THE FLORISTS MANUAL. 



J35 



faster the circulation. In truth there 

 has been nothing new discovered of late 

 about the circulation. There may have 

 been in its application. 



Some forty-five years ago, perhaps be 

 fore, there was published in London by 

 Hood a volume on hot water. There has 

 never been a better work on the same 

 subject since. We may have found out 

 better and cheaper modes of applying it 

 than prevailed in his day, but all the 

 laws of circulation which he demon 

 strates so finely are just the same today 

 and always will be, for they are natural 

 laws, and can never be altered. Hood 

 says that the circulation of hot water 

 was well known by the Eomans, and used 

 for heating their baths, so this wonder 

 fully useful method of warming our 

 houses did not originate in London, New 

 or Kalamazoo. 



The cause of circulation is finely il 

 lustrated by Hood by having two 

 columns of water, say two lengths of 

 4-inch pipe, each three feet high and 

 connected at the bottom with a piece of 

 pipe of the same size. Half-way in this 

 connecting pipe there is a valve. Fill 

 one pipe with water at the tempera 

 ture of 45 degrees, the other with hot 

 water at a temperature of 180 degrees. 

 Then open the valve connecting the hot 

 and cold columns. The hot water will 

 rise or overflow. Now this is all there 

 is to the circulation of water in your 

 system. The water in the cold column or 

 your return pipe is denser and of greater 

 specific gravity, in simpler words, 

 heavier and forces the lighter and 

 warmer water out through the flow. 



This grand book should be in the 

 hands of every one thinking of doing 

 his own heating. My good father sent 

 me a copy thirty-seven years ago, but 

 I loaned it to a plumber and steam-fitter 

 who has long since retired to an atmos 

 phere w T here steam or hot water heating 

 are little discussed, and I suppose he 

 took my book with him. If so, that copy 

 is decidedly out of print. 



Now this illustrates the motive pow 

 er that first starts the circulation of 

 hot water. It is the difference between 

 the weight of the water in the return 

 pipe and that in the boiler. The water 

 in the boiler being made lighter by the 

 fire, the colder and heavier water forces 

 it up and it is replaced with cold water, 

 so it must follow that the higher, and 

 consequently heavier, the column of water 

 in the return pipe the faster will be 

 your circulation. And it follows again 

 that the faster the circulation the hotter 

 will your pipes be, for the water re 

 turning quickly to the fire has not 

 time to get cool. When your return 

 pipe near the boiler is nearly as hot 

 as the flow where it leaves the boiler 

 your circulation is perfect. All of 

 which goes to prove that the lower 

 the boiler the better the apparatus will 

 work. 



Keserve all your drop till you get 

 near the boiler and then drop per 

 pendicularly down. This talk about 

 giving the pipes a rise of one foot in a 

 hundred, or the same drop, is all bosh. 

 If the pipes were a dead level in the 

 house it would be perfect, but it is 



better to have a rise or fall of two 

 inches in a hundred feet because you 

 want when emptying the pipes to have 

 a drain out. Providing your boiler is 

 well down, and that is the very es 

 sence of the whole job, it makes no 

 difference whether you have a slight 

 rise in the flow pipes in the house or a 

 slight fall. 



As admitted at the start of this article, 

 I was the victim of false theories and it 

 took a few years to break away and re 

 turn to principles I knew of many years 

 ago. Now here is what we did some 

 fourteen years ago and it was wrong. 

