HEATING BY HOT-WATER PIPES. 



183 



under it too,) for sawdust or any non- 

 conducting material ; the masonry is out- 

 side of this — s s s s is masonry. This 

 may be of any thickness. In the sketch 

 it is only 4^ inches, or half brick, except 

 where the boiler rests upon the wall of 

 the houses, where it is 9 inches thick ; 

 1 1 t £ is water of the boiler, all round the 

 fire in every direction, except the feeding- 

 mouth and ash-pit ; y y is a stone slab 

 resting on the sawdust above the boiler, 

 with holes 4 inches square for the pipes 

 to pass through." 



Simple and economical heating-appara- 

 tuses have been too little apparently 

 cared for by inventors generally, and 

 hence that numerous and very zealous 

 portion of the gardening community, 

 amateurs, are year after year left to 

 mourn over their dead and dying stock of 

 plants, with no other alternative before 

 them than a recurrence to a yearly trial 

 of their good nature and zeal — buying or 

 begging. Mr Smith's apparatus, de- 

 scribed at page 175, will be found a use- 

 ful appendage to the amateur's garden, 

 and modifications of it, or of several 

 others illustrated in this work, might be 

 employed with economy and satisfaction. 

 One of the most homely we can suggest 

 would be placing one, or at most two, 

 earthenware vessels, capable of containing 

 three or four gallons of water each, such 

 as are used for holding spirits, and called 

 in Scotland greybeards, within a plant 

 frame or pit of three or four lights or 

 sashes, the whole frame about 14 feet in 

 length — setting them on the surface 

 amongst the plants, so as to present their 

 surface clear on all sides for the radiation 

 of heat. By a simple contrivance a small 

 pipe could be secured to the bottom of 

 each, and brought without the frame or 

 pit, for the purpose of allowing the water, 

 wiien reduced in temperature, to escape, 

 while a fresh supply of hot water could 

 be let into them by means of another 

 small pipe bent into the bung-hole, hav- 

 ing its other extremity without the pit, 

 and slightly bent upwards to receive a 

 funnel, into which heated water from the 

 kitchen boiler could be supplied three 

 times or so during the twenty-four hours. 

 This, with carefully covering the glass, as 

 recommended elsewhere for pits in this 

 work, would preserve the majority of 

 greenhouse plants from the most severe 



frosts. A small Stephenson's boiler, set 

 under a wooden or stone covering with- 

 out the pit, and having 2-inch leaden 

 pipes attached to it by union joints, 

 close to the wall, would, if the pipes 

 were carried around the inside of the 

 walls of a pit, heat, sufficiently for con- 

 servative purposes, a range 50 feet in 

 length and 6 feet in width. A prejudice 

 has all along existed against employing 

 leaden pipes for heating purposes ; but 

 experience has proved to us that, if laid 

 on a uniform base of wood, or suspended 

 along the face of a wall by proper hold- 

 fasts, they last for years, give out heat 

 as well as cast-iron ones, while their be- 

 ing capable of being bent at the angles, 

 their occupying a very small space, and 

 their capability of being readily removed, 

 altered, or replaced, renders them exceed- 

 ingly valuable for heating the pits of 

 amateurs. During summer the boiler may 

 be removed, cleaned, and put carefully 

 aside till again required, while the pipes 

 may remain stationary. When the ama- 

 teurs' pits are placed near to the kitchen 

 or to any of the offices, where a boiler is 

 fixed, leaden pipes attached to the kit- 

 chen range boiler, or any other, by the 

 means noted above, may be made the 

 means of supplying heat to a consider- 

 able extent of pits, the pipe connecting 

 the boiler and pits being imbedded in 

 charcoal, or in a wooden bore stuffed 

 with sawdust, by which little of the heat 

 will be lost by abstraction during its 

 passage. 



Fig. 239 shows how such pipes are 

 connected with a kitchen range or the 



Fig. 239. fire-grate 

 oi a sit- 

 ting room. 

 Such a 

 boiler, in 

 the figure 

 before us, 

 may be 

 cast in 

 one piece, 



or be constructed of plates bolted together, 

 and so form a boiler around the back 

 and sides of the fire. The flow-pipe is 

 attached near its top, at the left-hand 

 corner, is carried through the wall behind, 

 and so on in the most direct line towards 

 the pits ; while the return-pipe, following 

 a similar course, returns to the boiler, and 



