Dan Holohan: Heating Help

Celebrating the illustrious career of a renowned hydronics industry voice

forstern@bnpmedia.com (Natalie Forster) — Wed, 10 Jan 2024 00:00:00 -0500

There is no shortage of industry patrons who’ve been impacted by Dan Holohan — manufacturers, reps, plumbers, and fellow writers alike. His love for teaching, writing, giving back and just undeniable kindness have left a mark.

Goodbye after nearly four decades of writing

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Hello, old friend. I’m writing today to say thanks, and to say farewell. This will be my last column.

Do you teach your customers?

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 00:00:00 -0500

So my advice is this: Teach, don’t sell. Be interested in your students as people. Get involved in their lives. Make friends. Help them.

Do wholesalers still design systems?

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 00:00:00 -0400

I know that some wholesalers still size equipment and design systems for their contractor customers, but I wondered to what degree this still goes on nowadays.

Dan Holohan: Why contractors order the way they do

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Tue, 05 Sep 2023 00:00:00 -0400

With all the technology we have these days I was curious as to if and how contractors were using it to place orders with their suppliers. The Wallies wasted no time in telling me how they do it nowadays, and more importantly, why.

Dan Holohan: My friend's mansion

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Mon, 07 Aug 2023 05:27:05 -0400

I’m thinking that this mansion would be well-built and properly insulated, with good windows. I’m also thinking about that brand-new, one-pipe-steam system and how simple it is.

Dan Holohan: What do contractors call ‘almost perfect’ when it comes to manufacturers?

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 00:00:00 -0400

This is the question I asked the contractors: Can you name a manufacturer that you think is close to perfect in all that they do? And if so, what makes them that way? What might they do better?

Dan Holohan: Do radiator reflectors work?

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 00:00:00 -0400

We always have turkey for Thanksgiving. I mean who doesn’t? My job wasn’t to cook it, though; it was to eat it. I loved the way the turkey always made the house smell, and I remember how The Lovely Marianne would carefully lift the aluminum foil off the radiator to baste it, hour after hour.

Dan Holohan: Still learning

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Sat, 06 May 2023 00:00:00 -0400

"Our problem is that five out of hundreds of univentilator coils freeze up on a regular basis. They are part of two pipe steam systems with pneumatic control valves and condensate pumps. The F&T traps have been replaced and the coils are grading down to the returns. The traps on some are two feet or so below the coil outlet. The boiler pressure on all buildings runs between 4 psi and 8 psi and the boiler shuts down at night until the coldest room in the building requires heat. If the outside temperature falls below -15 C the boiler stays on pressure. Do you have any ideas on how to solve this problem?"

Dan Holohan: Who's driving the truck?

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 00:00:00 -0400

My first job in this business was to be a truck driver for an AC/Refrigeration wholesaler on Long Island. I didn’t have a car at the time, so I walked a mile to the branch and loaded a box truck, which I then drove 30 miles east to the branch where I would spend my days. Once there, I unloaded the transfer stock, reloaded for the local deliveries, and then drove off to learn about life.

Dan Holohan: What did you think wouldn't make it?

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 00:00:00 -0500

When we started HeatingHelp.com in 1997, the folks who built that first crude site told me we could have a links page. I asked what that was, and the young man doing the coding told me it was a place on the site where visitors could go to see what other sites I thought were interesting.

Dan Holohan: Do promotions work?

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Tue, 07 Feb 2023 00:00:00 -0500

The promotional offers show up every year and I always wonder whether they work? I suppose some do because the manufacturers repeat them. Buy a bunch of boilers, get a winter coat. Or work boots, or whatever. But does that really motivate the contractors to buy that particular brand?

Dan Holohan: Circulators or zone valves

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Fri, 06 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500

We have much smarter circulators these days, so I was wondering whether today’s contractors preferred using circulators or zone valves. I posed the question on The Wall at HeatingHelp.com, which is a place where some of the smartest hydronic-minded people meet to discuss such things. They are never shy when asked a question. Here’s some of what they had to say.

Dan Holohan: The Homeowners challenge

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Wed, 07 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0500

I wrote a book for homeowners in 2003 and called it, “We Got Steam Heat” (with apologies to The Pajama Game). I wrote that book because I had written another book 11 years earlier that I called “The Lost Art of Steam Heating.” A lot of homeowners bought “Lost Art" because they were having difficulty finding a contractor who knew anything about steam heat, so they decided to get their learn on.

Dan Holohan: Mistakes were made

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 00:00:00 -0500

A homeowner in Michigan sent an email that had me shaking my head, and not for the first time. Listen:
“Our house is heated by a Utica Gas Boiler that was here when we purchased this house. Sitting next to the boiler is a Hoffman boiler-feed pump. The problem we have encountered is that we’ve had to have the pump replaced five times since 1981. We have hard water (with iron) but I am not sure if that is the problem.

