Fun pandemic history fact for NY apartment dwellers frustrated by aggressive radiator heat in the winter. The era when steam heat in buildings was new/popular overlapped w/Spanish Flu pandemic, when authorities told everyone to leave their windows open for ventilation. So.... 1/4

The boilers that powered the steam heat systems were built at the time to be able to heat buildings throughout the winter *with all the windows open* Basically, they pump way too much heat. And in the years following the pandemic, larger boilers were part of building code 2/4

Steam heat systems also don& #39;t get replaced very often, so the trends of that era have persisted. So this winter, when you open your windows to let out the excess heat from your radiator, that& #39;s by design, and what apartment dwellers during the 1919 pandemic were doing as well 3/4

There& #39;s a brief mention of this in the NY Times: "both boilers and radiators now had to be much larger because of the need to keep windows open by command of the Board of Health." 4/4 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/realestate/radiators-steam-heat-temperature-control.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/1...