IMPROVEMENTS IN WARMING OR HEATING SHEDS OR ROOMS FOR DRYING BRICKS, TILES, PROVISIONAL SPECIATION
Year: 1872

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to John Bird, of Kingswinford, in the County of
Stafford, Manager of Works, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS
IN WARMING OR HEATING SHEDS OR ROOMS FOR DRYING BRICKS, TILES,
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said John Bird at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
28th August 1872.
I, JOHN BIRD, of Kingswinford, in the County of Stafford, Manager
of Works, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN WARMING OR HEATING SHEDS OR ROOMS FOR DRYING BRICKS,
TILES, QUARRIES, AND OTHER ARTICLES MADE OF CLAY," to be as follows:
:―
In the manufacture of bricks, tiles, quarries, and other articles made
of clay, the said articles require to be dried preparatory to being burned
in the kiln. This drying is usually effected in sheds or rooms warmed or
heated by flues passing underneath the floor of the shed or room, the
heated air and products of combustion from one or more fire places

page_text: being made to pass through the said flues. The heating of the floor of
the shed or room by this the ordinary method is effected irregularly, and
the bricks or articles are not uniformly dried.
My Invention consists in warming or heating the said sheds or rooms
in the following manner :-I construct the floor of the shed of two layers
of quarries separated from each other by the thickness of a brick. The
lower layer of quarries is laid in rows extending from end to end of the
shed, single bricks placed end to end are arranged on the said lower
layer of quarries, one half of each brick resting on the edge of one
quarry and the other half of the brick on the edge of the next quarry.
The upper layer of quarries is arranged upon the bricks so that the
edges of the adjacent rows join along the middle of the bricks. There is
thus produced a series of parallel flues or passages. In the said flues or
passages I fix hot water pipes connected with a boiler from which the
hot water proceeds, and to which it returns after giving out heat in the
said flues or passages.
I prefer to make the pipe in one flue convey the advancing current
of hot water and the parallel pipe in the adjacent flue to convey the
return current to the boiler. The said flues are closed except with
respect to the entrance therein of the hot water pipes, that is, there is no
access of external air or circulation of air in the said flues, the heat
communicated by the hot water pipes to the air in the said flues having
no escape but through the upper layer of quarries forming the floor of
the drying shed.
By my improvements the said drying sheds or rooms are warmed or
heated with great uniformity, not only as regards the temperature
attained, but also as regards the uniformity of heat of all parts of the
floor.
By the use of drying sheds or rooms constructed according to my
Invention, the bricks and other articles are dried to the same degree, or
nearly so, in every part of the shed or room, and the production of waste
articles in the drying process is reduced to a minimum.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said John Bird in the Great Seal Patent Office on
the 21st February 1873.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOHN
BIRD, of Kingswinford, in the County of Stafford, Manager of Works,
send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Twenty-eighth day of August, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-two, in the thirty-
sixth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors,
give and grant unto me, the said John Bird, Her special license that
I, the said John Bird, my executors, administrators, and assigns,
or such others as I, the said John Bird, my executors, administrators,
and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from
time to time and at all times thereafter during the term therein
expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend,
within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel
Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN WARMING
OR HEATING SHEDS OR ROOMS FOR DRYING BRICKS, TILES, QUARRIES, AND OTHER
ARTICLES MADE OF CLAY," upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the
said John Bird, my executors or administrators, by an instrument
in writing under my, or their, or one of their hands and seals, should
particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention,
and in what manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same
to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar monthis
next and immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said John Bird, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement thereof, that is to say :-
In the manufacture of bricks, tiles, quarries; and other articles made
of clay, the said articles require to be dried preparatory to being burned
in the kiln. This drying is usually effected in sheds or rooms warmed
or heated by flues passing underneath the floor of the shed or room, the
heated air and products of combustion from one or more fire places being
made to pass through the said flues. The heating of the floor of the.

page_text: shed or room by this the ordinary method is effected irregularly, and the
bricks or articles are not uniformly dried.
My Invention consists in warming or heating the said sheds or rooms
in the following manner :-I construct the floor of the shed of two layers
of quarries separated from each other by the thickness of a brick. The
lower layer of quarries is laid in rows extending from end to end of the
shed, single bricks placed end to end are arranged on the said lower
layer of quarries, one half of each brick resting on the edge of one
quarry and the other half of the brick on the edge of the next quarry.
The upper layer of quarries is arranged upon the bricks so that the edges
of the adjacent rows join along the middle of the bricks. There is thus
produced a series of parallel flues or passages. In the said flues or
passages I fix hot water pipes connected with a boiler from which the
hot water proceeds and to which it returns after giving out heat in the
said flues or passages.
I prefer to make the pipe in one flue convey the advancing current of
hot water and the parallel pipe in the adjacent flue to convey the return
current to the boiler. The said flues are closed except with respect to
the entrance therein of the hot water pipes, that is, there is no access of
external air or circulation of air in the said flues, the heat communicated
by the hot water pipes to the air in the said flues having no escape but
through the upper layer of quarries forming the floor of the drying
shed.
By my improvements the said drying sheds or rooms are warmed or
heated with great uniformity, not only as regards the temperature
attained, but also as regards the uniformity of heat of all parts of the
floor.
By the use of drying sheds or rooms constructed according to my
Invention, the bricks and other articles are dried to the same degree, or
nearly so, in every part of the shed or room, and the production of waste
articles in the drying process is reduced to a minimum.
Having explained the nature of my Invention, I will proceed to
describe with reference to the accompanying Drawings, the manner in
which the same is to be performed.
Figure 1 represents in longitudinal vertical section (partly broken
away) a portion of the floor and the heating apparatus of a shed or room

