STOVES AND HEATING APPARA TUS. Any system of heating must necessarily include three things, the combustion of fuel in a fireplace, stove, furnace steam or hot-water boiler; a system by which the heat is trans mitted to its destination with the least possible loss; and a system of diffusion, by which the heat is conveyed to the air in a room, and to its walls, floors, ceilings, etc. The simplest and most economical. method of heating to instal is the stove, which requires no system of trans mission, but by radiation and convection dif fuses the heat directly to the air and to the objects in the room. Though this method has not been entirely superseded in dwellings by the hot-air furnace, owing to the cost of in stalling the latter, the furnace has largely done away with use of the stove solely as an ap paratus for heating purposes, beside which the furnace has many advantages over the stove, as such. The hot-air furnace is generally con structed of brick or iron plates and provided with a brick-lined firepot; there is a combustion chamber over the fire, and between these latter two and the outside casing is left a space for the circulation of air. Through a box or pipe, called the "cold-air box," located at the bottom of the casing, fresh air is brought from outside, enters the space between the casing and the firebox, passes over the heated surface of the firepot and combustion chamber, and, by means of pipes at the top of the casing which connect with the registers, is transmitted to the various rooms of the house.
The furnace in its turn was followed by the steam boiler which transmits the steam to radiators throughout the house, and from them the heat is diffused to the air in the room. This method of heating has come into use largely as the office building has been increased in size, and the majority of such buildings are now heated by steam. Gas and oil stoves have also become valuable as means of heating isolated rooms in a building or house, not other wise connected with any heating appliances.
Stoves.—In 1490 the first stove was reported as being made in Alsace, and in 1509 others were cast in Islenberg. The first blast furnace erected in this country at Lynn, Mass., in 1642, turned out a small round-bottomed kettle with a cover, probably the first stove of any descrip tion made in this country. The industry lagged for nearly a century, and it was not till the middle of the 18th century that the manufac ture was pushed to any great extent. About 1735 Christopher Sower, of Germantown, Pa., began to manufacture the jamb-stove, which was the first attempt to heat other rooms than the one in which the great brick fireplace was located. This jamb-stove consisted of a cast iron box built into the side of the kitchen fire place, one end opening in the adjoining room, the other being heated by the fire, so that when the door of the jamb-stove was opened, a small amount of heat was transmitted to the room.
In 1744 the manufacture of Franklin stoves was commenced in Philadelphia. This stove, the invention of Benjamin Franklin, consisted of a cast-iron open fireplace, jutting out from the chimney, and thus the heat was thrown out from three sides into the room, instead of only the one side, as in the jamb-stove. Be tween 1752 and 1760 the six-plate, or box-stove, which was the pioneer of the many modern forms of heating apparatus, was made in Marl boro, Va. Stoves were made in 1760 by Baron Steigel of Letitz, Pa., and in 1786 box-stoves were made in Philadelphia, but were not put together there, that work being done at Provi dence, R. I., and Troy, N. Y., whither the plates were shipped. In 1802 Isaac Orr began the manufacture of the cylindrical or oval stoves of sheet iron at Philadelphia and in New Hampshire. This was the forerunner of the oval regulator stove, having a fire-damper, auto matically opened and closed by the difference in expansions of a brass rod and the sheet iron stove-body. In 1820 the Conant stove was made at Brandon, Vt., and the Woolson stove soon followed, being first made at Bran don, but they were later manufactured in Massachusetts, Cleveland and Detroit. In 1836 a stove having an illuminated case of cast iron and mica, enclosed flues, a check-flue and a direct draft damper, was made by James At water of New York, and almost simultaneously the Stanley square heating-stove was brought out. The cylinder-stove, invented by Dr. Bush nell in 1845, except for the fact that it was cylindrical and the inside was lined with fire clay, was similar to the Stanley stove, the latter having return and exit flues enclosed in the four corners, whereas the former had a pipe at the back through which the heat made its exit after having come down the four pipes or flues in the corner to the hollow base. The next in succession was the round or oval gas burner or surface burner, made of sheet iron, and having the flues which returned the heat to the base enclosed in the body of the stove. It should be understood that these "gas-burn stoves consumed coal, the reason for the name "gas-burning" being that they were as sumed to consume all the gas emitted by the coal. In these gas-burners also the coal was more thoroughly burned out by having perfo rated firepots and perforated gas rings at the top of the brick. Fuller, Warner and Company of Troy, N. Y., made the style of oval and round parlar stoves most generally used, the P. P. Stewart.