Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Michigan Gas Association (Volume 14) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906. Excerpt: ... GAS DISTRIBUTION AT GRAND RAPIDS. By A. F. Traver. During the Fall and Winter of 1902, Grand Rapids began to have her first serious troubles on the distribution system then in use. During the Summer just preceding this there had been installed several miles of large feeder mains radiating from the Works. These lines were put in with the view to putting an end to pressure troubles for many years to come, but owing to the rapidly increasing business and the still more rapid increase in peak load, due thereto, these mains proved inadequate to supply the required amount of gas at the peak hours unless they had behind them the highest holder pressure possible with our present holder installation. This condition reduced our available holder capacity to the 300,000 feet of gas contained in the upper lift of our heavies: holder, and as this amount supplemented by the maximum make of our generating apparatus during the peak hours could not supply the demand, the holder uncupped several times during the Winter before the draw was off, resulting in a decreased pressure on the distribution system. To remedy this we installed the next Summer, a small steam-driven exhauster at the outlet of one of our smaller holders, so connected as to pump from this holder directly into the street mains, thus rendering some of the gas in this holder available for use during the peak hours, the amount thus available being dependable on the maximum pumping capacity of the exhauster during the hours it was run. The method of operation was to start the exhauster at the beginning of the heavy pulls, supplying as much gas as possible from this small holder, thus keeping the greatest amount of gas possible in the upper section of the large holder. The maximum capacity of this exhauster, how...