GSMT - Dan Holohan, Author: "The Lost Art of Steam Heating"
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN recommends it as an informative talk on steam heating whose advice to respect old working systems carries over to software.
What it is
Dan Holohan, author of The Lost Art of Steam Heating, talks about the old steam heating systems he learned about from veteran tradesmen. He shares stories and practical lessons on how these systems work, including running steam at low temperatures.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2018 to 2021.
What Hacker News said
Recommends userbinator · 2019-02 · on “Ask HN: How to be productive with big existing code base”
"When you see something that's old and it's been there for a long time and it's working, don't laugh at it." (From a not-really-related yet quite interesting talk I watched a while back: [this video] --- also featured on HN at [LINK] )
Recommends oftenwrong · 2020-12 · on “Insulation: First the body, then the home (2011)”
As I suspected before clicking, that article cites that explanation as being given by steam heating system expert Dan Holohan. He has a talk up on YouTube that I came across a few years ago. It is interesting on a number of levels, and I recommend giving it a watch: [this video]
Recommends anonu · 2021-04 · on “Heating Water with Fire (2019)”
Tangential topic : There was a post on HN a while back about steam heating. This talk on YouTube was linked. It was really informative: [this video]
Cites avhon1 · 2018-11 · on “The Lost Art of Steam Heating (2017) [video]”
> I've sometimes wondered if it would be practical to operate a steam heating system at a partial vacuum so that the condensation/vaporization could occur at a lower temperature He actually talks about exactly this in the video! [this video] "You'll be sending steam up into the building at temperatures, in some cases, as low as 150 degrees" (83 degrees C)