On the smokeless fire-place : chimney-valves, and other means, old and new, of obtaining healthful warmth and ventilation

Front matter

*st to

T \

1'^

Preface

That in the last fifty years of the world's existence more important advances have been made in the arts of civilization than in any five centuries before, can scarcely be doubted by one who considers that within that time have sprung up — the application of Steam Power, itself a recent invention, to Railways and Navigation — Gras-lighting — the Electric Telegraph — - Photography, or sun-painting — the Penny Postage, and other things. There is no reason for thinking that this progress is at an end. On the contrary, as clearsighted men had long foretold the accomplishment of most of the results enumerated, before the popular mind had yet dreamt of the possibility of such wonders—so now are scientific men pointing to the quarters from which other novelties worthy to be added to the list are likely to come.

The fact that the principal of the results above-'tiamed are dependent, directly or indirectly, on the action of fire, while the store of coal existing in the world ig

VI PEEFACE.

limited, and where once diminished or exhausted, will never be replaced ; and the fact, well ascertained, that at present, in the ordinary modes of using fuel, much less than half of the heat produced is turned to use — and, therefore, much more than double the quantity of fuel really required is consumed ; and, lastly, the fact, that in the common attempts to obtain from fire, comfort and security to health in cold weather, very hurtful as well as expensive errors are committed — all these point to the subject of management of combustion as one in regard to which new triumphs may be won; not, indeed, splendid and striking as those classified above, but not of inferior importance to any of them.

The author's intention by the present work is^ first, while publishing some original views and devices, for which the Council of the Royal Society of London have awarded him an honorary medal, to awaken the clear intelligence of his countrymen and countrywomen to the true importance of the subject, that they may aid in working out and estabhshing improved methods of using the wealth of the coal-mines, the existence of which in extraordinary abundance is one of the most precious distinctions of their favouredland.

Another end here aimed at, is to arouse pubhc attention sufficiently to the fact, still very imperfectly comprehended by the popular mind, that what is commonly called an " empty room" is a room as truly filled with fluid air — part of an ocean of known depth which covers the earth — as an open vessel at the bottom of

PREFACE. Vll

the sea is filled with fluid water ; and that the life of a man does not more certainly depend on his inhahng a given bulk of that air, about twenty times in every minute, than his health depends on his breathing air which is pure. Then, as air once breathed acts as poison if breathed again, and as many other causes are defihng and vitiating the air where men live and work, there must be, wherever air is confined by walls or otherwise, some fit means of changing it — that is to say, of effecting ventilation.

IjONDON,

CONTENTS,

PAGE

Part First. — The Smokeless Fire *". . . . 1 The three chief defects of the common open Fire are: —

1, Smoke; 2, Waste of Fuel; 3, Irregular heating

and ventilation ....... 1

It is possible to avoid these . . . . .4

The first, by the Smokeless Grate . . . . 4

The second, by contraction of the vacant space over the

fire, and of the chimney-throat .... 10

The third, by the Chimney Ventilating Valve . . 14

The same means secure many other advantages . . 17 Popular misconception dreads faults in what are really

excellencies . . . . . . .21

Common Grates are easily converted into the Smokeless

Grate 24

Evils of the present fashionable error of setting grates

Part Second. — The Ventilation op Ordinary Dwellings ........ 32

Air is a material fluid, forming a deep ocean which covers the globe as the sea covers its bed ; a portion of which, in a pure state, must be inhaled and rejected, at short intervals, to support animal life and health . . 32

The Chimney Ventilating Valve effectually removes air

vitiated by respiration, &c. . .... 34

Chimney Draught is as yet, in general, very imperfectly understood ,,..... 38

Contents

A curious misconception for which a patent was taken

The prevailing want of knowledge as to the importance of Ventilation, and the means of effecting it, produces great evil ........

Seeing this, the author, in 1849, urged the General Board of Health to interfere . . . .

Part Third. — On Warming in General Heat, what?

