Photo courtesy of Dan Jamison The installation of the Calumet Theatre’s new boiler was completed in January. The new heating system is now on line and will provide steam heat to the theatre during the 2025-26 heating season.

CALUMET – The ongoing project at the Calumet Theatre to restore steam heat to the theater promises a warm space for shows and events this winter.

In Sept. 2024 a new boiler was ordered to replace an existing one that had failed. Installation of the new boiler was completed by Marty’s Heating Services, of Hancock, in January, with Phase One of the project completed by March of this year. This included removing the old, failed boiler, installing the new unit, and having it inspected and licensed. Along with the failed boiler, old manifolds were removed and new, threaded, manifolds were restored, replacing the old, welded ones.

Phase Two included repairing, fitting, packing, and testing steam pipes throughout the building.

Calumet Theatre Co. President Dan Jamison said Marty Trevathan of Marty’s Heating had been inspecting the entire system throughout the theater over this past summer.

“He’s been fixing detailed items, aligning pipes,” Jamison said, “and working on the back wall of the stage, to get those big radiators (on the wall) up and running.”

All of this work is in advance of the upcoming heating season, said Jamison, and the theater will be properly heated this year, using steam rather than forced hot air.

Jamison said a representative from a Baltimore steam heating firm visited the theatre in the spring. He measured the radiators, pipes and fittings throughout the Red Jacket Ballroom. The measurements will be used to determine the size of an additional boiler to heat that area.

“So, that’s all stuff in the works,” said Jamison. “We would start applying for grants for that project before next spring.”

Jamison said the measurements determined that the project is three radiators short of the number required, but the nearby Vertin building has a number of radiators they are willing to sell.

“That was the beauty of going to Vertin’s,” he said, “because they do have the type of units, the commercial steam radiators, “so basically, all it would be is having them sandblasted and re-painted.”

In June, Representatives of the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) were in Calumet and received a tour of the theater, said Jamison, because the theatre had received a substantial grant from the organization to replace the building’s boiler.