Email #49 - Steam Pipe Revisited

Some of you might remember my emails last summer -- like "Steam Pipe or Time Bomb?" -- in which I questioned the wisdom of running a low pressure steam pipe directly above CAUP's computer servers in the basement of Architecture Hall. Those rooms need to be temperature-controlled on the cool side, and it seemed like a steam pipe might warm things up too much.

Good question, I was told, so the architects and mechanical engineers re-examined the issue. Their conclusion was that the computers will produce a lot more heat than what might leak through the insulation of the steam pipe. The server and IOC rooms will be adequately cooled by the HVAC system as originally designed. Therefore, there was no need to relocate the pipe. However, they are replacing it with a new pipe.

That's what you see in the attached photos. In the middle photo, the view is looking west from the future Input/Output Computer Center into the Server Room, which has a yellow ladder in it. Both the old and new pipes are now visible. Within a week, the new pipe will be hooked-up and carrying steam heat to the Guthrie Annex buildings to the west of Architecture Hall. Then they will take out the old pipe.

In the top photo, the camera is pointed straight-up at both the old and new pipes. In the bottom photo, the view is looking east and up, sorta what the servers might see if they woke up in the middle of the night during a scary download.

The old 5" pipe was insulated with fiberglass wrap. The new 6" pipe is currently being insulated with much thicker layers of calcium silicate, as illustrated in the top and bottom photos. Later the new pipe will be wrapped with aluminum to protect the insulation.

Is that the end of the story? I hope so.

John Stamets
Dec. 4, 2006

See also #ee, #5, #56 and #63