Animal heat Combustion and Fuels Progress of the Art of "Warming : —

1. Fire in the open air

2. „ under cover

3. 5, under a chimney-flue Defects of the common open fire — all lessened

by the Smokeless Grate

4. The close stove .

5. Heating by steam Laws of heating by surfaces

6. Heating by circulating hot water

7. Heating by warm-air distribution

Part Fourth. — The new Self-Regulating Fire The Pendulum Valve to ash-pit The Balanced Valve Regulator Simple Self- Regulating Stove .

Regulation by Expansion of Air The advantages of Self-Regulating Stoves, often missed by incompetent makers .....

PAGE

50 53

107 107 108 110

111 111 113

118 122 124 127 129

133 134 137 140

CONTENTS. XI

PAGE

Comparison of close and open fires . . . .147

Self-Regulation of Water-Stoves . . .149

Cheaper and dearer forms . . . . .150

The so-called Water-Leaves, for warming on a large scale ........ 152

Self-regulation of Steam-engine Furnace . . .153

Uniform climate for invalids . . . . .154

Experience of the peculiar utility of Water Stoves . 155

Part Fifth. — Ventilation on a large scale by Pumps, Fan- Wheels, Shafts, «&c. . . . . .155

Instances illustrating the importance . . . .156

New Ventilating Pump, with curtain valves, obviating

the defects of preceding forms — wire-drawing of air . 158

The Pump of Dr. Hales 160

The New Pump with loose piston . . . .162

The pump used on board the 'Anson,' convict-ship . 165 The Gasometer Pump, or pump with water piston . 166

Report on it, by the Engineers and Inspectors of the General Board of Health; and by the Governors of the Hospital at York . . . . .167

Description of the common Gasometer . . , 1 69

The Apparatus for ventilating the Hospital at York . 170 Other Air-movers for Ventilation : —

Fan-wheels ,173

Spacious heated Shafts . . . . . .174

Part Sixth. — Ventilating and Warming by transfer of

Heat, from used air passing away to fresh air entering 175 Effects of a common Fan ..... 175

Description of Heat Transferrer .... 177

Breath- Warmers, Respirators, and Filters, of Dr. Beddoes, Mr. Jeffrey, &nd Dr. Stenhouse . . . 178 Giving Moisture to Air . . . . . 185 Gas-lighting IN Houses . . . . .187 Conclusion. — Modifications of Apparatus required for

Churches, Schools, Hospitals, Ships, &e. . .188

XU CONTENTS.

PAGE

Report on the Croydon Epidemic, made to Lord Palmerston, when Secretary of State for Home Department. 192

Letter on the Gas Explosion in Albany-street . . 208

Extract from Report on Fevers in Glasgow and Edinburgh, made to the Poor Law Board in 1840 . 215

Original plan sketched for "Warming and Ventilating the York Hospital 224

The Dormitory for the Houseless in Field-lane . . 226

Warming and Ventilating in the Royal Hospital at Chelsea 228

Additional Remarks on the manufacturing and management of Fire-places ...... 230

4^BRA^i

PART FIRST, THE SMOKE-CONSUimG AM) FUEL-SAVING FIRE-PLACE

WITH ADJUNCTS INSURING THE HEALTHFUL WARMING AND VENTILATION OF HOUSES.

The great evils connected with, the common coal-fires are : —

1. Production of Smoke.

2. Waste of Fuel.

3. Defective Warming and Ventilation of Eooms.

1. Smoke in the Interior of Houses and in the External Atmosphere.

The jocular proverb which declares a smoky chimney to be one of the greatest troubles of life may serve to recall the annoyances endured within rooms where the chimneys do not perform their office aright. To judge of the evils produced by an external smoky atmosphere, the following particulars may be noted. It is ascertained that in London alone, on account of its smoke-loaded atmosphere, the cost of washing the clothes of the inhabitants is greater by two millions and a half sterling a-year (that is, by twenty-five