Dan Holohan: Divvying up the bill

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Thu, 06 Oct 2022 00:00:00 -0400

There’s long been talk about how to divvy up the heating expenses in buildings that have tenants. Should each tenant have their own meter? Their own boiler? Boilers are a lot smaller than they used to be, right?

Dan Holohan: Teach kids about energy conservation?

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Tue, 06 Sep 2022 00:00:00 -0400

The title of the article that appeared in UKToday news some months back was “5 Easy Ways to Teach Kids about Energy Conservation.” There was no author listed but I’m wondering if the person who came up with this article even had kids. Kids aren’t easy, especially when it comes to energy conservation. Allow me to explain.

Dan Holohan: How to be a good counter person

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 00:00:00 -0400

I asked the many contractors who post regularly on The Wall at HeatingHelp.com to tell me what they like (and don’t like) about the counter people at their suppliers. Here’s some of what they had to say. I hope you find it to be good food for thought.

Dan Holohan: What I learned during the 1930s

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Wed, 13 Jul 2022 07:00:00 -0400

I was, I’m sure, not even in the minds of my someday-to-be parents, but I’ve spent a lot of time in that decade of the Great Depression nonetheless. I like to think of them as teenagers as they wondered what was to be. They truly were the Greatest Generation.

Dan Holohan: Dead men tips

Thu, 09 Jun 2022 00:00:00 -0400

My long-gone friend and mentor “Professor” Fremont Lobbestael of Ann Arbor, Michigan, once told me about how things were when he first got started.

Dan Holohan: Service is never easy

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Thu, 12 May 2022 00:00:00 -0400

I asked some friends in the industry, who work in cities, how they manage to do what they do, what with the traffic, lack of parking and high-stressed inhabitants. What they had to say made me shiver.

Dan Holohan: I can see clearly now

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 00:00:00 -0400

For most of my career I’ve heard lay people say that it doesn’t pay to turn down the heat when they’re away from home because it takes much more heat to heat the house up again once it goes cold. They believe this because someone told them it’s true, even though it’s not true.

Dan Holohan: What you have to do to win their business

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 00:00:00 -0500

I recently posed this question to The Wallies, they being contractors who post nearly every day on The Wall at HeatingHelp.com: If a new wholesaler moved into your town, what would they have to do to win your business?

Dan Holohan: Seeing the world in a different way

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 00:00:00 -0500

I was listening to James Trane the other day. He was speaking from Chicago in 1902, telling me that his system of steam heating using small pots of mercury was the best way to go. Mercury. That got me thinking about how my classmates and I used to play with mercury while our science teacher smiled as he wandered the room, watching us poke the dangerous stuff with our adolescent fingers. Life in the 1950s sure was interesting.

Dan Holohan: Noise or music?

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 00:00:00 -0500

In 1992, I self-published a thick book I called, "The Lost Art of Steam Heating." I did this because I could not get a publisher interested in something that few, if any, contractors had installed since the 1930s. I thought it would do well in New York City, where there are still plenty of steam-heated buildings, but to my delight, we sold tens of thousands of copies everywhere, and even in Hawaii. Go figure.

Dan Holohan: Adventures in pumping

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Tue, 30 Nov 2021 00:00:00 -0500

I read somewhere that the most prevalent machine in the world is the electric motor. I thought about that for a while and it made sense. Just look around. But then I began to wonder what the second-most prevalent machine in the world is. Turns out it’s the pump! And most pumps are connected to electric motors of one kind or another, so there you go. Throw a rock and you’ll hit a motor. Or a pump. They’re everywhere.

Dan Holohan: 'Oh the places you'll go'

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 00:00:00 -0500

Dr. Seuss wrote a beautiful book by that title. It’s probably been the main focus of most high-school valedictorian addresses ever since. But I don’t think Dr. Seuss ever spent much time in unusual mechanical rooms or famous buildings.

Dan Holohan: Marbles and ghosts

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 00:00:00 -0400

I worked for a manufacturers’ rep when I was first learning about hydronics. A guy I worked with was 15 years older than me. He knew that I had absolutely no training as an engineer so he took a different tack with my education. He made me close my eyes and imagine myself as a marble rolling through the pipes.

Dan Holohan: Troubleshooting the cuckoo's nest

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Mon, 30 Aug 2021 00:00:00 -0400

The steam seminar was to be in North Carolina, which was strange enough, that being the state where most folks only know how to say, “Heat pump, please.” It was also going to be sparsely attended. Oh, and the location was a nasty, windowless, brick-walled basement room in what used to be a hospital, but was now an office building. I immediately looked around for Jack Nicholson and Nurse Ratched. Welcome to the cuckoo’s nest.

Dan Holohan: The two sides of hydronics

dan@heatinghelp.com (Dan Holohan) — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 00:00:00 -0400

Steam-and hot-water heating joined hands a long time ago to make up what we today call “hydronics.” Both systems run on water, and they’ve been around for hundreds of years. The Institute of Boiler and Radiation Manufacturers coined the term hydronics in 1946 to make the science of heating a building with water sound sexy — like “electronics.”