There’s long been talk about how to divvy up the heating expenses in buildings that have tenants. Should each tenant have their own meter? Their own boiler? Boilers are a lot smaller than they used to be, right? In Europe, you’ll often see those little ones hanging around in the kitchen. I remember seeing those wall-hung boilers at the big ISH show in Frankfurt, Germany the first time I visited there in 1991. I had to ask what they were because, to me, a boiler was something that hunched on the basement floor and weighed more than a compact car. The ones at the show looked more like medicine cabinets.
On that visit, I also saw evaporative Btu meters for the first time. I was in the basement restroom of a tiny bar and looking at the white (well sort of) flat-panel radiator that hung over the urinal. It had what looked like a mercury thermometer stuck to it.