B times one hundred thousand pounds), than for the same number of famihes residing in the country. This, however, is seen to he hut a small part of the expense when we consider the rapid destruction, from the same cause, of nearly all furniture in houses, as carpets and curtains, of articles of female apparel, of hooks and paintings, of the decorations of walls and ceilings, and even of the stones or bricks of which edifices are constructed. Then for personal cleanliness it becomes necessary to be almost constantly washing the hands and face. Flowering shrubs and many trees cannot live in the London atmosphere, so that the charm of a garden, eyen at considerable distances from town, has almost ceased with the extension of the buildings and increase of smoke : a growing flower, if exposed to the atmosphere, is always covered with blacks or sooty dust, and defiles the hand which plucks or touches it. Sheep from the country, placed for a few days to graze in any of the parks, have soon a dingy fleece, making strong contrast with that of others newly arrived and mixed with them. And this atmosphere, so damaging to inanimate things and to vegetable Hfe, is inimical also to the health of man, as proved by numerous facts recorded in the Bills of Mortality. Persons with certain kinds of chest-weakness cannot with comfort reside in London. Many children brought from the country are soon observed not to be thriving. The coal-smoke, then, may be called the great nuisance and opprobrium of the English

capital.

2. Waste of Fuel.

Count Rumford, a writer of great authority in such matters, after making elaborate experiments, declared that more than five-sixths of the whole heat produced in an ordinary English fire goes up the chimney with the smoke to waste. This estimate is borne out by the facts observed in countries where fael is scarce and dear, as in parts of Continental Europe, where close stoves are used to prevent the waste. With these about a fifth part of what would be consumed in a common open fire, suffices to maintain the desired temperature. To save a third part of the coal burned in London alone, would save more than a million sterling a-year ; and when coal is very dear, as during severe winters, the saving would be much greater.

Then it is to be considered that coal is a part of our national wealth, of which, whatever is once used can never, like corn or any produce of industry, be renewed or replaced. To the existence of coal-mines in Britain is probably due the invention here, and the rapidly extended use of the improved steam-engine of modern time, through which the condition, not of Britain only but of the whole world has been so signally advanced. To consume coal wastefully or unnecessarily, then, id not a slight improvidence, but a serious crime committed against future generations.

3. Defective Heating and Ventilating IN Dwellings.

Since London attained its present magnitude, about a thousand a-week has been the average mortality ; but during severe winters the cold and its consequences increase that weekly mortality by six or seven hundred, proving that against the cold, the existing arrangements for warming and ventilating are insufficient. That not a little of the premature mortality

B 2 at all times, and of tlie spread of epidemics, and of tlie low condition of liealtli among the people, is owing to the same causes, will be rendered apparent in future pages.

We shall now inquire whether it be not possible in a great measure to avoid the three great evils above described, and by means which at the same time shall secure still other advantages.

1. Smoke. — Is it possible to avoid or to consume smoke — in other words, to produce a smokeless coal-fire?

Common coal is known to consist of carbon and bitumen or pitch, of which pitch again the chief element is still carbon, joined then with hydrogen, a substance which, when separate, exists as an air or gas.

"When the coal is heated to a temperature of about 600° degrees Fahrenheit, the bitumen or pitch evaporates as a thick, visible smoke, which, as it afterwards cools, assumes the form of a black dust or flakes, called blacks, or smut, or soot. If pitchy vapour, however, be heated still more than to 600°, as it is in the red-hot iron retorts of a gas-work, or while rising through a certain thickness of ignited coal in an ordinary fire, its elements combine in a new way and are resolved in great part into invisible carburetted hydrogen gas, such as we burn in street lamps.

Now when fresh coal is thrown upon the top of a common fire, part of it is soon heated to 600°, and the bitumen of that part evaporates as the visible smoke immediately rising. Of such matter the great cloud over London consists. Whatever portion of the pitchy vapour, however, is heated to the teniperature of

AND FUEL-SAVINa FIRE-PLACE. D

ignition by the contact of flame or ignited coal, suddenly becomes gas, and itself burns as a flame. This is the phenomenon seen in the flickering or irregular burning of gas, which takes place on the top of a common fire.

