In the return line of Mr. Gold’s system, and just before the section of glass pipe, he has a simple steel elbow. And in that elbow, on its uppermost side, there is a hole. And that hole is the main air vent. No steam would ever reach it. Brilliant.
The mattress radiator that I’ve been staring at for the past 15 years has a tapping near its top for an air vent. It’s on the side opposite the supply valve. In 1854, an air vent would have been a very small hand valve. When you wanted heat, you opened the supply valve and bled the air from the radiator. I’ve often wondered how this could have worked since steam is lighter than air. Steam would have entered the mattress radiator, gone straight up and over, and then left through the vent. Most of the air, being heavier than steam, would have remained at the bottom of the radiator and the result would have been uneven heating.
But in reading the patent, I realized that Mr. Gold had also thought of this because there’s a small metal tube that runs from the vent tapping down inside the radiator, and ends near its bottom. So when a homeowner vented, he was actually venting from the bottom of the radiator, and not from the top. A simple dip tube. Nice!
The world you and I live in is wonderfully high-tech. And that makes me appreciate even more the brilliant simplicity of a time long gone when heating was young, and people like Mr. Stephen J. Gold of New Haven, Connecticut came up with ways to keep people warm. And safe.
I appreciate them.
Dan Holohan
Dan Holohan
"Plumbers Protect The Health Of The World."
