HEATING BY HOT-WATER PIPES. 



173 



ing in air from without the house in an 

 underground drain or tube, the orifice of 

 which opens under the case or heating- 

 box. And, indeed, were it not always 

 better to make use of the pure air of the 

 external atmosphere, the air of the house 

 itself close to the floor would be amply 

 sufficient, and this would reach the 

 cellular arrangement, as it is elevated 

 some inches above the floor level, the 

 heat-box being supported upon four legs. 

 " The blocks and their cases, which may 

 be denominated the honey-comb or cel- 

 lular arrangement, will present more 

 heating surface to the air than can be 

 obtained within a given space by any 

 other form. The case itself is also a 

 valuable heating surface ; and, by the 

 addition of a few ornaments screwed on 

 its outside, a neat and portable heat-box 

 is obtained. One of the forms in which 

 these heat-boxes have been made is repre- 

 sented in fig. 206, perspective view, and 



Fig. 206. 



fig. 207, plan. 

 Fig. 207> 



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 □□r 

 en 



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 □□□ 

 □□□I 



rno 



nnn 

 □no 



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The remarkable aggrega- 

 tion of heating power 

 ^ thus attained in a small 

 space will be best un- 

 derstood when it is 

 stated that in a heat- 

 box measuring 27 

 inches long, 18 inches 

 wide, and 16 inches high, 80 feet of effec- 

 tive surface are collected." — Walker's 

 Hints on Ventilation. 



One or more of these boxes may be 

 placed in a large conservatory, and will 

 be found not only useful, but ornamental. 

 The hot water can readily be brought to 

 them in a small pipe from the nearest 

 boiler, the flow-pipe in particular being 

 embedded in charcoal placed in a dry 

 drain under the floor. Its connection 

 with the pipes within the box should be 

 by a union screw-joint close to the floor, 

 so that in spring, when artificial heat is 



to be dispensed with, the whole can be 

 removed until again required. These, 

 or modifications of the same principle — 

 that is, employing portable radiating 

 heating-cases— is, of all others, the most 

 complete and elegant method of heating 

 highly ornamental conservatories. In 

 them pipes can never, in good taste, be 

 applied on the surface of the floor ; and to 

 place them in air-drains under it is a 

 sacrifice of heating power. 

 Penn's system — fig. 208. — The originator 

 Fig. 208. 



of this mode of heating was the late Mr 

 Penn of Lewisham, Kent : it has suffered 

 as great a degree of public disapproval as 

 almost any other method proposed. In 

 1840 a notice of it was published in the 

 " Gardener's Magazine," and a panegyric 

 pronounced upon it which it by no means 

 deserved. Two very extraordinary fea- 

 tures in this mode of heating are, that the 

 hot-water pipes are placed without the 

 house, contrary to all precedent, and that 

 it is attempted to bring the heated air in 

 at the top of the house, and to make it 

 descend. The following is the substance 

 of a critique upon it from the " Gardeners' 

 Chronicle," from which the diagrams, figs. 

 209 and 210, are also taken : the former 

 of these represents the interior of a green- 

 house, " of which a a is the back wall, and 

 c d the glass front. The triangle cfb indi- 

 cates a back shed, in the bottom of which, 

 at /, are placed the hot- water pipes ; at 

 c the back wall is pierced immediately 

 below the summit ; / and e are the 

 mouths of a drain which passes under 

 the house from front to back. We are 

 informed that the air, being heated by 

 the pipes/, rises in the direction of c, and, 

 passing through the apertures beneath c, 

 takes a direction downwards from c to d ; 



