{"id":184,"date":"2009-12-09T13:22:49","date_gmt":"2009-12-09T17:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/?p=184"},"modified":"2011-07-29T23:01:35","modified_gmt":"2011-07-30T03:01:35","slug":"on-systems-thinking-part-2-the-revenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/archives\/184","title":{"rendered":"On Systems Thinking, Part 2 (The Revenge)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/archives\/85\">a previous post<\/a> &#8220;On Systems Thinking&#8221; I foolishly said that I loved my steam heating system and that I had fixed it. \u00a0This was <strong>too much hubris for the universe to stand<\/strong>, and so it broke. \u00a0The funny thing is, it broke in a way that is very puzzling to me &#8212; so puzzling that no one can figure out what is wrong.<\/p>\n<p>Everything used to work, then I suddenly started having trouble <strong>with four out of my twenty radiators<\/strong>. \u00a0They are all grouped in one area of my house. \u00a0I made a sketch of the problem area here:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/files\/2009\/12\/my-kmc-vacuum-system-problem-area.pdf\">my kmc-vacuum system problem area<\/a> (PDF scan of a drawing that I made)<\/p>\n<p>Everything to the left of the drawing works.<br \/>\nEverything to the right of the drawing works.<br \/>\nEverything in the drawing used to work.<\/p>\n<p>Because I have an unusual heating system (the K-M-C Vacuum System: state of the art in 1906) <strong>there are no vents on my radiators<\/strong>. \u00a0There is only one vent in the basement. \u00a0This is what makes it a real puzzler to me. \u00a0If the vent line were blocked, everything to the left should not work. \u00a0But the fact that the stuff on the left works and the stuff on the right works means the vent line must be working OK, at least in the basement.<\/p>\n<p>Two of the radiators warm up a little at the middle of the heating cycle (I labeled them #2 and #3), right when I would expect them to. \u00a0Then they cool down. \u00a0<strong>They cool down while the boiler continues to fire<\/strong> and well before the system shuts off. \u00a0So the boiler is steaming but the steam is not going here for some reason. \u00a0But the fact that they DID get warm at all means that the steam CAN get there and the venting does work briefly.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m really not sure what to do. \u00a0This is a major problem as 4\/20 radiators not heating means <strong>a big part of my house is suddenly not livable!<\/strong> Any ideas?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve also posted this on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.heatinghelp.com\/forum-thread\/128599\/Some-radiators-cool-down-as-boiler-fires-with-drawing\">heatinghelp.com<\/a>. \u00a0In case it helps, here is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/niftyc\/sets\/72157608801023873\/\">a flickr photoset of my radiators<\/a> that I put on the previous post. \u00a0I keep re-reading Dan Holohan&#8217;s books hoping for a flash of insight that will let me understand what is going on inside these pipes but nothing is coming to me. \u00a0Aaarrrgh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a previous post &#8220;On Systems Thinking&#8221; I foolishly said that I loved my steam heating system and that I had fixed it. \u00a0This was too much hubris for the universe to stand, and so it broke. \u00a0The funny thing is, it broke in a way that is very puzzling to me &#8212; so puzzling [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6386],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-living"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4M7Bm-2Y","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2132"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":186,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions\/186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}