With the age of some of these boilers mentioned in the article, much of the insulation used in the steam systems would have originally been asbestos. Has the asbestos all been removed?
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It is mainly an economic issue. NYCHA needs a lot of money to maintain buildings that are old and in need of repair. There are many excellent dedicated people who work there, they just need the right tools to do the job. It is a shame that they keep picking on the agency when the real problem;em is funding the agency. The national government keeps cutting back and not meeting their obligations.
2
Read this article right after the "Why Don't Rich People Just Stop Working?" piece and wondered if a project--something like "Adopt a Building and Provide Heat"--could ever appeal to the aforementioned uber rich. Seems like a satisfying charitable endeavor with direct results, giving warmth to those who typically suffer through months of non-stop cold. The "rich" often know how to push to get things done, e.g., a new boiler installation. Is this a hopelessly naive idea?
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Wouldn’t it be possible to use a portion of the $8 billion committed to building massive jails in residential neighborhoods to replace all these old boilers and the remainder to thoroughly retrofit Rikers physically and in terms of the human capital that runs it?
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Classic illustration of what government-as-landlord looks like. The government gets in the business of providing housing for less than it actually costs (charging a pittance to the residents who never ever leave - look at the waiting lists!), and of course it will be substandard. But we’ll get the occasional hand wringing from politicians who then pass the political football onto some other sucker. And of course residents will complain but never actually move. Their inability to find a real landlord to rent to them reflects on their worthiness as tenants. Landlords (and tenants) deserve the tenants (and landlords) they have.
No such thing as a free lunch (or boiler, or apartment) in life.
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No mention of the fuel savings that would be realized with a modern heating system. How much money is being wasted by using antiquated machinery?
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Think of the tremendous greenhouse gases discharged from those old boilers.
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Portable boilers on trailer trucks can be rented, parked on the street, and connected to the building steam system to provide heat. There is absolutely no excuse for people to go without heat or hot water for any length of time. My co-op did this when the 33 year old boiler was replaced in 1990. I also notice on news videos of public housing problems that most of these seem to be caused by leaking water and drain pipes. This in turn causes plaster damage, possible flaking lead paint, and mold. All of this could be addressed if plumbers were funded.
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Send your photographers to the boiler rooms of NYCDOE schools and you will usually find spotless caverns of well maintained equipment. You might want to wear sunglasses to protect your eyes from the glistening red enamel and silvery aluminum paint jobs. Same city and same restrictions of stingy budgets yet if anything, the complaints are of too much heat.
2
Yet another reason not to live in NYC - housing you can't afford under conditions you cannot bear
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@Mtnman1963 What's the other reason not to live in NYC?
2
"Now" workers are scrambling? What has been going on for the previous six months when the boilers were powered down?
Sounds to me like a manufactured crisis to generate overtime hours, but I am darn cynical about such things.
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People who own houses get them tuned up in June. You don't want to start calling for an appointment in October.
3
A hard job, maintaining and repairing boilers. A good, satisfying job, too, for someone not inclined towards academic classes; lots of young people out there who could be trained to do such critical work. Master boiler men and plumbers could check their repairs periodically until they're fully licensed.
Instead, we put young men (and women) through the torture of an academic course in high school and pretending they will ever be ready for, or interested in, a four-year college.
The oil-company men who tend to our boiler are intelligent and skilled.
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