Nuvacuumette Vapor Heating System
The Nuvacuumette Vapor Heating System was developed in England around 1905. This simple vapor system circulated steam at temperatures between 180-200 degrees F, while doi...
Heating Museum Help Topics
Take a stroll through HVAC history in our Heating Museum. This section of our website preserves history and answers that so-important question: What the heck is that thing? Whenever you run across anything unusual, chances are you’ll find the old literature about it right here.
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Recent Articles in Heating Museum
O-E Perfect System
The O-E Perfect System was a Turn-of-the-Century vapor heating system, simply described and pictured in this document. Thanks to Alex Marx for scanning this one for us, a...
Piping Design for Oil Firing
In this 1933 Fuel Oil Journal article, O.O. Oaks, Chief Engineer for the American Radiator Company, explains the effect automatic firing has on a steam system that was pi...
Progress Report on Performance of a One-Pipe Steam System in the I=B=R Research Home
Published in June 1949, this work was was done at the University of Illinois Urbana, where the Institute of Boiler and Radiation Manufacturers once did all of their resea...
Vapor Heating: The Richardson System
The Richardson System of vapor heating was popular in the 1910s and 1920s. It's very simple, and you must run it at very low pressure (less than 1 psig) on a vaporstat. T...
Sarco Alternating Receivers and Lift Traps
The return trap is like a mechanical condensate pump. This 1943 piece about Sarco Alternating Receivers and Lift Traps from the Sarco Company does a nice job of explainin...
Sarco Return Traps
Sarco made a boiler-return trap that was widely used back in the day. Here is their literature on the product, as well as the accessories that went with it. Thanks to Pat...
Six Kinds of Steam Heat
"Six Kinds of Steam Heat" subtitled, "Six ways to recapture the residential heating market," is an interesting article from the May, 1941 edition of Plumbing & Heating Bu...
Skidmore Vacuum Pump
Special thanks to Tim Parbs for sharing this literature from the Skidmore Corporation about their heating products. Tim writes, "One of our customers has an old Skidmore ...
Some Usage Consequences with Orifice Drain Devices
This tech sheet about usage consequences with orifice drain devices was developed by the members of the Fluid Controls Institute in August, 2003. Thanks to T.P. Tunstall ...