Page 174 - The Building Conservation Directory 2013

1 7 4 t h e b u i l d i n g c o n s e r vat i o n d i r e c t o r y 2 0 1 3 T w e n t i e t h a N N i v e r s a r y E D I T I O N
5
INTERIORS considerably from the middle of the
19th century with the tremendous wave
of Victorian church building and the
construction of many and varied institutions
– prisons, hospitals, schools, workhouses and
asylums. Around this time Dr Goldsworthy
Gurney brought out the large stove which
bears his name (middle left). It was later sold
by the London Warming and Ventilating
Company which in 1897 claimed it had
been used to warm 22 cathedrals and over
10,000 churches, schools and other buildings
(cathedrals heated by Gurney stoves include
Chester, Exeter, Gloucester, Lincoln, Salisbury
and St Paul’s). London Warming was also the
agent for the Choubersky, Salamandre and
similar continuous burning stoves, which only
needed refuelling once a day. Other stoves
of the later Victorian period included Saxon
Snell’s Thermhydric, Mr George’s Calorigen,
Dr Bond’s Euthermic, the Manchester stove of
Shorland and the Convoluted stove of Joseph
Constantine. Another notable manufacturer
was John Grundy (bottom left) of London
who founded the Tyldesley Ironworks,
Manchester (Grundy was the first president
of the Institution of Heating & Ventilating
Engineers in 1898). Grundy products included
the Helios and Sirius smoke-consuming grates
and the Hestia warming and ventilating stove.
However, the increasing use of hot water
heating systems and the introduction of the
radiator soon caused a marked decline in the
use of warm-air stoves.
Radiators
The term ‘radiator’ is a misnomer since for
column radiators some 70 per cent of the heat
output is by convection (from the circulation
of warm air), not radiation. The development
and mass production of radiators was an
American phenomenon, the first patents
dating from around 1841. Early radiators
were variously shaped ‘heat distributors’, a
mixture of pipes and metal plates. Then came
the introduction of vertical wrought-iron
welded tubes fixed between horizontal top and
bottom headers. These were followed by the
‘looped tube’ type, an inverted-U, fixed to a
base plate, used for both steam and hot water.
Tasker in Philadelphia patented a primitive
sectional radiator in 1858. It is the factory mass
production of radiator sections that could be
connected together that distinguishes them
from pipe coils.
Another pioneer was Joseph Nason who
had spent time working in England with
AM Perkins. It was Perkins who devised a
high-pressure system of hot-water heating
in 1831 which used a solid-fuel-fired brick
furnace or metal chamber containing a
sinuous coil of small-bore seam-welded
wrought iron pipe. With a 6mm thick wall,
the pipes were capable of operating at
temperatures approaching 170°C and pressures
close to 15 times atmospheric pressure. The
system gained rapid acceptance and was
installed in many important buildings but the
concerns of insurance companies led to the
system being operated at lower temperatures
and pressures and it was later largely
discontinued. However, modified systems,
Haden stove front, now serving as a private letter
box, near Bristol (All photos on this page: Frank
Ferris, CIBSE Heritage Group)
Gurney warm-air stove in Tewkesbury Abbey,
installed c1875, converted to gas-firing in 1987
Grundy warm-air stove, St Paul’s Church, Deptford,
London
warmed air discharged directly, or through
masonry ducts, to the space served. Examples
of both types may still be found, often in
cathedrals and churches. Some are still in use
having been converted to oil or gas firing.
A heating system (as opposed to a stand-
alone appliance such as a stove) requires a form
of heat producing apparatus (usually a boiler), a
means of distributing the heat (pipes or ducts)
and heat emitters in the space it serves. Types
of heating system in the 19th century included
steam, low-pressure hot water and high- or
medium-pressure hot water. Hot water heating
boilers were manufactured in quantity from
around 1860 onwards (see first illustration).
The first room heaters were pipe coils, often
housed in decorative cases. Radiators were
introduced in the 1880s.
Heating stoves
Masonry stoves of brick, earthenware and
porcelain have been used for over a thousand
years in northern Europe. Closed metal stoves
were devised in what is now Germany in the
15th century and improved over the next 200
years, spreading across continental Europe.
But Britain preferred its open fires.
In England, around 1609, the first metal
stoves were imported from Holland to heat the
orange houses of the nobility (the word ‘stove’
may be of Dutch origin and the first English
heated greenhouses were in fact called stoves.)
In the 1790s, Count Rumford devised a
metal stove, while William Strutt with Charles
Sylvester installed his Cockle (or Belper)
stove at Derby Infirmary. This Cockle stove
consisted of a circular iron pot with a rounded
dome. Fuel was consumed on a grate at the
bottom of the furnace, coal or coke being
added through a charging door at the side. Air
for combustion was supplied through a duct to
a chamber below the grate.
A forced warm-air furnace was patented
by Benford Deacon in 1812, using a fan
powered by a descending weight, and used at
the Old Bailey. In the latter part of the 19th
century, ventilating and other improved grates
(the distinction between grates and stoves
is not always clear) were introduced by Sir
Douglas Galton, George Jennings (London
grate), T Elsey (Lloyd’s patent ventilating
grate), DO Boyd (Hygiastic grate) and the firm
of Shorland (Manchester grate).
In 1818, the Marquis de Chabannes
introduced his Calorifere stove (air-warming
furnace) from France. Just before this, in 1816,
the firm of G & J Haden set up in business
in Trowbridge to erect the steam engines of
Boulton & Watt in the West Country. Within
a few years Haden was manufacturing heating
stoves for churches and the country houses
of the gentry. Between 1824 and 1914 they
manufactured and installed nearly 7,000
stoves (top left). Atkins & Marriot introduced
their Thermo-regulated stove in 1825, followed
by the Thermometer stove of Dr Neil Arnott
(Physician Extraordinary to Queen Victoria)
in 1834. The 1830s also saw the development
of the famous Tortoise stove (p176) by Charles
Portway who went on to manufacture some
17,000 units.
Use of the warm-air stove grew