STEAM BOILERS

Dan Holohan, the esteemed heating industry author of 14 books, trade magazine columnist, and seminar circuit legend, coined Steam heat the "LOST ART" in his water-shed 1992 book, The Lost Art of Steam Heating. In this extraordinary book, Holohan bridged the huge chasm that existed between the original designers and installers of Steam heating systems of the mid-late 19th Century and the confounded engineer, heating contractor, and plumbers of The Modern era. Holohan has a knack for boiling down - pun intended - extraneous technical minutiae that only an engineer or a brilliant mind could decipher, and putting it to plain English so that a person of even average intelligence can grasp.

Up until the release of this veritable "Bible" of steam heating, I had spent the better part of 5 years learning - the hard way - the basics of steam heating. When others said it couldn't be fixed, wouldn't work, or wasn't worth trying, I hung in there, often spending many consecutive days and countless nights wrestling, brawling, cajoling, cursing this enigmatic thing we who love it call The Steam. Since my days as the Middle Linebacker and Captain of my high school football team, I have been known to many simply as Mad Dog. I was tenacious, ferocious, and deeply passionate and I NEVER gave up EVER! This carried over in to my adult life and profession. The time spent and money lost did not matter much, I had a quest to master The Lost Art. I learned most through experimentation and from what I could glean from the occasional old book I would come across. Most old timers I spoke to were vague in their explanations. Till that point I had walked alone.....

Holohan's Lost Art of Steam Heating set me on a course of Steam Mastery! Armed with my 7 copies of this great book and that same tenacity, there has NEVER been a steam problem that I have not been able to solve. It is not in my nature to walk away from trouble. Because of Dan Holohan's website and the wonder of the internet, I have received tremendous national exposure which naturally has lead to opportunities of consulting on problem steam jobs throughout the Tristate area. I have seen much of what can be done wrong with The Steam, often by otherwise competent plumbers, pipefitters, and HVAC techs.

When Triple Crown conducts a consultation or performs a repair or installation, you are guaranteed to get the most thorough and experienced Steam experts around. Anybody, any company, can cut the pipes, slide in a new steam boiler and get it to fire up. The Steam is a lot more finicky than that. Although its operation is very simple in principle, Steam heating, if these basic precepts are not shown the utmost respect, will make the building owners and installer miserable with ear-pounding noises, spitting radiator vents, uneven heat and worst of all...VERY HIGH fuel bills.

We take the time to walk through your home or building, measure up all the radiation, listen to your complaints and goals and then come up with a comprehensive plan of attack. At Triple Crown we spend considerable time thinking about YOUR specific systems and what the best approach will be. Our level of expertise sets the standard. For example, there are heating specialists out there that can bring a system back to quite a high level of performance, i.e., 85-90%. However, we have not come across a system that we could not improve further. To get a system to this level, our extensive experience makes the difference. The nuances of the right vent in just the right place, the burner combustion fuel/air ratio, or the differential setting on the Vaporstat will achieve TOTAL VICTORY!!!

OLD SCHOOL PRIDE
Take a close look at all the pictures below. Will your new boiler look anything remotely like these installations?

Forget the black paint on the pipes that we do strictly out of pride. Look at all the valves and drains we use. These valves and the time it takes to install them add quite a bit more to a job. However, they will save YOU considerable sums of money on future service calls. All steam boilers will generate copious amounts of mud and sludge. The key is being able to flush this out before it coats the internal sections of the cast iron boiler and piping and becomes "baked" on. Much like an artery that becomes clogged, leading to heart attack or stroke, a clogged boiler section or return will cause a "dry-fire" situation, cracking your boiler in half and in some cases a fire in your home. Maintenance is swell, but when the original installation does NOT include the necessary valves and drain - in the right places, the proper maintenance just won't "happen."

A New steam boiler will need a good, thorough cleaning with commercial-grade cleaning products. The cutting oils and metal shavings that remain inside newly-manufactured boilers MUST be thoroughly flushed and cleaned out. An average residential steam boiler takes 1-2 days to remove the old one, get the new one in place, repipe it PROPERLY (at a minimum - manufacture's specs), and wire it up. The cleaning of the new system can take anywhere from a ½ to a whole day on top of this. Most contractors will not tell you this upfront, but will let you find out on your own long after they are gone and the check has cleared.

At Triple Crown, we offer three installation options on Steam boilers. The first is a very basic and competitive Install that will be "in the ballpark" with other LEGITIMATE, LICENSED, and INSURED companies. I stress licensed, insured and legitimate companies because we do not consider employees of the local oil or gas companies, guys working "on the side" or Uncle Gus as such. Our Premium option features extra vales, drains, and cleaning while our deluxe job covers everything but the kitchen sink. When I started Triple Crown, I coined the phrase, "you will not see finer craftsmanship..and we guarantee it." Below you can see that I mean what I say....

PHOTO GALLERY OF INSTALLATIONS

This large residence in Westbury had an equally large and oversized boiler to match it.	As usual, we did the math…the new boiler is less than half the size of the old one and still heats the house….. The owner had several quotes that claimed the new boiler had to be bigger than this one – they were wrong.
This is the happy homeowner….they will be warm, toasty, and enjoy a much lower fuel bill this heating season.