This was my first book and a true labor of love. I spent decades studying steam and the work of Dead Men, in both old buildings and on library shelves. I traveled the country, haunting used-book stores, looking for engineering books that held the answers to questions that nagged at me. I was obsessed with this topic, and when I finally sat to write, I poured all that I had learned into this book, and as I wrote, I tried my best to make the words sound good to you - like we were together and having a conversation. I wanted you to know what I know and I wanted you to be able to do what I can do when it comes to old steam systems. This book arrived in 1992 and has since gone though dozens of printings. We've sold it in every state as well as in foreign countries. Steam heat is everywhere there are old buildings, so why shouldn't you be the one with the answers? Dan Holohan
If you're a homeowner with steam heat, know that I wrote this one for you. If you'd like to fix uneven heat and squirting air vents or want to reduce your fuel bills and silence clanging pipes, then arm yourself with this book and smile. This is not a do-it-yourself book. Here's what you'll learn: How your steam-heating system works (and why it might not) What each component does (or what it's supposed to do) Why high pressure in a steam-heating system won't work How the choice of fuels can affect your system What causes all that noise (and how to get ride of it once and for all) Simple ways to lower your fuel bill What you can do yourself When you should keep your hands in your pockets How to find a steam-heating pro (and how to avoid the knuckleheads) Things that should be in every contract you sign for steam-heating work The right questions to ask when replacing a boiler How to fix, move, clean, paint and/or replace an old radiator How to have a hot-water zone added to your steam-heating system How to know if you can have your steam-heating system converted to hot-water heat And a whole lot more Arm yourself with this book. You will not be sorry. Dan Holohan
I wrote this book to describe the beautiful workings of hydronic heating systems and I tried to use words that made the subject spring to life in a visual way. It's been one of my best-selling books for years. I kept the drawings simple. Even if you've never worked with hydronics before, you'll be able to follow these drawings. The first part deals with boiler-room piping and explains how you can put the discoveries of the late, great Gil Carlson to work for you. If you pipe Gil's way, you'll save time, money and never again have to bleed radiators. Thousands of installers have reported great success by following the principles in the first part of this book. I wish I could take credit but the genius was Gil Carlson's. I just did my best to tell his story in plain English. The second half of the book takes the "Pumping Away" boiler-room piping design and applies it to a delicious menu of piping options. This is a book that you'll refer to again and again. It will save you time and money. And I guarantee that. - Dan Holohan
I wrote this book for people who prefer plain-English explanations of how things work. You won't find much math in this book. No formulas. No mumbo-jumbo. What you will find are simple words of ordinary conversation, and a lot of very easy-to-follow drawings relating to hydronic radiant heating. There are also stories - lots of them I like to tell stories about the things I've seen as I've traveled around the US, Canada and Europe, looking at hydronic radiant installations. I've seen installers do things the right way and the wrong way, and I learned from them all. I dug into old books as well as the current literature to write this one, and I did my very best to boil down the engineering into understandable terms. This book contains 215 pages of practical, common sense information that you can use right away. I've made lots of analogies to things you already know. Hydronic radiant heating doesn't have to be complicated or spooky. There are rules of thumb that work, and installers are using them with great success every day. There are simple ways to install and control these systems. I'll show you how. All in all, you're going to find straight answers to direct questions in this book. I've done my best to present a subject that I love in a way that I think you will find both informative and very enjoyable.
In this “charming” and melancholic novel, a former child sleuth “investigates the hard-to-crack case of Lost Innocence” (Entertainment Weekly). A Chicago Tribune, Kirkus Reviews, and Booklist Book of the Year In the twilight of a mysterious childhood full of wonder, Billy Argo, boy detective, is brokenhearted to find that his younger sister and crime-solving partner, Caroline, has committed suicide. Ten years later, Billy, age thirty, returns from an extended stay at St. Vitus’ Hospital for the Mentally Ill to discover the world full of unimaginable strangeness: office buildings vanish without reason, small animals turn up without their heads, and cruel villains ride city buses to complete their evil schemes. Lost within this unwelcoming place, Billy befriends two lonely, extraordinary children—one a science fair genius, the other a charming, silent bully. With a nearly forgotten bravery, he experiences the unendurable boredom of a telemarketing job; encounters a beautiful, desperate pickpocket; and confronts the nearly impossible solution to his sister’s case. Along a path laden with hidden clues and codes, the boy detective may learn the greatest secret of all: the necessity of the unknown. “Haunted by the mystery of his sister’s death and feeling that a lapse in his sleuthing may be to blame, Billy is determined to find out the reason for her suicide and to punish those responsible . . . The story of Billy’s search for truth, love and redemption is surprising and absorbing. Swaddled in melancholy and gentle humor, it builds in power as the clues pile up.” —Publishers Weekly “The author gives Billy a gallery of rogues to combat and even sends him to investigate the Convocation of Evil at a local hotel (‘Featured Panel: To Wear a Mask?’). Meno sets himself a complicated task, marooning his straight-arrow, pulp-fiction protagonist in a world uglier than the Bobbsey Twins ever faced but refusing to go for satire. Instead, the author takes his compulsive investigator at face value.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review “Comedic, imaginative, empathic . . . investigates the precincts of grief [and] our longing to combat chaos with reason.” —Booklist
BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A novel that follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single setting, The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a stunning achievement in Julian Barnes's oeuvre. Tony Webster thought he left his past behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.
Set during the tumultuous middle of the George W. Bush years—amid the twin catastrophes of the Iraq insurgency and Hurricane Katrina—Landfall brings Thomas Mallon's cavalcade of contemporary American politics, which began with Watergate and continue with Finale, to a vivid and emotional climax. The president at the novel's center possesses a personality whose high-speed alternations between charm and petulance, resoluteness and self-pity, continually energize and mystify the panoply of characters around him. They include his acerbic, crafty mother, former First Lady Barbara Bush; his desperately correct and eager-to-please secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice; the gnomic and manipulative Donald Rumsfeld; foreign leaders from Tony Blair to Vladimir Putin; and the caustic one-woman chorus of Ann Richards, Bush's predecessor as governor of Texas. A gallery of political and media figures, from the widowed Nancy Reagan to the philandering John Edwards to the brilliantly contrarian Christopher Hitchens, bring the novel and the era to life. The story is deepened and driven by a love affair between two West Texans, Ross Weatherall and Allison O'Connor, whose destinies have been affixed to Bush's since they were teenagers in the 1970s. The true believer and the skeptic who end up exchanging ideological places in a romantic and political drama that unfolds in locations from New Orleans to Baghdad and during the parties, press conferences, and state funerals of Washington, D.C.
How much further should the affluent world push its material consumption? Does relative dematerialization lead to absolute decline in demand for materials? These and many other questions are discussed and answered in Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization. Over the course of time, the modern world has become dependent on unprecedented flows of materials. Now even the most efficient production processes and the highest practical rates of recycling may not be enough to result in dematerialization rates that would be high enough to negate the rising demand for materials generated by continuing population growth and rising standards of living. This book explores the costs of this dependence and the potential for substantial dematerialization of modern economies. Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization considers the principal materials used throughout history, from wood and stone, through to metals, alloys, plastics and silicon, describing their extraction and production as well as their dominant applications. The evolving productivities of material extraction, processing, synthesis, finishing and distribution, and the energy costs and environmental impact of rising material consumption are examined in detail. The book concludes with an outlook for the future, discussing the prospects for dematerialization and potential constrains on materials. This interdisciplinary text provides useful perspectives for readers with backgrounds including resource economics, environmental studies, energy analysis, mineral geology, industrial organization, manufacturing and material science.
