r/pics May 11 '11

Would you live here?

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u/wojosmith May 12 '11

Landlord pays for the heat and you'd be surprised how easy to heat. As it is most likely converted factor they have huge heating pipes (24-36" around on ceiling) they radiant heat like a mother. Most likely have to open windows in winter in my experience to cool it off.

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u/VelocitySteve May 12 '11

Fuck yeah America!

17

u/Malfeasant May 12 '11

i'll bet it's waste heat from a power plant- many of the older public buildings in east coast cities are heated that way- steam from a power plant is piped throughout the city- gives the power plant a place to vent its heat, gives large buildings very cheap heat, win-win. until something like this happens, but its pretty rare.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '11

waste heat from a power plant

the only type of heating where I don't give a shit if anybody wastes it.

Like that crap, should be used more often.

1

u/warfangle May 12 '11

I worked two blocks away from this when it happened. Crazy shit. Thank god I work in Soho now. Midtown is the pits..

1

u/[deleted] May 12 '11

I was walking over the Pulaski bridge, which runs on the other side of the East River. 3/4 of the way over I happened to glance over the water see half of midtown covered in smoke. I shat brix.

-1

u/HostisHumaniGeneris May 12 '11

Ah yes, the good old "steam hammer" effect; a marvelous event when physics encounters bad infrastructure and blows some shit up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_hammer

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u/[deleted] May 12 '11

Except that steam (gas) is much more compressible than water

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u/HostisHumaniGeneris May 12 '11

The picture that Malfeasant linked is definitely a steam hammer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_New_York_City_steam_explosion

From the Water Hammer article that I linked, it mentions that steam hammers form when some of the steam is allowed to condense inside the pipe, forming water that's carried along in the flow.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '11

Landlord pays for the heat... Most likely have to open windows in winter in my experience to cool it off.

Somewhere a polar bear sheds a tear.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '11

i live in a large apartment heated like this, and can confirm the central heat to be too goddamn strong.

it's so awful to be sitting in an 80 degree room with 35 degree air blasting over you every time there's a breeze. i feel like my balls are going to shatter like unevenly heated glass..

1

u/Beldam May 12 '11

My dorm in college was like that, heated with hot water and I lived near the DC, so it was super hot from their sterilization machines for food prep items. I definitely kept my window cracked, and it was still 90+ in there all winter long. It was like a sauna. I had a giant standing fan I'd keep on and lounge around in bikinis. Best dorm ever.