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Improvements in heating by Hot Water. 



Art. VI. On some recent Improvements in the Methods of heating 

 Hot-houses and Hot-beds by Hot Water. By R. W. Byers, Esq. 



Sir, 

 Thinking that the following experiments may be interest- 

 ing to the adopters of the admirable hot-water system, I beg- 

 to communicate them, with a few details of their application. 

 For the last twelve months I have had nearly daily experience 

 in my own small houses of the effect of hot water, in preserv- 

 ing heat and stimulating my plants i even, perhaps, more than 

 I required : and had I not taken great care, I believe many 

 of my AvnavyWidece would have suffered from the great heat 

 given to the sand immediately above my delivering 4 in. pipe ; 

 but, examining the pots several times a day, I could raise 

 them until the damper had taken effect, and reduced the water 

 in the pipes to about 90° or 100°. (This I consider the 

 maximum of heat where you apply bottom heat through a 

 medium of damp sand.) As you may suppose, this plan of 

 raising the pots occupied much time and labour ; to obviate it, 

 I resolved to try whether lateral branches might not be ap- 

 plied to the main delivering pipe ; thus constituting it the 

 boiler to the branch. Accordingly, I had an apparatus made 

 of tin, 10ft. long, with 4-inch pipes, not round, but oblate; 

 from the delivering pipe of which proceeded laterals, of 1 in. 

 diameter, and 10 ft. 6 in. long. {fg. 4. a a) This was tried, and 

 fully answer- , 



ed, and the ..^J^. 



branches be- 

 came heated 

 with the same 

 rapidity as the 

 main delivering 

 pipe. Again, 1 

 had pipes, only 

 three-eighths of 

 an inch in dia- 

 meter, attached to the main delivering pipe, purposely to see 

 if the effect would be the same : the result was equally satis- 

 factory. Again, I had a tray made {Jg. 5.), 2 in. deep, 16 in. 



long, and 12 in. wide; 

 iJiiSP g TP 



at one end of which, at 

 the side, a l-inch pipe {a) 

 was introduced ; and at 

 the opposite extremity, at 

 the bottom, another 1-inch pipe(^) was soldered : this proceeded 

 tOj and entered the lower part of, the delivering main, like as 



