HEATING TOWNS BY STEAM.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 5247, 18 February 1882, Page 2 (Supplement)

HEATING TOWNS BY STEAM.

The Holly system of heating towns and villages by steam'; which was the subject of a lecture recently delivered before the Society of Arts, cannot be said to have received that amount of encouragement here which it enjoya in America. The system has been brought into operation in Borne 30 American towns, and is now in process of introduction on a large' scale in New York. The company which is laying large mains in many of the principal thoroughfares of the lower part o: that city have placed 64 boilers, havim an aggregate of ] 5,000-horso power, in j large central boiler-house. After drying the steam, they convey it through larg< pipes coated with asbestos and a woodei jacket to the houses, taking the condensec water back to the boiler-house by a smalle: return-pipe, similarly protected agains the radiation of heat. The American! consider the new method as a proper ate] in the direction of a more economical more healthy, and less dangerous mode o warming houses, and as bucli welcome it advent. We do not beliovo that it is tin best and most promising effort, becauai the probabilities in the future of the dis tribution of a heating and fuel gas an certainly great. At the same time, it h better to substitute steam taken fron mains for that from boilers hidden awaj in cellars under the pavements, whict constitute a standing menace to safety o life and property, and which are espe cially dangerous because they are rarelj in charge of competent persons.—lron.