 The top of the heater was some two feet 

 six inches below the joists of the boiler 

 shed. It would have been lower could 

 drainage have been secured. As it was 

 we had to lay a 4-inch socket tile 650 

 feet. The two 3-inch flow pipes rose 

 straight up through the floor and eight 

 feet higher. This was done to avoid the 

 doorway leading from the shed into the 

 greenhouses. Please imagine these two 

 houses to be 20x125, running east and 

 west and connected by wooden partitions 

 and wooden gutter. The flow pipe in 

 the houses was a 2-inch on each side of 

 the houses, running a foot below the gut 

 ter and on the sides, on the posts a foot 

 below the plate from which the bars 

 spring; that is a good place for them, 

 but it is by no means overhead heating, 

 it is resisting the cold at a very im 

 portant spot. As we had carried the 

 flow pipe from the boiler so high in the 

 shed, we had to drop again to the level 

 of the flow pipes in the houses, which 

 was done with two elbows and a short 

 piece of 2-inch pipe. Although it 

 worked, this was against correct prin 

 ciples. The hot water had no natural 

 tendency to descend, it would rather flow 

 out on a level. At the farther end of 

 the 125 feet the 2-inch flow went into a 

 manifold with five 1 ^4 -inch openings and 

 they were the returns. This was not 

 anything like as wrong as the case de 

 scribed earlier, yet there was not hot 

 water enough in the 2-inch to supply the 

 five 1^4 -inch. That and other causes, 

 friction and rapid radiation, all com 

 bined made it a poor job. There was no 

 need of air pipes or petcocks in this 

 system because a 94 -inch pipe was 

 tapped into the highest point of pipes 

 in the shed and led up to a large tank 

 which supplied us with water for the 

 houses. This tank held 150 barrels of 

 water and from it a 1^-inch pipe was 

 connected with the return pipe close to 

 the boiler. It may have given us a con 

 stant pressure of fifteen pounds. Please 

 don t attach the slightest importance to 

 the fact that this feed pipe was from a 

 vessel holding 150 barrels of water. Pres 

 sure in a liquid depends entirely on 

 height, not bulk. A funnel thirty feet 

 high and three leet in diameter at the 

 top, tapering to one inch at bottom, 

 would give no more pressure at the one 

 inch opening than a column of water one 

 inch in diameter and the same height as 

 the spreading funnel. Now we ran along 

 several years with the arrangement above 

 described, thought it perfection, and read 

 that others in tue east had adopted the 

 same principle. Yet now we feel sure 



that many tons of coal were wasted in 

 trying to get those return pipes hot. 

 With the small amount of radiation we 

 wanted them hot, not lukewarm. 



So two years ago last summer we made 

 a great change, not with the slightest 

 feeling of doubt or uncertainty, because 

 we were only going on the sound laws 

 and principles of hot water circulation. 

 &amp;gt; e needed a new heater, wrongly called 

 boiler, and purchased the Burnham. Let 

 me say here that I have reason to deeply 

 regret recommending boilers in the past 

 without sufficient experience with them. 

 Still, after two years trial I must say 

 that the Burnham boiler has proved most 

 satisfactory. It is of heavy castings, sim 

 ply put together and easily and thor 

 oughly cleaned. In place of one 2-inch 

 flow pipe we hung two 2-inch and at the 

 farther end ran each flow pipe into a 

 manifold with three 1*4 -inch openings. 

 The 2-inch could amply supply the three 

 114 -inch and they were hot back to the 

 shed. I should have started at the boiler. 

 Will say now that the Burnham boiler, or 

 the size we have, has a 5-inch opening for 

 flow, same for return. We ran up as 

 near as possible to the joist with a 5-inch 

 pipe, then branched with a tee into a 

 horizontal 4-inch pipe. I now remember 

 there were eight 2-inch pipes to be sup 

 plied from this 4-inch. On reaching the 

 south side of the north house we branched 

 with a tee into a 3-inch and rose to the 

 level of the flow pipes. Eemember, the 

 4x3x3 tee came out of a 4-inch horizontal, 

 not an upright, pipe. After supplying 

 that run the flow was reduced to 3-inch 

 and went on to supply the north run of 

 the north house. From the shed end to 

 the farther end the 2-inch flow pipes have 

 a rise of two inches. On reaching the 

 manifolds provision had to be made to let 

 air escape, so we tapped into each mani 

 fold a small petcock. For the first ten 

 days after we begin to fire with a new 

 supply of water there is a considerable 

 accumulation of air. After a week or two 

 there seems no more in the water, and if 

 these petcocks are neglected for weeks 

 no harm results. This I have found re 

 peatedly to be the case. You may not 

 have a tank of Water raised up thirty 

 feet, and there is no need of it. A bar 

 rel or box holding twenty gallons of 

 water, or a metal boiler, such as is used 

 in our kitchens, will do equa^y as well. 

 Let it be seven or eight feet above the 

 bottom of your heater, and when there 

 is a gallon of water in the barrel your 

 system is full. In this case you do not 

 need petcocks, but in place of them sim 

 ply tap in a ^-inch pipe and let it run 

 up a rafter or anywhere out of the way ; 

 that, of course, will constantly and with 

 out watching vent the heating pipes of 

 any air. See that the top of this little 

 pipe is a foot or two above the highest 

 point of the water in your feeding cis 

 tern. This rearrangement of pipes was 

 a great satisfaction and unqualified suc 

 cess, so much so that in seven or eight 

 other houses where the overhead and rise 

 and fall delusion had existed it was all 

 pulled down and common sense and a 

 smooth, quick circulation exists. 



If an amateur came to me and asked 

 for advice about heating a house 20x100, 



