It's Easy to Take the Boiler Room for Granted, But Here's Why You Shouldn't

"I'm down there every day making sure everything is up to par," he adds. That means spending an hour checking the water levels and steam pressure, cleaning the strainers and air filters either every week or every month, cleaning the sensors, and greasing the pumps and checking the steam traps. Seasonally, an outside company is called in to clean the tubes.

"The philosophy is simple: if you maintain the boiler well, it will run efficiently. I treat it like the heart of the building," says Smart. When he was interviewing for jobs — he's been at the Columbia for seven years — he toured some boiler rooms so dirty that he worried other problems lurked in the building. "The boiler room isn't going to determine whether you take a [job] but it does play a part."

Real estate agents and fire inspectors often show up at boiler rooms unannounced. Smart says he is not worried about surprise visitors.

For property managers, a clean boiler room isn't a bonus, but rather, an essential. "It means the super is on top of his job. He has attention to detail," says Michael Zerka of Blue Woods Management Group, which manages the Columbia. "This is probably the cleanest boiler room I've seen and the best maintained," he adds.

The barons of these boiler rooms have a few things in common: all have immaculate offices, scuff-free work boots, and stain-free shirts. Their commitment to the boilers, they say, stems from a desire to do a great job. And buildings are all the better for it.

Photo by Lorenzo Ciniglio