Steam systems are still found in many buildings here in the US. These systems required some smart minds to design and the maintenance of these systems is a dying art. Unfortunately these systems are inherently inefficient, almost profoundly so. To work, these systems have to heat up every bit of pipe between the boiler and the radiator to 212°F in order for the steam to reach the radiator. Doing so requires actually boiling a lot of water and creating a lot of steam just to get a single BTU of heat into a room. That’s a lot of energy that wasted.
To make matters worse, many of the old steam systems aren’t controlled so well anymore, if they ever were, and so excess heat in some rooms is driven off by opening windows.
Another problem with some steam systems is that the old pipe insulation has been removed because it contained asbestos, and it was never replaced. So those big old pipes don’t stay warm.
Replacing a steam system is expensive. In the long run it will pay for itself.