But if fresh coal, instead of being placed on the top of a fire, where it must emit a visible pitchy vapour or smoke, be introduced, beneath the burning, red-hot coal, so that its pitch, in rising as vapour, must pass through the burning mass, this vapour will be partly resolved into the inflammable coal-gas, and will itself burn and inflame whatever else it touches. Persons may amuse themselves by pushing a piece of fresh coal into the centre of the fire in this way, and then observing the blaze of the newly-formed gas.

Various attempts had been made to feed fires always from below, and so to get rid altogether of smoke. One of the first recorded was made by Dr. Frankhn. He placed the burning fuel in a cage of iron bars supported on pivots, and when part of the fuel was consumed, leaving the upper part of the cage empty, he filled the vacant space with fresh coal, and immediately turned the cage upside down, so that the new smoking coal was underneath, sending its pitchy vapours upwards through the mass of ignited coke. Another attempt was made about thirty years ago, by an ingenious manufacturer in London, Mr. Cutler. He placed a box filled with coal under the fire, in which box there was a moveable bottom, by raising which the coal was hfted gradually into the grate to be consumed. The apparatus for lifting, however, was complicated, and liable to get out of order, which, with other defects, caused the stove to be little used.

The moveable bottom rested on a cross-bar of iron, which in rising was guided by slits in the side of the coal-box, and was lifted by chains at each end, drawn up by a windlass, and this windlass was turned by bevel wheels, of which one had to be moved by a winch in the hands of an attendant. Mr. Cutler took out a patent for his apparatus, but a trial at law afterwards decided that he had no patent right.

In the new fire-grate here to be described the consumption of smoke is ouly one of several equally important ends obtained by a construction of much simplicity. A skeleton sketch of the arrangement is given in the accompanying wood-cut. The charge of coal for the day is placed in a box immediately beneath the grate, as shown in the diagram at the letters e f g h, and is borne upwards, as wanted, by a moveable false bottom or piston, s s, in the box, raised simply by the poker used as a lever, as the wick of an argand lamp is raised by a screw ; the fire is thus under command almost as completely as the flame of a lamp. There are notches in the piston-rod m n, to admit the point of the poker, and the ratchet-catch, i u, to support the piston at any desired height when the lever is withdrawn.

The coal-box of this fire-place, that it may receive a charge of coal suflS.cient for the whole day, must be from eight to ten inches deep, and will contain from twenty to thirty pounds, according to the area of grate. In winter an inch or two more of coal may be added over the mouth of the box before the fire is lighted, and in warmer weather the box will not require to be quite filled — that is to say, the piston at the time of charging will not have to be lowered quite to the bottom. When it becomes desirable

L

Fig. 1.

on any account, as will happen with kitchen-fires, and fires kept alight through the night, to replenish the coal-box while the fire is burning, this may be done almost as easily as to put coal on a common fire, in the following manner, — when the piston, or moveable bottom, has been fully raised, so as to have its fiat surface level with the bottom bar of the grate e f, 2i broad fiat shovel or spade, of the shape of the bottom of the grate is pushed in over the piston, and becomes at once a temporary bottom to the grate and a lid to the coal-box. The piston being then allowed to sink down to the bottom of the coal-box, and the spade or lid being raised in front by its handle, the coal-box is thereby opened, and a new charge of coal can be shot in. The spade being then withdrawn, the combustion proceeds as before. That the opening of this lid may be wider, the second bar of the grate, or the two bars together are made moveable, and yield upwards to the pressure of the spade. This fire is lighted with singular ease and speed. The usual quantity of wood is laid on the upper surface of the fresh coal, in the box, and a thickness of three or four inches of cinder or coked coal, left; from the fire of the preceding day, and having no smoky matter in it, is placed over aU. The wood being then lighted, very rapidly ignites the cinder above, and at the same time the pitchy vapour from the fresh coal below, rises through the wood-fiame and cinders, and becomes heated sufiiciently itself to become fiame, and so to augment the blaze. When the cinder is once fairly ignited, all the bitumen rising through it afterwards burns, and the fire remains smokeless. A fire-place supplied with coal from below was used by a distinguished engineer in town for ten years, and tlie fact that liis chimney had not to be swept in the whole of that time, proved that no soot was formed.

