holohan tells the story of a strange device and a $50,000 mistake.