IMPROVEMENTS IN FIRE-PLACES AND STOVES
Year: 1873

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Thomas Whitwell, of the Thornaby Iron Works,
Stockton-on-Tees, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN FIRE-PLACES
AND STOVES."
Sealed the 27th May 1873, and dated the 8th April 1873.
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION filed by the said Thomas Whitwell at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition and
Declaration, on the 8th April 1873, pursuant to the 9th Section
of the Patent Law Amendment Act, 1852.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, THOMAS
WHITWELL, of the Thornaby Iron Works, Stockton-on-Tees, in the
County of Durham, send greeting.
WHEREAS I am in possession of an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
FIRE-PLACES AND STOVES," and have petitioned Her most Excellent
Majesty Queen Victoria, to grant unto me, my executors, administrators,
and assigns, Her Royal Letters Patent for the same, and have made
solemn Declaration that I am the first and true Inventor thereof.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Thomas Whitwell, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention to be as follows:-
My Invention relates to open fire-places and stoves in which the
waste heat passing up the chimney or into the brickwork behind or
around is utilized by being made to warm fresh air which is passed
through tubes of a suitable form placed so as to intercept the escaping
heat, such air when warmed being admitted into the room or space to be
warmed. I am aware that pipes and tubes in a great variety of forms
and positions have been suggested for heating external air for warming
rooms and buildings, but that such apparatuses have hitherto so far
failed to answer their ends as not to have come into general use; and
my improvements have in view such an arrangement of pipes or tubes
as with a due reference to their section and position, and the means
of controlling the action of the heat upon them, and of getting at them
to clean them and their attachments, shall render the apparatus
practically serviceable for the end for which it is designed, viz., warming
fresh air and delivering it into rooms.
My improvements will be best understood by reference to the
accompanying Sheets of Drawings, in which Figure 1, Sheet 1, is the
front view of an open fire-place of ordinary construction, but to which
my improvements are added; Figure 2, Sheet 2., is a cross section taken
through the vertical centre line; and Figure 3 on the same Sheet is a
side view in elevation; Figure 4, Sheet 1, is a plan seen from above.
In Sheet 3, the application is shewn in a more general form, where
Figures 1 and 2 are front views of the fire-places in a lower and upper
room respectively; Figures 3 and 4 are side views; and Figures 5 and 6
plan views of the same.
In Sheet 4 is shewn in cross section, the general application of the
whole system to one of a block of houses of ordinary middle class.
In Sheets 1 and 2, Figures 1 and 2 are shewn the pipes A, A, A, for
warming the air, of the general form and arrangement I prefer to
employ. These pipes and the spaces between them do not fill the whole
area of the passage provided for carrying the products of combustion to
the chimney, but above them and between the upper cross pipe E and
the front plate K of the fire-place is a door or valve B, which may be in
one or more sections. This door may be notched at various degrees of
opening by the rack B', and is for the purpose of controlling the course

page_text: of the escaping gases, so as either to compel them to pass away entirely
between the tubes, and so give up the maximum amount of heat to
be extracted from them, or to let a part or the whole of them escape
directly up the chimney, so reducing or removing their action from tho
air in the tubes.
The total area of opening between the tubes I prefer to make
sufficient to carry away the whole of the products of combustion, so that
the whole heat obtainable from them may be utilized, the door B being
closed. Each opening is of such a size as to admit suitable brushes
or instruments for cleaning the same from soot deposited on them; also
the door B should have a like capacity that when fully open being the
readiest way to the chimney the gases will chiefly pass up it. The air
pipes shewn at A, A, A, are preferably of a flattened oval figure jointed
into the lower box or cold air chamber D, which communicates with the
external atmosphere by the air flues D', D', which may either be carried
under the floors, or within the wainscotting or other suitable way.
The pipes A, A, A, open at their upper ends into a cross pipe E, which
by suitable connections E¹, E', open out under the mantelshelf, or at the
sides, as shewn in Sheet 3, Figures 2, 4, and 6, or they are conducted
upwards to other rooms, as shewn on Sheet 4, under various modifica-
tions. In each case these openings are controlled by valves, or "hit and
miss" slides, as shewn at F, F. The fire-place may be of the ordinary
construction with the bars at G, the grate at H, and the back block at J,
by which means the air is prevented from being burnt by too close contact
with the red hot fuel.
The door B, Sheet 1, Figures 1 and 4, and Sheet 2, Figures 2 and 3,
also answers for the admission of the apparatus for sweeping the
chimney, and for clearing away all soot that may lodge on the upper
parts of the apparatus, which can be done thus without removing or
displacing the tubes or any of their attachments; it is also available for
using the full draft of the chimney at the time of lighting the fire
when all is cold and the natural draft most sluggish.
For clearing away the soot and dust from the lower parts of the
apparatus, the opening C (of which there may be either one as shewn,
or two or more, placed as convenient) is arranged in such position as to
give facility for clearing away all soot and dust that may accumulate
behind the apparatus, or that may be swept down from the upper parts;
such openings will be closed by a lid C¹ or lids when not used.

page_text: Having now fully described the nature of my said Invention, and the
manner in which the same is to be performed, I would have it under-
stood that I do not claim the use of tubes or heating air in open or
closed fires, but what I do claim is,-
First. The general combination of parts forming a fire-grate or stove,
substantially as herein described.
Second. I claim in combination with pipes for utilising the waste
heat of fires the use of a door or doors for regulating the amount of
heat allowed to pass directly up the chimney or to pass between and to
heat the pipes, such door or doors to be used for the purpose of cleaning
the upper parts of the apparatus and the chimney from soot and dust,
substantially as herein described.
Third. In combination with pipes for utilizing the waste heat of fires,
I claim the use of a door or doors to allow of the soot or dust being
cleared away from the lower parts of the apparatus, substantially as
herein described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Thomas Whitwell, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this First day of April in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-three.
THOMAS WHITWELL. (L.S.)