J34 



THE FLORISTS MANUAL. 



ever pressure is in the boiler. The re 

 turn pipe will most likely leave the 

 greenhouse about the level of the floor 

 and run as directly as convenient to the 

 pump, where it falls into a drum or 

 cylinder which in a small pump is about 

 two feet long and fifteen inches in 

 diameter. In this drum there is a float 

 and as soon as there is a gallon of water 

 returned the float rises and lets in a jet 

 of steam, which starts the little pump 

 working, and by a 1%-inch pipe throws 

 the water into the boiler smoothly and 

 almost silently. This pump keeps your 

 system clear of any condensation. Our 

 pump is in a small brick pit eighteen 

 inches below the floor of the boiler-house. 

 This can always be arranged, but it 

 appears that is not necessary, and if the 

 pump were set on the floor it would work 

 perfectly, because the pressure behind 

 the condensed steam would raise the 

 water two feet into the drum. Wherever 

 convenient, however, I would prefer to 

 have the drum a few inches below the 

 return pipe so that there would be de 

 cided fall into the drum. 



In the article on gravity I said about 

 all I could on the distribution of the 

 radiating pipes, so what more I can say 

 on the high pressure system will be de 

 voted to remarks on its advantages. Al 

 though reduced in pressure by the con 

 troller the steam is still hotter and drier 

 than steam only raised slightly above 

 the boiling point. When occasion arrives, 

 it will travel to the farthest point of 

 your system much quicker than by in 

 creasing the supply of steam with a 

 stronger fire. In many places the drain 

 ing of a deep pit is almost impossible 

 without great expense. There is no need 

 of it in the least. It is money wasted. 

 You will find that after this steam under 

 the pressure system has been through 

 your heating pipes it will return to the 

 pump in the shape of steam, showing 

 that you have got the utmost benefit 

 from it, but the chief claim of the advo 

 cates of the high pressure system is that 

 it is a decided saving of fuel, and I 

 quite agree with them. Why this should 

 be I am not able scientifically to argue 

 or demonstrate, yet it seems that after 

 you have once got the forty to sixty 

 pounds on your boiler, very little ad 

 ditional fuel will hold it there. It is 

 certain that any condensation returning 

 to the boiler is much hotter and nearer 

 steam than under the gravity system, 

 hence less fuel is required to convert into 

 steam. 



In conclusion, without an elaborate 

 drawing it would be difficult to demon 

 strate the arrangements of pipes, posi 

 tion of the controller, pump, by-path 

 and other points, but any one thinking 

 of installing this up-to-date system 

 would surely visit one of the many 

 establishments where this system is in 

 use. He could take quite a journey for 

 the price of digging ten feet into the 

 earth. 



There is one point more. Whatever 

 stea.&quot; 1 system you use, don t depend on 

 one boiler. If you need eighty horse 

 power, buy two forties, if a hundred get 

 two fifties, and it is a saving in fuel to 

 have plenty of boiler power. As it is in 



hot water heaters, a little recent real ex 

 perience may be worth quoting. For 

 two years we heated about 22,000 feet of 

 glass with one boiler rated at fifty horse 

 power. Then we built on another 12,000 

 feet CJL glass situated 250 feet from the 

 boiler-house, and put in another boiler 

 rated at seventy-five horse-power. Now 

 on occasions either one of these boilers 

 will heat and has heated the whole place, 

 but both night and day firemen are 

 positive that one-third less coal is burned 

 when they are using both boilers to do 

 the work. 



What wonderful stuff this asbestos 

 covering is and how it enables you to 

 carry steam long distances in the open 

 a-- ! You have heard of the rival safe 

 makers, one of whom, to demonstrate the 

 imperviousness of his safe to heat, locked 

 a mouse in the safe and then subjected 

 it to great heat. On unlocking the safe 

 the poor mouse was found frozen to 

 death. A more truthful experience, and 

 one nearer home, has astonished us; 

 in running a 2-inch steam pipe from the 

 boiler house to some carnation houses 

 250 feet distant, we have to cross an 

 orchard ten feet above the ground. The 

 2-ineh pipe is covered with asbestos an 

 inch thick and then a thin covering of 

 tar paper. We have noticed frequently 

 that Avhile five pounds of steam was 

 coursing through the 2-inch pipe, icicles 

 were hanging from the tar paper cover 

 ing. 



Heating by Hot Water. 