page_text: for drying bricks and other articles constructed according to my Inven-
tion; Figure 2 is a plan of the same, a portion of the floor being removed
in order to exhibit the hot water pipes and flues of the said floor;
Figure 3 is a longitudinal vertical section of the floor drawn to a larger
scale; and Figure 4 is a transverse vertical section of the same. The
same letters indicate the same parts in each of the Figures of the
Drawings.
The floor of the drying shed or room is constructed of two layers of
quarries marked respectively a, a³, separated from each other by the
thickness of a brick. The layers of quarries are laid in rows extending
from end to end of the shed (see Figure 2). The upper layer of quarries a
are supported upon the lower layer of quarries a² by single bricks b, b,
placed end to end, the longitudinal edges of the quarries resting on the
middle of the bricks b, b, so that the edges of the adjacent rows of
quarries join along and are supported by the middle of the bricks, as will
be best seen by an examination of Figure 4. The supporting bricks b, b,
are arranged on the lower layer of quarries a³, so that one half of each
brick rests on the edge of one quarry and the other half of the brick on
the edge of the next quarry.
A series of parallel flues or passages
marked c, c, is thus produced in the floor of the drying shed or room,
the said flues running from end to end of the said floor. In these
parallel flues c, c, hot water pipes d, d, d², d³, are placed.
I prefer to fix these hot water pipes d, d, d³, d³, upon the middle of the
lower quarries by means of feather edged bricks, as represented, which
bricks also serve to diminish the capacity of the flues, and thereby to
utilize the heat, but the said feather edged bricks need not be used. The
hot water pipes d, d³, are connected with the boiler e set in the furnace f.
The said boiler may be of the kind called a saddle boiler, but other kinds
of boilers may be employed.
I prefer to so arrange the hot water pipes d, ď³, in the parallel
flues c, c, that every alternate pipe conveys the advancing current of hot
water, and the intermediate pipes convey the return current to the
boiler.
In the Drawings the hot water pipes marked d, d, convey the ad-
vancing current of hot water from the boiler e, and the hot water pipes
marked d², d, convey the return current of hot water to the boiler e.
The pipes d, d, are in communication at the boiler end of the drying

page_text: shed with the transverse feeding pipe g, which pipe g is in communica-
tion by means of the branch pipes h, h, with the upper part of the
boiler e, and the pipes d³, d³, conveying the return current are connected
with the transverse pipe i, which pipe is in communication by means of
the lower branch pipes k, k, with the lower part of the boiler e (see
Figures 1 and 2). The back ends of the hot water pipes d, d, d³, d³, are
connected together by the transverse pipe l. In this way a circulation
of hot water takes place through each pair of adjacent pipes d, d², in the
flues c, c, each alternate pipe d conveying the advancing current of hot
water, and each alternate pipe de conveying the return current to the
boiler as will be readily traced by an examination of the Drawing. The
boiler e is fed with water from the cistern m, and the escape of air from
the hot water pipes is provided for by the air or safety pipes n in the
back junction pipe 1. The parallel flues c, c, in which the hot water
pipes d, d², are situated are closed at their ends by luting with clay or
with a mixture of clay and mortar after the said pipes have been placed
therein in order to prevent access of external air or circulation of air in
the said flues. By the circulation of hot water through the pipes d, d,
d, d, in the parallel flues or passages c, c, the said pipes are heated and
communicate their heat to the air in the said flues or passages, which air
uniformly heats all parts of the floor of the drying shed or room formed
by the upper layer of quarries a, a.
The bricks to be dried upon the floor of the shed arc indicated in
dotted lines in Figures 1 and 3.
Although I prefer to construct the parallel flues or passages c, c, in
which the hot water pipes d, d, d², d², are laid in the manner described
and illustrated, yet I do not limit myself to that construction, as the said
flues or passages may be made in various other ways.
Besides heating all parts of the floor of the drying shed or room with
great uniformity, the said floor is heated by the use of my Invention
with a great saving of fuel compared with the ordinary method of
heating.
Having now described the nature of my Invention and the manner in
which the same is to be performed, I wish it to be understood that I do
not limit myself to the precise details herein-described and illustrated as
the same may be varied without departing from the nature of my In-
vention. But I claim as my Invention the improvements in warming or

page_text: heating sheds or rooms for drying bricks, tiles, quarries, and other
articles made of clay herein-before described and illustrated in the
accompanying Drawings, that is to say, constructing in the floor of the
drying shed or room a series of parallel flues or passages closed to the
external air, and arranging in the said flues or passages hot water pipes
in connection with a boiler for heating the air in the said flues or
passages, the heat thus communicated to the air in the flues or passages
heating the floor of the drying shed or room with great uniformity both
as regards the temperature attained and also as regards the uniformity
of heat of all parts of the said floor, substantially as described and
illustrated.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Bird, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this Twentieth day of February, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-three.
Witness,
GEORGE SHAW.
JOHN BIRD. (L.S.)