1879. 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



39 



COMMUNICA TIONS. 



HOT WATER HEATING. 



F. ^\. POPPEY, OKANGE, N. J 



In going over some back numbers of this 

 magazine, 1 find two articles on the above named 

 subject, one in the February number 1876, page 

 44, and the other April, 1876, page 106, both 

 intended to throw more light on this matter, 

 which has become a very important means in 

 regard to heating houses •, dwellings as well as 

 plant houses. Having mainly to deal with it 

 for gardening purposes, two factors present 

 themselves for our consideration. One is the 

 apparatus, and the other by no means the less 

 important of the two is the manner in which we 

 apply the heat produced from it. 



Considering the first, we seem to have come 

 to a stand still. There is a "boiler," a queer 

 looking thing, more or less foolishly constructed, 

 but patented withal, and said to be superior to 

 all others, but in fact only difi'erent. My objec- 

 tions to all of them to begin with, are the price 

 of acquisition and the subsequent feeding of 

 them. I do not believe that the result is ade- 

 quate to the outlay, and it is in the economy of 

 hot water heating where I find ample room for 

 a very desirable improvement, and this in my 

 opinion, ought to come from intelligent garden- 

 ers, rather than wait for some enterprising plum- 

 ber to " hit upon it." That some gardeners say 

 they don't want anything better than X.'s 

 or Y.'s boiler, does not prove that we need not 

 something better, nor might have it. If however, 

 we continue to treat this subject in the usual 

 empirical and not in a truly scientific manner, 

 we will never reach a more satisfactory result 

 than all our " best boilers in the world," duly 

 patented and persitently advertised have given 

 us up to the present time. Paine says in his 

 " Common Sense :" " The long habit of not con- 

 sidering a thing to be wrong, gives it the super- 

 ficial appearance of being right." Does it not 

 appear strange that to heat water, apparently as 

 simple a thing as can be, should call for such a 

 numerous variety of more or less complicated 

 apparatuses, every one of them claiming, like 

 sewing machines, to be superior to its rivals ? 

 Ought this almost endless diversity not to raise 

 the suspicion of their being about as infallible 

 as the M. D.'s and the D. D.'s ? The three " es- 

 sential points " ia a boiler, the first mentioned 

 correspondent enumerates, I cannot indorse as 

 such. For the first, to be capable of burning all 



kinds of fuel, I cannot see a good reason nor a 

 possibility or a necessity. The second, to have 

 plenty of heating surface, we have best in the 

 boilers in which we actually boil water to make 

 steam, and this is neither surpassed yet nor even 

 reached in any of our so-called boilers, which, 

 in fact, are no boilers at all, but only heaters, 

 and ought to be called so, as we do call the very 

 same thing when the pipes connected with it are 

 filled with air instead of with water. Permit 

 me here to remark that there are yet too many 

 persons of the opinion that the heat obtained 

 from hot water pipes is moist, whilst that from 

 flues or steam pipes is supposed to be dry. This 

 error, like all errors arising from a want of think- 

 ing, might seem pardonable when an English- 

 man who had been twenty-two years foreman in 

 perhaps, the greatest heating apparatus estab- 

 ment in the United States, entertained that same 

 opinion until I undeceived him. The fact is, we 

 obtain heat from steam filled pipes perhaps 

 many degrees above 212° F., whilst that from 

 hot water pipes is always considerably less than 

 that. But why your coxTespondent in the April 

 number would not have his water above 160°, 

 he does not say, nor does there seem to be a 

 good reason for it, except it be that for which 

 the fox didn't want the grapes. I think that, 

 especially in cold nights, many a gardener would 

 have been glad to obtain the balance of 52°, if 

 that patented boiler had produced it. 



That that point can so seldom be surpassed, is 

 another proof that the boasted boilers are not 

 such perfections as they are claimed to be by 

 the patentees. There is one defect surely, es- 

 pecially in the conical ones, and that is the heat- 

 ing surface. Though there be enough of it, it is 

 too far from the burning fuel, and the heat is 

 expected to act sideways, which it only does to 

 a very small extent by mere absorption, its 

 natural tendency being invariably perpendicu- 

 larly upwards, acting by penetration. To I'aise 

 the temperature of the water to the desired de- 

 gree, it is therefore " essential " that the heater 

 should permit more heat to enter the water than 

 it can lose by absorbtion and radiation. When 

 a heater does not admit of a fire big enough to 

 secure that effect, then it is too small or ill con- 

 structed ; if it does, but at too great expense, it 

 is certainly not such a perfection as it is claimed 

 to be. Since the heat when liberated in our 

 ordinary boilers, in its upwards course does never 

 strike immediately and directly a horizontal 

 surface, but heats a considerable volume of air, 



