Sunday, January 27, 2013

Steam

Torrington, Connecticut

6 comments:

Markus Spring said...

Perfect, in fact so perfect that it's hard to believe this is real.

Carl Weese said...

Thanks, Markus. This building is Torrington's main library. I really can't imagine what these pipes do. The building is old and could be heated by a steam boiler, but you don't use PVC pipe to carry steam. It could be venting a clothes dryer, but why would a library need one, and why four pipes? It's a mystery.

lyle said...

In a house I once owned, there was a 'hydropulse' boiler. Very efficient gas boilers that vented the exhaust thru CPVC pipe (which looks like PVC but can stand higher temps). The boiler needed two pipes, one for exhaust, and one for intake which had to face down to prevent water from entering. Maybe that is the gig here??? (my first reaction when I saw this photo was "which way did they go"?)

Carl Weese said...

Lyle, that certainly seems to fit the bill. The building is old enough to have a new high-tech replacement system. Also it's quite large, so perhaps there are two of these boilers, either for capacity or redundancy. This is right in town so I'm sure there are natural gas lines. It was a chilly day so the steam could be hot exhaust hitting cool, damp air.

Anonymous said...

Looks like the pipes are trying to exscape.

Anonymous said...

That poor tree looks like it has suffered from the plastics exhaust. Plastic America!!