I must preface this very important 

 subject by a confession. Some fifteen 

 years ago I made the acquaintance of a 

 steam-fitter, a clever workman, who had 

 been quite successful in heating dwelling 

 houses and thought he had ideas on 

 greenhouse heating, but on that he was 

 away off. A weakness of the writer is 

 to be anxious to learn from any one who 

 he thinks knows more on any subject 

 than he does. So I learned from this 

 man several fallacies on greenhouse heat 

 ing which I have many times regretted 

 putting into print. It does me good to 

 confess this and I must ask the reader 

 of the article on hot water in the first 

 edition of this book to believe that where 

 my present views conflict with what I 

 wrote six or seven years ago, it is the 

 result of later experience and practice. 

 One of the fallacies was the use of 

 small pipe, that is, less than 2-inch. 

 Looking at this question superficially, the 

 small pipe, 1-inch or 1^-ineh has the ad 

 vantage over larger because you get 

 more radiating surface in proportion to 

 volume of water, but in practice this 

 does not hold good. Friction is so great 

 that the circulation is retarded, radiation 

 is rapid and the small amount of water 

 in the small pipe soon cools. While 1*4- 

 inch pipe may work very well in a house 

 not over fifty feet, for any longer 

 distance use nothing less than 2-inch. 



The next and most costly mistake for 

 me was running the pipe straight up 

 from the boiler perhaps to within a foot 

 of the greenlumse ridge, using a 2%-inch 

 or 3-inch pipe, and at the farther end 

 then dropping into a number of returns 



containing eight or ten times the volume 

 of water of the flow pipe. Here is a dis 

 mal specimen of one of the houses, and 

 I have reason to believe the same mis 

 take has been made in hundreds of 

 cases. 



He had a 4-inch pipe rising from the 

 boiler to the height of the greenhouse 

 ridge, then branched off with a 3-inch 

 and suspended the 3-inch about a foot 

 from the ridge to the farther end. The 

 house was used for soft-wooded pot 

 plants, and was 20x100. At the far 

 ther end the 3-inch branched into two 

 2-inch pipes and dropped to the level of 

 tne 4-inch cast iron pipe under the 

 benches, with which the house was 

 formerly heated, four under each bench. 

 By a complicated lot of fittings one of 

 the 2-inch pipes was actually expected to 

 heat the four 4-inch. Could anything be 

 more absurd? Eoughly estimated, the 

 four 4-inch contained sixteen times as 

 much water as the one 2-inch. Now this 

 was an extremely absurd case, yet I have 

 seen many others, where the same mis 

 take exists differing only in degree. 

 What were the principal features in this 

 failure? The pipe near the roof at the 

 boiler end of the nouse was very hot for 

 perhaps twenty feet; then it gradually 

 cooled and for more than half the length 

 of the house there was not heat enough 

 for any to be diffused among the plants 

 on the benches. When the 2-inch pipe 

 emptied into the four 4-inch returns, ii 

 slightly warmed them for a few feet, and 

 then for seventy-five feet there was no 

 heat under the benches. 



I must digress a moment here to say 

 that although growers generally want no 

 steam or hot water pipes beneath their 

 oenches of roses or carnations, they are 

 of undoubted benefit to our soft-wooded 

 plants like geraniums and begonias. 

 Every one who grows bedding plants 

 must have noticed this, but under the ar 

 rangement described we had little but 

 cold, damp benches. There is a time of 

 year, fall and spring, when this pipe 

 near the ridge is useless. Days or nights 

 when it may be 50 degrees outside you 

 need a little fire heat to keep out damp 

 ness and keep up a healthy circulation 

 of the atmosphere. While firing gently 

 you will also want a little ventilation, 

 and the heat from overhead pipe will 

 entirely be wasted and your house left 

 chill and damp. 



There was an absurd controversy in 

 the florists papers some fifteen years 

 ago on this subject of overhead heating. 

 Some said that as the natural source of 

 the heat was from above, meaning the 

 sun, that our pipes should be near the 

 roof, a great fallacy. Another piece of 

 information which appeared some years 

 ago in answer to a query was, If you 

 use hot water you need not excavate for 

 heater, if you intend to use steam then 

 you must keep the boiler well down be 

 low the level of the greenhouse. Now 

 adays we know that, broadly speaking, 

 the very reverse of this is the truth, for 

 it is the return, or cool, water pressing 

 on the warmer and lighter water in the 

 heater that is the power or cause of cir 

 culation, therefore the greater the height 

 of the descending column of water the 



