Patent ID: 8011360

Claim:
An air heater comprising a main housing having an air inlet and an outlet for heated air, a combustion chamber located therein, a burner assembly connected to the combustion chamber to supply burning gases thereto, an exhaust stack, a heat exchanger connected to said combustion chamber and comprising a plurality of heat exchanger sections having inlet ends connected to receive heated combustion gases from the combustion chamber and outlet ends connected to said exhaust stack for exhausting combustion gases after passage through the heat exchanger sections, said heat exchanger sections being spaced apart to allow the passage of air therebetween to effect heating of same, and a blower assembly for moving cool air into said main housing via said air inlet and causing the air to travel between the heat exchanger sections and thence outwardly of said outlet for heated air, said burner assembly including an enclosure connected to the combustion chamber and defining a path for movement of combustion air toward the combustion chamber, a pair of generally parallel burner plates located in said enclosure and disposed transverse to the path of combustion air travel, said burner plates being spaced apart to define a shallow chamber therebetween and both plates having a plurality of openings therein allowing for passage of combustion air therethrough, the openings in a first one of said plates being aligned with respective ones of the openings in the second plate to provide annular openings allowing exit of gaseous fuel from the shallow chamber, a conduit to supply gaseous fuel into the shallow chamber defined between said burner plates such that, in use, combustion air moving along the path and through the aligned openings in said burner plates mixes with gaseous fuel emerging from said chamber via said annular openings thereby to provide a combustible fuel-air mixture downstream of said burner plates, which mixture, in use, is ignited to provide the supply of burning gases to said combustion chamber.