.
< Back

Heating System

To help keep our building warm during winter.

  1. Keep the Main Lobby’s glass doors closed – both the first and the second layers. (To experience how this helps, enter the enclosed area. Its temperature would be the whole building’s temperature if the inner glass door is left open.)
  2. Each each bedroom and bathroom radiator has a knob that regulates heat. Set the knob first to 3, then raise or lower it as needed.
  3. The corridors’ knobs could be set to 1 or 2, since these passage areas do not need to be heated as much as in the rooms.
  4. Keep the first to third floor corridors glass doors closed, to prevent heat loss due to gentle draft.
  5. In the same way, keep doors closed whenever possible and not impractical (Crypt, refectory, laundry, library, Main Chapel, rec hall, etc.).
  6. Open your windows when the sun is out. This will heat not only the air inside your room, but also your walls and floors, that will help keep the room warm. (This is part of “passive design” in sustainable architecture.)
  7. Inform the Administration if you feel any current entering into your window sill, or some other area. This is a cause for heat loss.
  8. Do not use old electric heaters. Please switch off any electric heater whenever you are outside the room, as they are always fire hazards.
  9. Third floor residents, kindly make sure the doors and windows at the end of the corridors are closed all the time. The building’s warm air goes up the whole time, and exits through those openings.

Let us kindly help remind each other regarding these, especially since we come from tropical countries without heating systems. There we have cool air conditioning, and try to keep heat outside (closing doors and windows, sealing leaking spaces, etc.). Here in Rome we instead keep heat inside, but also by closing doors and windows, and sealing leaking spaces. In addition, since heat expands and goes up, there is more tendency for loss (compared with cold air) through little exit points, especially when there is even little draft.

The above simple steps will also lessen fuel expenses, that run in the thousands of Euros each month.

When the temperature outdoors goes below 5º Celsius, the heating system switches on automatically, as a protection against freezing and thereby damaging the boilers, pipes and other components.