Posted by chris on November 07, 2001 at 11:35:48:
My condo is in an old Victorian House - 1893 - and there is currently steam heat. It does work, but we have had some fine-tuning problems with the values and levels with the boiler. I'm not all that familiar with the workings of the boiler - but it's under 10 years old. And, the heat does work excellent - except that our house and each unit is not all that heat efficient, and is not zoned into the 4 units seperately.
The complaints/worrys of the other condo owners is that the boiler requires so much maintenance (usually just in the fall I think) and that the old pipes that carry the steam are very rusty and could cause more damage in the future if they corrode? They are proposing replacing the whole system with gas piped heating that goes into each unit individually - through the outside wall. That way we dont' have to rip up the house to replace the rusty pipes (and probably asbestos too?). They are looking into furance type things that are small, and you would one unit in each room.
I haven't heard anything about this type of heating, but I don't know any alternatives either? Does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing? And, any recommendations on the rusty pipes? Should we worry about them? Replace them? Is there any way to change the steam heating into different zones as well?
Thanks for any help!