For quite a few years now Willmar's downtown district and some other areas have had city heat. That means that a hot liquid is pumped into pipes at the power plant and sent to those particular areas. The amount of energy going into a building is metered, as is the amount of energy leaving the place, and the difference shows up in the utility bills. This heat is set up to heat homes and businesses and to furnish hot water as well. It's been a very handy and efficient system.
It follows a much older system which was used to heat downtown Willmar and adjacent buildings, but did not reach out into the community the way the present system does.
The old system ran by the calendar. Let's say that May 15 was the day the heat was to be turned off. That's the day it was turned off, whether the temperature was in the high 80s or 90s, or down near freezing. After the appointed date there would be no heat until it was turned on again in the fall.
Each autumn the entire scene was repeated in reverse. It was the date that was important, not the temperature. On hot September and October days nearly every window and door in downtown Willmar was open wide!
That system proved to be efficient for quite a few years because it did not cover a large area. Through its steam was piped from the boilers of the power plant to Willmar stores and re-circulated. The only temperature control was through the opening and closing of steam radiators or limiting the amount of steam that was needed to heat a particular building. There were no thermostats.
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One big trouble with steam heating systems was that the underground pipes would leak, and as they leaked they eroded the ground near the steam pipes. Those pipes ran under the street and, in at least one instance the street surface broke under the weight of vehicles on the surface and at least one had to be fished out of a big hole in the 300 block of Fifth Street.
The new equipment was manufactured in Sweden -- all the operating instructions were in Swedish. Swedish engineers visited Willmar often. This was the first installation in the United States and they wanted to be sure everything was right, so they followed every step of the process from digging ditches in the streets to the final installation in a home or business place.
Downtown Willmar was a total mess, but the stores were open and doing business. Customers appeared wearing overshoes or boots. There were dozens of promotions to bring people to downtown Willmar and they were successful. One year the Rotary Club of Willmar made a deal with the then Downtown Council to put on its annual corn and chicken feed in the display lot of a local garage. They ran out of chicken.
Soon it will be the time of year when the old heating system was turned on for the season. Now every store and home using the new system controls the heat in its own building with thermostats. A customer can have heat winter or summer -- whenever they wish. No more just wishing for a cool spell so the buildings could get really cooled off. No more quickly turning on the steam when a cold front came through, or coming in the morning after a cold afternoon to find the place a Turkish bath. That was life in downtown Willmar 35 to 40 years ago.
