Long before the statue of Liberty graced the skyline of New York Harbor, before the Brooklyn Bridge stretched across the East River, and before the New York skyline began to rise, there were utility companies already building the energy infrastructure that was needed to help sustain the city’s growth.
Today, one of the largest steam systems in operation in the United States provides steam for hot water, home heating, and air conditioning to over 1,800 customers in Manhattan.
Boiler Care in New York City Dwellings
Because steam-boiler systems contain so much pressure, it is imperative to provide the proper care and maintenance for your system. Although safety developments for these steam systems have been improved over the years, the inherent danger is still very much present. Although a twenty story building may be labeled fire-proof, a defective boiler explosion can destroy the whole structure, in the very least its stability.
The best way to ensure the safety of your family and home is to have the professionals at Petri Plumbing provide maintenance to your boiler on a regular schedule. Regular boiler maintenance can include:
Manually checking the water level to ensure proper height. It is important to check physically instead of relying on gauges, water alarms, or floats.
Safety valves should be inspected for proper size and functionality. The neglect or overload of these valves is one of the most common reasons leading to disastrous incidents.
Where fusible plugs are used, they must be examined and carefully scraped clean on both the fire side and the water side.
Gauge-cocks and water gauges should be inspected and cleaned when needed.
All heating surfaces inside and out must be cleaned to ensure fuel efficiency. As a general rule of thumb, there should never be more than 1/16th soot or scales collected on any surface between cleanings.
The mud-drums should be removed and have the sediment cleaned from them.
Hand-holes should also be removed and their surfaces examined. Most particularly important is in the case of new boilers. New boilers should be monitored until the proper intervals between needed cleanings can be established through experience.
Injectors or feed-pumps should be investigated for size and functionality. Without regular attention the pump will undoubtedly fail. More about Cardiff Plumbers | Cardiff Electrical
Regular boiler care and maintained systems will provide fuel efficiency and safety for everyone using this time-honored form of steam energy.
Why replace my toilet with a HET (High-efficiency Toilet)?
There are many things that you can do to reduce water usage in your home; one of the biggest is replacing your toilet with a HET. Petri Plumbing is an EPA Water Sense firm and does HET installations. In fact Petri Plumbing offers high-efficiency toilets.
Overall U.S. Water-Savings Estimate
If all U.S. households installed water-saving features, water use would decrease by 30%. This would save an estimated 5.4 billion gallons of water per day, resulting in daily dollar-volume savings of $11.3 million or more than $4 billion per year.
Water-efficient fixtures installed in U.S. households in 1998 alone saved 44 million gallons of water every day, resulting in total annual dollar-value savings of more than $33.6 million.
• Average household water use annually: 127,400 gallons
• Average daily household water use: 350 gallons
The largest daily user of water in the home is the toilet. By replacing this one product with a high-efficiency toilet (HET) you can greatly affect your total water usage.
How do high-efficiency toilets work?
The high-efficiency toilet market is expanding rapidly. Four technologies have emerged in high-efficiency toilet design: dual-flush, pressure-assist, single-flush gravity, and flushometer valve. Dual-flush and pressure-assist are most common.
A dual-flush high-efficiency toilet is a gravity-flush toilet that saves water by offering different flush volumes: a full-flush for solids and a half-flush for liquids.
The pressure-assist high-efficiency toilet has a sealed compartment inside the tank that contains air and becomes pressurized when water from the supply line fills the compartment. When the flush button is pressed, pressurized air exerts force on the water in the compartment and water shoots into the bowl. The pressure-assist fixture creates a fast flush with a “wooshing” sound. What they lack in quietness, they make up for in water savings. Although these toilets will be slightly louder than standard gravity-flush toilets, they use just under 1 gallon per flush.
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