In the new grate, because no air is allowed to enter at the bottom of the coal-box, owing to the piston-rod fitting accurately the opening in the bottom of the box through which it passes, there is no combustion below, but only where the fuel is exposed to air above, and near the mouth of the coal-box. The unsatisfactory result of some other attempts to make such a smokeless fire have been owing, in part, to the com-, bustion extending downwards in the coal-box, because of air admitted below, and the consequent melting and coking of the mass of coal, so as to make it swell and stick, and impede the rising of the piston.

A remarkable and very valuable quality of this fire is, its tenacity of life, so to speak, or its httle tendency to be extinguished. Even after nearly all the coal in the grate above the fire-box has been consumed, some air from above will dive into the coal-box and keep the fire there gently alight, burning from the top downwards like a torch, until nearly the whole contents of the box are consumed. Thus the fire will remain burning for a whole day or night, without stirring or attendance, and yet at any moment it is ready to burn up actively when the piston is raised ; or when, by pressing the end of the poker into the mass, an opening is made for air to enter.

In certain cases, as during long nights, it may be desirable to insure the maintenance of the slow combustion with rather more activity, and for this purpose there is a slide in a small door at the bottom of the coal-box, by which a graduated admission of air may be allowed. That door itself is opened quite before lighting the fire, to allow of the removal of the coal-dust or ash which during the preceding day, has fallen down past the edge of the piston.

This fire is extinguished at night with singular rapidity, by lifting off a few pieces of the upper crust of the burning mass, and pressing close what remains, that air may not enter it. The morning charge should be such that enough cinder or coke may be left for the smokeless lighting of the next day.

With the means now described, then, the first-named evil of the production of smoke is effectually combated.

2. Waste of Fuel. — Cdoa. ihe waste of fuel Y^'hidx occurs in common open fires be prevented ?

Count Rumford, as the results of his own experiments already referred to, declared that a great part of all the heat produced in a common open fire passed up the chimney with the smoke, and therefore to waste ; and he appealed, in corroboration, to the experience of the Continent of Europe, where close stoves are used with great comparative saving. The writer of this has in his own house a striking illustration of the matter in a peculiar enclosed fire, to be described in another section, which, for fourteen years past, in a large dining-room, has maintained, day and night, from October to May, a temperature of 60° or more, with good ventilation, by an expenditure of only twelve pounds of coal for twenty -four hours, or about a fourth of what would be used in an open fire burning for fifteen or sixteen hours. The aperture by which enough fresh air enters this stove to maintain combustion sufficient to warm the room, is about three-

AND FUEL-SAVING FIRE-PLACE. ll

quarters of an inch, in diameter. If this be compared with the aperture of a common chimney-pot, which has a diameter of ten inches, and an area or size, therefore, more than 150 times greater than that of the stove, and if the rapidity be considered with which a column of dense smoke filling that pot escapes from it when the fire is burning briskly, and if it be considered further that such column consists almost entirely of the warmest air from the room, defiled by a little pitchy vapour from the fire, there is proof of prodigious waste, and room for reasonable hope that a great saving is possible. To see how the saving may be effected, tlie exact nature of the waste in such cases has now to be explained. A single mouthful of tobacco-smoke, on issuing from the lips to the air, immediately diffuses itself so as to form a cloud larger than the smoker's head, and if allowed, soon contaminates the whole air of a room, as happens with the smoke and smell of wood, paper, or other combustible burned in a room. Now the true smoke of a common fire is not, as many believe, the whole mass seen issuing from the chimney-top, but only little driblets or jets, which shoot up or issue from the cracks in the upper surface of the coal which forms the fire. These jets, however, quickly diffuse themselves, like the tobacco- smoke above referred to, in the air around them, that is to say, in the large volume which fills the space usually left over a common fire, and over the hobs, if there be such, at the side of the grate. The whole of the air so contaminated, and which may be in volume, twenty, fifty, or even a hundred times greater than that of the true smoke, or burned air, is then all called smoke, and must all be allowed to ascend away from the room that none of the true smoke may remain. It is evident, then, that if a cover or hood of metal be placed over a fire, as represented by the letters yah in the diagram, or if, which is better, the space over the fire be equally contracted by brickwork, so as to prevent the difiiision of the true smoke, or the entrance of pure air from around to mix with it, except just what is necessary to burn the inflammable gases which rise with the true smoke, there will be a great economy. This is done in the new fire-place, with a saving of from one-third to one-half of the fuel required to maintain a desired temperature. In a room the three dimensions of which are fifteen feet, thirteen feet and a half, and twelve feet, with two large windows, the coal burned to maintain a temperature of 65° in cold winter days has been eighteen pounds for nineteen hours, or less than a pound per hour.

