Bark Or Moist Stove

Mr. Loudon gives the following design and description of a moist stove, warmed on the old plan of deriving heat by the combined agency of bark and flues. Instead of a stage in the centre it has a pit, which may be from two and a half to four feet deep, according as bark or leaves are to be used, the latter material requiring the greatest depth. It is commonly surrounded by a thin brick wall: but planks of stone, or plates of slate or cast-iron, are to be preferred. The roof, when necessary, may be supported by iron columns from the middle of the pit, a.

Fig. 160.

"Shelves may be placed against the back wall, b, and occasionally a narrow-leaved creeper run up the roof, c. We may add, that houses of this description are generally placed east and west against walls, on account of the shelter thereby obtained during winter, when a high degree of heat is kept up within, while the cold is excessive without." - Enc. of Gard.

But the tank system is far superior to the foregoing; and the following detail, given by the Rev. John Huyshe, is so full of information upon the point, that I extract it entire from the Gardener's Chronicle: -

Fig. 161.

"a is the boiler, its top level with the floor of the house, the fireplace being in a back shed. The boiler is small and conical; b 1 and b 2 are the tanks; c is a trap-door opening into the tank, to fill the house with steam at pleasure. The arrows indicate the course of the water through the tanks and pipes. The two pipes, though drawn side by side, are really one above the other; the return pipe being, of course, the lower. Above these pipes is a stone shelf. Tank b 1 is made of oak; the other, b 2, of elm. The wood of each is two inches and a half in thickness; and they stand on oak blocks, three inches thick, to raise them from the floor. This tends to prevent their decay, and promotes a freer circulation of hot air. The bottom boards are placed the lengthway of the tank. The bottom, as well as the sides of the tanks, are bolted together by iron bars, five-eighths of an inch in thickness, passed through the wood, and screwed up as tightly as possible. Each tank is divided by an inch and a half elm board, and is covered with common roofing-slates - those that are generally called ' Princesses,' twenty-four inches long and fourteen wide; the edges not cut square, but used just as purchased, and the joints stopped merely with wetted clay: there is no fear of too much steam escaping into the house.

"As the divisions of tank b were fifteen inches wide, a small strip of oak is nailed on the inside of the tank, of sufficient thickness to allow the slates, which were fourteen inches wide, to reach across. Round the edges of the tanks is an inch board, eleven inches deep; and the plunging material is fine sand. The slates carry the weight of this sand, though eleven inches deep, with ease, not one of them having cracked.

"In a considerable part of tank b 1, rich mould is put instead of the sand, in which pines are planted without any pots, after the French mode. The tank holds twenty-two hogsheads; and the boiler, though a small one, is fully able to heat this quantity. The water, heated to 114° or 115° of. Fahrenheit, is high enough to keep the house at a temperature of 70° at night; and a moderate fire, kept up for five or sis hours in the twenty-four, is abundantly sufficient." - Gard. Chron.