Engine House - Official Work Thread

[Stewart "Start" Rhine]

Most of the metal roof was installed today by a combination of Steve Lennox's crew and Brendan's crew, known as the magnificent seven.

[Bill Piche]

Ted, my understanding is that a zoned hot water system has been installed that allows locomotives to be kept "warm" without an actual fire .

Yes, a heating system for the Engine House - with a direct connection for its occupants - is planned.

That standby hot water heater keeps the boiler hot Tue-Fri when it's not running. Normally by Tuesday the loco will be down below 150 (which I believe is what the heater is set to). This evens out the thermal cycling and allows for more gentle steamups.

[Mike Fox]

The stand by system will only keep the boiler warm, it will not heat the building, and the colder it gets, the harder it has to work to maintain the temp. There was some talk about a coal stove for atleast this winter.

[Benjamin Richards]

In some sense, it does heat the building, but probably not enough to notice. That water heater is putting out 5.5kW at full whack, about 18,000 BTU/hr. All of that energy eventually ends up in the engine house (Conservation of Energy law). Someone with HVAC expertise could tell roughly how warm it should get based on the ambient temp and thermal characteristics of the building.

At the very least it would be warm in the immediate vicinity of the engine, which might be all you need in a lot of cases.

[Mike Fox]

With all the insulation on the boiler, it heats just that, and the cab. Outside of that, minimal heating benefit to the surrounding area

[Jason M Lamontagne]

Prior to implementing the hot standby system, we carefully measured the heat loss from No 9's boiler for the purpose of sizing the hot standby system.

No 9's boiler (in operating condition, with insulation, etc) loses 31,400 BTU/Hr when maintained at 170 degrees F.  That heat loss goes into the room housing No 9, and is replenished by the hot standby system.

We recognized early on that the cost of operating the hot standby system is offset by reducing the cost of heating the room in which it is housed.  However much heat loss is experienced by that room, 31,400 BTU/hr is replenished by the boiler system.  The remaining room heat loss must be accommodated by that room's native heating plant.

Thanks
Jason

[John Kokas]

I would think that a coal pot belly stove would be a no-brainer for the engine house.  There will be many times when the engines are cold but other type of work would be needed to be performed on them.  Doing that in the dead of winter is tough on both mechanics and equipment. I don't think we would be making the progress we are making in the shop areas if it wasn't for the coal stoves going. 
Lastly, with a little lesson on thermodynamics, the heat loss of #9 is directly proportional to the delta T between the engine and outside environment.  The warmer it is inside, the less heat is lost to the atmosphere.  Thereby , the load on the engine circulating system would also be less.

BTW - there is two nice large pot belly stoves for sale on Facebook Marketplace.

[Jason M Lamontagne]

Hi John,

Re: heat loss vs ambient temperature: of course.  Within the context of the current discussion I was merely pointing out that the room heating effect of the hot standby system is indeed tangible.

Thanks,
Jason

[Mike Fox]

To heat the roughly 2,000 square feet, it would take over 43,000 BTU to effectively heat, using a BTU calculator.

[John Kokas]

No worries Mike,  I'll be glad to bring up some more of that nice Blaschak Anthracite for you.  The Germans and Japanese have been buying up heaps of it.  Let's get a smokejack or a stack penetration in that roof so we can get a pot belly going in the engine house.

[Carl G. Soderstrom]

Don't know what was in original Engine House but a

brick chimney would be most fire safe and efficient in long run.

But if you are just using flue pipe may I suggest elephant ear bypass?

Looks sort of [l] - would take 4 "T"s  but you gain all the extra radiant area.

I think it will need 2 dampers - one to control the fire & one for diversion.

May not be exactly original but then there are other updates installed.

[Mike Fox]

I would think that eventually the most efficient system would be one that heats the building but also has a zone to keep the boiler warm. Maybe that is too complicated but just my thought.

[Graham Buxton]

Heating the Engine House in Maine winter to a comfortable temperature for workers has some challenges beyond those of a 'normal' building with a concrete slab floor.  The concrete wall 'sills' are deliberately taller than a normal wall - done to minimize open flame spread to the wall - but that means that concrete part of the wall has NO insulation.  And the concrete outside walls of the work pit magnifies the problem. Those 3 buried (roughly 4 ft) concrete walls are in direct contact with soil that is frozen/partly frozen in winter.  I did not see any foam board insulation added to the exterior of the pit walls before backfilling. So the concrete wall sills and pit walls are a serious heat sink beyond that of a normal building of that size. The heating system will have to be bigger than 'normal' to overcome those issues.


But heating the Engine House is going to have an additional challenge IF the plan is to make the smoke jacks "functional" by poking large holes in the roof. Even if some kind of operating damper is designed for those smoke jacks, its hard to see how it could more than just an uninsulated steel plate.   (Given that a locomotive seems to be currently being kept warm inside the building, is there a significant benefit to be gained from functional smoke jacks -- enough to offset the heat loss from poking holes in the roof?)


Putting a coal stove in the Engine House also requires a hole in the roof, and in order for the coal stove to work properly, "make up" air has to enter the building in sufficient volume to support combustion in the stove.  That means more holes in the structure, (or perhaps simply not closing off existing holes, say under the big doors.) Coal / wood stoves in a structure are one thing when they are operating, but volunteers are not in the Engine House 24/7. That is different from a residential structure where one can assume that there is someone to tend the stove "most" of the time.


Electric heat eliminates more holes in the building, but is not the only option.  An outdoor boiler is a possible option that doesn't involve large holes in the structure. And while most outdoor boilers are fired by wood (no shortage of potential firewood at the WW&F), there are  outdoor boilers that can burn wood or coal. For instance: https://heatmasterss.com/products/c-series/

[Mike Fox]

Plastic is under the floor.

[Mike Fox]

My basement is heated, and the only place foam was used was by the basement door, under the floor.