And it is to be remarked that not nearly the whole possible saving has been efiected in the case referred to ; for the true smoke, little diluted, is very hot air when it leaves the ignited coal, and if made to pass in contact with a vessel containing water, or a tube giving entrance to cold air, it will give up for use a considerable part of its heat. In many cases such saving may be profitably effected. With the present imperfect forms of open fire, the whole of the very hot smoke passes away as certainly as it does here, but is so much diluted with the tempered air of the room escaping to waste, that ordinary observers do not perceive, and, consequently, do not regret the loss.

In most cases the contraction of the space over the fire will be more conveniently made in the brickwork or

AND FUEL-SAVIXG FIRE-PLACE. 13

setting of tlie grate tlian by a metallic liood. Where the hood is used, unless it be made a boiler or watervessel, it should be lined with tile to prevent that overheating which might cause in the room some smell of heated metal.

The narrow part of the hood or brick channel passes through a plate or other stopping at the bottom of the chimney, so that no air shall enter the chimney but through the narrow channel ; and there is a throttle-valve or damper in that channel at t, giving perfect control over the current of air which passes through. No part of the apparatus is more important than this valve or damper ; and its handle or index must be rendered very conspicuous, and have degrees of opening marked on its plate as clearly as points are marked on a compass-card. When the valve is quite open, the chimney influence quickens the combustion, as in a blast furnace, or where a forgebellows is at work, but by partially closing the valve, the air-current may be diminished, until only the most tranquil combustion remains. The valve should not be open in general more than just enough to let all the burned air, or transparent smoke, pass through. When the valve is once adjusted to the usual strength of chimney action, it requires little change afterwards.

In all cases it is as necessary to be able to command and modify, by a moveable plate or hanging door, 0 p qr, called a blower, the size of the front opening of the fire-place, as to command, by the damper-valve, the opening of the chimney-throat above. By the proper adjustment of the two, the rate of combustion and the desirable brightness of the front of the fire may be constantly maintained.

14 THE SMOKE-CO NSTTMINa

The chimney-flue immediately above the narrowed throat should have its sides made slanting, so as not to offer a resting-place for dust or any soot which, from careless use of the fire, might be produced. The size of the chimney-flue above is not important.

The answer, then, to the second question, as to the possibility of saving fuel, is by the facts here adduced, given in the aifirmative.

3. Defects of Heating and Ventilating. — The third and last of the great evils of the present open fires is that there are great inequalities and deficiencies in their heating and ventilating actions, which faults bear powerfully on the public health. The hood and its damper, or corresponding formation of the brickwork, may appear, perhaps, as influencing these, to be of more importance than as saving the fuel.

First, as to the heating. The contracted chimney mouth and throat, by allowing so small a quantity of air to pass through in comparison with what rises in an open ordinary chimney, lessen in the same degree the currents or draughts of cold air from doors and windows, towards the fire, which currents are common causes to the inmates of winter inflammations and other diseases ; and owing to the same construction, the heat, once radiated from the fire to the walls of the room, not being again quickly absorbed and carried away by such cmTcnts of constantly-changing cold air, remains in the room, and soon renders the temperature of the whole much more equable and safe.