IMPROVEMENTS IN FIREPROOF: WAREHOUSES AND. OTHER STRUCTURES
Year: 1874

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Charles Wright at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 19th,
May 1874.
I, CHARLES WRIGHT, of Sutton, in the County of Surrey, do hereby:
declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN FIREPROOF:
WAREHOUSES AND. OTHER STRUCTURES," to be as follows:-
My Invention relates to the construction of fireproof warehouses and
other structures, and is chiefly designed to afford the means whereby
warchouses and other buildings designed for the safe keeping of valuable
property may be constructed in such a manner that it will be impossible
for the property stored therein to be destroyed by fire arising from.
spontaneous combustion or from any cause whatever.
In constructing a warehouse or storehouse according to my Invention
I may build the same of any convenient dimensions and with any
desired number of floors. Each floor is divided into a number of com-
partments. There must be no internal communications between the
different sections or compartments, which can only be entered through
outside doors constructed to slide into hollow spaces in the walls, and

page_text: lined with fire-clay or gypsum and they are fitted to slide on rollers.
The ventilation is under perfect control for the admission of currents of
air for the perfect preservation of the goods stored and can be regulated
from the guardian's or watchman's room by levers such as are used on
railways for the working of signals. These said ventilators work on
rollers with india-rubber strips like the door, and when closed aro
practically air and water-tight.
Water pipes and hydrants are so arranged on the roof as to be under
the perfect control of the guardian or watchman. The main pipe
extends the whole length of the roof and has cross branches to each 1
section or compartment, and these may be used either simultaneously
for one or all of the sections of the building, as required, by the simple
adjustment of the aforesaid levers in the guardian's room.
•
Each compartment or room is provided with a floor of a peculiar
construction, herein-after described, and has a slight fall or slope to a 1
waste water pipe so that in the event of the hydrants being used the
water introduced for the extinction of the fire may find an exit from
the room.
The walls which separate the rooms or compartments are built hollow
or with spaces between them for ventilating purposes and to increase 2
the safety of the building, as air is a bad conductor of heat.
The floors should be constructed of girders of iron or of wood rendered
incombustible with gypsum; if iron girders are used they will rest upon
rollers supported on the walls with sufficient allowance for expansion,
and the spaces between the girders are to be filled in with fire-brick, 2
either arched or otherwise, and the whole covered with a thin bed of
concrete.
A dial in the guardian's office will indicate the slightest rise of
temperature, in any of the rooms or compartments of the building. A
rise of only only one degree of heat will be indicated and immediately 3
give the alarm by ringing a bell, so that fire by spontaneous combustion
or ignition from any other cause is almost practically impossible. By
the moving of one of the levers the air can be cut off from the com-.
partment wherein a rise of temperature is indicated, and the hydrants
operated in the same way when necessary to admit water into such 3
compartments. Flues extend from the rooms or compartments to the
roof of the building.

page_text: The warehouse or other building should be provided with spiral
staircases extending from the ground to the roof so as to give every
facility for the inspection of the whole building, and in case of any
unusual degree of heat being indicated in any of the rooms the
guardian could immediately ascend to the roof and examine the flue
corresponding to the number of the dial in the office and ascertain
by the smell whether it is necessary to admit water to the said room or
compartment.
For convenience in storing heavy goods in the rooms or compartments
of the warehouse I use a suspended railway which is readily controlled
for placing the goods at any given point in the said rooms or
compartments.
Each floor is provided with an external iron gallery the portions of
which immediately in front of the doors are so arranged that they may
be let down or otherwise adjusted so that they will not interfere with
the hoisting or lowering of the goods.