Interesting Question

Steamhead (in transit)

has been around since at least the 1920s, and possibly earlier. So you'd have to go back that far to find the first one. But it has been refined a lot since those days.

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Will_5

Who was first?

I was wandering from booth to booth at the Hartford Show last week when I happened by one of the tents outside, one of the boiler manufacturer's was giving a show and tell on their new triple pass direct vent boiler, he was doing a very good job when someone from the back piped up and said " it looks like you guys just copied brand "X", the rep responded by first saying that they actually designed it themselves and also make here in the U.S.A., he then followed up by asking the heckler "who did brand "X" copy"? The gentleman from the back row asked him what he meant, the rep responded by asking him if he was positive that brand "X" invented the 3 pass boiler? There was no answer by the gentleman who had originally asked the question and everyone else looked puzzled, the rep picked right up where he had left out without missing a beat. I thought it was a point well made by the rep. This has had me thinking since last week " Who was First "

J.C.A._3

Pin type....

Pin type oil fired boilers REALLY didn't make their appearance until the first fuel crisis of the 70's, and there were copius amounts of them made after that.

IMHO, it was THE biggest compromise made in oil firing technology. Sure wet bases helped. but it was truly a glorified gas boiler, cast that way for too many folowing years.

I was taught back in the day that most oil boilers were of the "pass design", with large flue passages that made servicing easier. Most in the 50's and 60's were 2 pass, with a baffle installed over the firebox, in effect making them 3 pass boilers , so to speak.

Think about the old Ideal #7 boilers...pretty much a 3 pass design but the burners were marginal comparatively. Arco, American STD, Smith Mills and Ideal come to mind right off the bat and I'm sure that there were many more.

The design isn't anything new. Like most of the stuff, (discounting electronic controls)It's nothing more than what has been done for many years, it just has a new tweak/twist.

A/S double door boilers are still in use and with a retention head oil burner will give pretty near the same COMBUSTION efficiency numbers as anything pin type did in their heydey.(notice I said Combustion effeciency!, NOT system effeciencies)and they were designed as oil boilers from the 40's !

Not much is new...just Improved . Chris

joel_19

30's

how about the beautifull and exspensive Havey Whipple of the 30s a real artdeco piece the Vitola of it's day.

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