These are views of Boiler Houses that I photographed around California in 1983. Boilers of all sizes and pressures supply steam for space heating (such as this motel sign indicates), and larger plants for making electric power. Some of these Boiler Houses have inside photographs, so click for the (Inside Tour).
To begin, is this really neat little boiler House is near Dunsmuir, CA. at a lodge once owned and operated by the Southern Pacific Railroad at Shasta Springs. Low pressure steam is provided for heating a number of buildings around the property.
This Boiler House is really in a pit, dug down to about eight feet below grade (as I remember), it housed one steam boiler. The only reason that I can figure that steam was used to heat oil for pipeline transfer, and the return condensation was by gravity back to the boiler.
This Associated Oil Company, Pipeline Pumping Plant was south 10 miles of Coalinga, CA. Not only did steam powered the oil pipeline pumping engines, but the condensing water circulation pump and a (Scotch Yoke) air compressing engine. [Inside Tour] At the time the plant was being taken down, even the pipe line was pulled out of the ground for scrap. It was sad that the large pipe line pump was not saved for a museum, but as they say: "Thats progress."
In Los Angeles at the in the Baldwin Hills oil field, was located this old boiler house that was about to meet its end. It was owned by the Chevron Oil Company and at one time used to provided steam to the oil field, for such things as operating pipeline steam pumps, heating oil so to flow through pipelines and injections wells. [Inside Tour]
The Weed, CA. Lumber Company had their own steam-electric generating plant that burned mill waste to generate steam from a large bank of boilers. The Steam Turbine was located in the building where the electric wires run through the brick wall, excess power was sold to the power company. [Inside Tour]
As I locate more of my old photos of boiler plants, they will be posted here.