REALLY old steam - Dan H.

Steamhead

someone posted here on the Wall about an in-floor radiant system that used steam instead of water- and was still in use. Anyone else remember this, or who posted it?

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DanHolohan

This is the oldest

drawing I have in my collection. It's from The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, May 1745. It's an extracted article, just three pages, but wonderful to me. My buddy Larry Weingarten put me on to it. It was for sale in England. Thirty bucks for the two pages, and it just arrived. Imagine what the whole book would be worth.

The title of the very short article (really just one paragraph) is A Proposal for Warming Rooms by the Steam of boiling Water conveyed in Pipes along the Walls. William Cook

Brian (Tankless) Wood

Can you imagine if

they had had parallel reverse return in dem days what they could have accomplished? Even heating etc'.

Lotsa condensate at the end of that loop.

Oops, bithday euphoria, I'm confusing steam with hot water.

Maybe they were trying to improve on what Emperor Hadrian did 1700 years before them.

Am I allowed goofiness one day a year?

Back to boinking alligators in Swampland.

Y'all take care out there.

Brian.

keith

now you are teasing us

Post the paragraph please. I am intersted in what the thought process was.

DanHolohan

Here

> Post the paragraph please. I am intersted in what

> the thought process was.

DanHolohan

Here 'tis

"An engine for giving a sufficient heat to all the rooms in a house from the kitchen fire.

"A" is a copper with a a still-head

"B" is a lead or copper pipe fixed to the head of the copper thorugh which the steam from the boiling water heats. It is passing through the eight rooms the pipe is fixed to the wall or side of the room in the place of the chimney.

"C" and "C" are stop cocks by which the steam may be suffered to pass slow or fast as you please. (Isn't that a great line?)

"D" is the vent for the steam to pass out at.

"E" is a cistern of water to replenish the copper as it boils away.

That's it!

The significance of this piece is that James Watt will not give us the first radiator until 1784, 39 years later.

Isn't this a wonderful couple of pages!

[Deleted User]

cool

very cool..a fire proof safe may be a good place for that puppy.

John Ruhnke1

I wounder how well it worked?

Very cool Dan!!!,

I wounder how well it worked. My guess is that it used up a lot of water. They didn't have pumps back then. Someone, most likely a slave, had to carry buckets of water to fill it all the time as the water boiled out. Also it most likley had a lot of corrosion problems because of all that fresh water added to it. I'm sure it was probally a big hit. Quite the novalty for the day!! Some would ask another to feel the warmth coming from the pipe. "Just put your hand here but don't touch" They would say. Lots of guests most likely had to touch it! Ouch!! they yelled as they got burned. I'm sure the home owners laughed every time!!

JR

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