IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR HEATING WATER
Year: 1882

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Arthur William Lovell Reddie at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 15th December 1882. Commu-
nicated to him from abroad by Eduard Theisen of Lindenau near Leipsic in
the Kingdom of Saxony, German Empire.
ARTHUR WILLIAM LOVELL REDDIE of the Office for Patents 66 Chancery Lane
in the County of Middlesex, Patent Agent "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR
HEATING WATER." [Communicated to him from abroad by Eduard Theisen of
Lindenau near Leipsic in the Kingdom of Saxony, German Empire.]
This invention relates to certain improvements in apparatus invented by the
present communicant (and which forms the subject of a Patent granted in Germany
on the 2nd October 1881 N° 17782) for the purpose of heating water in a rapid
and economical manner for baths and other purposes and the nature of the said
improvements will be best understood by a brief preliminary description of the
apparatus above referred to.
In that apparatus the water to be heated was admitted and stored in a reservoir
at the top, and passing from the reservoir through sieves and holes was conducted
to the lower part by means of hollow spirals of wire which served as conductors
for separate streams of water, and which spirals offered an extended surface for the
direct contact of the ascending hot air, with the water.
As a modification of the apparatus just described the inventor arranged a series
of narrow channels formed by the approximation of two corrugated plates, within
which channels the water descending in an undulatory course was heated by the
ascending hot air or gases acting on the outerside of the corrugated plates forming
such channels.
Now the object of the present improvements is to afford still greater facilities
for heating water in such apparatus, in a rapid, effectual and economical manner.
The first of these improvements consists in substituting for the spirals above
mentioned vertical bars provided with such bodies or projections that the small
stream of water (being conducted to the upper part of the vertical bar) will flow
downward over and around the bar or rod, spreading in its descent over such
bodies or projections, and thereby offering a widely extended surface to the action
of the ascending hot air.
These bodies or projections may either be solid or they may be dish-shaped with
the convex part uppermost or with the concave part in that position; or they may

page_text: be constructed of combined concave and convex dishshaped bodies; or these bodies
may be of triangular or rectangular cross sections, or they may consist simply of
horizontal plates. In some instances it is preferred to combine such a series of
superposed bodies, by means of two bars, if the horizontal length of such bodies
requires more steadiness, which is obtained by fixing them to two vertical bars or
rods. The bodies may be fixed to the bar or bars by soldering or in any convenient
manner.
These bodies may be made of copper or any suitable material, but the flat or
dish shaped bodies are preferably stamped or punched out of waste copper, that is
to say such parts of copper plates as usually form the débris resulting from the
construction of parts from copper.
The improvements consist secondly in dispensing with the closed narrow
channels above alluded to formed by two adjacent corrugated plates.
Instead of this arrangement the apparatus throughout its height is fitted with a
series of corrugated plates each plate presenting both its sides as the surface for
spreading and conducting the falling water. And in order to increase the effect of
the ascending hot air upon the water on such surface, each plate is corrugated in
both directions; namely each plate is formed with large waves or undulations from
the upper part to the lower part of the apparatus, and at the same time each plate
is corrugated by small waves or undulations running in a horizontal direction. In
other words the large undulations form horizontal grooves and the small undula-
tions form grooves running practically in a vertical direction.
In this construction of water heater the reservoir at the top is formed with
deep indentations at the bottom of which two rows of holes are provided so that
at each side of the centre line of such indentations, one row of holes will be
arranged. Underneath the lowest part of these indentations horizontal pipes are
arranged, each pipe forming the top of a corrugated plate. By this arrangement
the water penetrating through the holes will be equally distributed over both sides
of each plate, and will run over the surface of each plate within the grooves formed
by the small waves, from top or bottom. In order to collect the heated water at
the bottom, each plate dips into a channel or gutter which leads the water into
an annular reservoir near the bottom of the heater, whence it may be educted' by
pipes, or drawn off by cocks.
A coil of gas pipe is used for heating the air which, in ascending, finds its way
along the surfaces of the corrugated plates, escaping finally at the top through holes
provided for that purpose. It is obvious that the hot air in ascending between
the corrugated plates will not only heat the water which descends within the
grooves of said plates, but will also heat that part of the plates, namely the elevated
parts of the undulations, which are not covered by water on the one surface, but
which elevated parts form the grooves on the other surface of the plate. Thus the
water is heated from both sides by direct influence or contact with the hot
ascending air, and by indirect influence of the same through the heated metal over
which it runs.
The coil of gas pipe may be replaced by any other heating contrivance.