I was listening to James Trane the other day. He was speaking from Chicago in 1902, telling me that his system of steam heating using small pots of mercury was the best way to go.

I was, I’m sure, not even in the minds of my someday-to-be parents, but I’ve spent a lot of time in that decade of the Great Depression nonetheless. I like to think of them as teenagers as they wondered what was to be. They truly were the Greatest Generation.

 recently came across the December 1924 issue of Popular Science magazine. Reading stuff like that always makes me feel like I have a time machine.

I read somewhere that the most prevalent machine in the world is the electric motor. I thought about that for a while and it made sense. Just look around. But then I began to wonder what the second-most prevalent machine in the world is. Turns out it’s the pump!

I worked for a manufacturers’ rep when I was first learning about hydronics. A guy I worked with was 15 years older than me. He knew that I had absolutely no training as an engineer so he took a different tack with my education.

Steam and hot-water heating joined hands a long time ago to make up what we today call “hydronics.” 

Most manufacturers rate their condensate pumps in square feet EDR. 

Before I retired in 2016, I’d get a lot of calls from lawyers who wanted to hire me to be an expert witness at a trial. 

We have so many names for common things and tools that we use in this business; and because I have way too much time on my hands, I started wondering how those names came to be.