Many Advances Shown In Oil Heating

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31728, 11 July 1968, Page 14

Many Advances Shown In Oil Heating

With only extremely rare exceptions, all home heating systems are fueled with materials which are dug out of, or collected off, the ground.

First of all, It was wood which provided the main fire fuel, later coal took precedence as a heating material, but in recent times, oil has been used as the sole heating agent in many homes. Modern heating arrangements seem to do away with a roaring open fire: instead, the heat comes from inoffen-sive-looking wall brackets or grills in the floor.

Perhaps one of the biggest advances in the oil-fired household heating scheme is the process which allows existing fireplaces or heating systems, which formerly ran on coal, to be converted to an oil-firing unit with very little alteration, at an average cost of about $2OO. Mr E. A. Graham, a Christchurch heating engineer, said a recently-developed vapour sleeve burning unit, which

could be installed in any sealed unit which formerly ran on solid fuel, could be run on kerosene or fuel oil. “The greatest asset with this type of unit is that the same heating can be obtained as wit. coal, at a competitive cost and th~ e is no setting of fires or cleaning ashpans out afterwards,” Mr Graham said.

“There is no altering of the room’s appearance when the unit has been Installed as pipes can be brought in from the fuel tank (which is located outside and is topped up by an oil company representative as it empties) under the floor and through a cylinder cupboard to the unit and is not seen at all. There are a few exceptions when this is not possible and there has to be a small portion of pipe showing in the room. "This particular type of unit cannot be installed in an open fireplace, only in a

closed storeheat unit; however, there are units which can be fitted to open fireplaces,” he said. Mr Graham said the vapour sleeve burner installed in one fireplace did not heat the whole of the house, but would only heat about the same area which formerly was heated by the solid fuel. There are different sizes or bur-ers available to emit different intensities of heat The burning units are almost silent A central heating system, of which there were many varieties, Mr Graham said, could be installed to heat the whole of a house at a cost o' not less than $lOOO. He said the many varieties included water, steam, oil and air reticulation systems. The main type of oil burner, a pot-burner, which first came into use more than 30 years ago, was still in use at the present time. Kerosene is also used as a heating agent in some systems. At present there is a great demand for central heating units and heating engineers say they are finding it difficult to equate supply, demand and resources.