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THE WAYS OF WATER HEATING

Hot Springs

The earliest families loved warm baths in rare, but valued, natural hot springs. As civilizations advanced, so did mankind’s development of the technology for providing hot water wherever families lived.

Hot Water in the Victorian Age

At first, people heated water in vessels. Later, the affluent used gas-fired, coil-type, “flow-through” water heaters to heat the water in their Victorian homes. These heaters consisted of copper water pipe formed in a coil which acted as a heat exchanger and a gas burner. After a hot water fixture was opened, the gas burner would then be lit, heating water as it flowed through the coil. Unfortunately, this type of heater had no water temperature control. Instead the ultimate output temperature depended upon the heating capacity of the burner size and the volume of water sent through the coil. It was critical to maintain enough water flowing through the heater, while the heater was in operation, in order to avoid dangerously overheating it. Since this system provided a constant heating capacity, the ultimate ability of the system to provide the desired water temperature depended upon both the temperature of the incoming water as well as the volume or flow rate.

The Beginnings of the Hot Water Tank

Later, with the introduction of public, pressurized, water systems came fixtures such as showerheads and spray faucets, which produced increasingly higher, flow rates of water. With the higher flow fixtures also came a higher demand for hot water and the need for a better way of heating water. The danger involved with improper venting of the earlier gas “flow-through” water heater limited heating capacity design. At high water flow rates, the user often could not achieve sufficient heating for the water to accommodate a single shower. These conditions gave rise to innovation that led to the development of storage-tank water heaters.

During the l920’s, some of the earliest of the storage-tank water heaters in the U.S. were really a combination of the “flow-through” heat exchanger with a holding tank for storage. One such device built by the “Holyoke Heater Company” and fueled it with kerosene.

Electric Tank Water Heaters

After Westinghouse introduced the alternating current to the U.S., water heaters started consisting of an insulated tank and a heating source that was either electricity or gas. The heating source, either electric immersion elements or gas burner, heated the water until the water temperature in the tank rose high enough to trip an automatic resetting thermostat. When tripped, the thermostat would turn off the heat source. As hot water was drawn out of the tank during use, the water temperature dropped below the thermostat setting. At a preset temperature, the thermostat would reset, activating the heating source to heat the new water. Over the past 70 years few changes have be made to either storage-tank or tankless water heaters.