| By :
Nick Messe
We can thank our primal ancestors the cave men for many great things including the discovery of fire and the first wheel. However, certain things required a lot more time to pass. One such development is central heating, and you will probably agree that it was worth waiting for. While the idea of a caveman with central heat might seem amusing there is still no evidence that the cavemen had thermostats in their caves. Modern heating has made it possible to live just about anywhere on the planet from the freezing plains of Russia to Alaska. In these places snow comes down heavily and ice covers everything for months. Residents in places such as northern Canada wouldn't be able to survive where the temperature barely reaches -30 in the spring. Luckily we can live in even the coldest places of earth and yet still curl up on our cozy couch and watch our favorite television shows. All this is thanks to modern central heating systems. So let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Some of the first central heating systems were founded in cities in Greece. These types of systems involve air heated by a furnace passing through empty spaces under the floors and exiting through pipes in the walls. This system is commonly referred to as the hypocaust. The hypocaust is very similar to a system used in Korea called the ondol which dates back to 37 BC where excess heat produced by stoves was used to heat homes. The hypocaust continued to be used until around the 12th century. Then a group of Muslim engineers living in Syria invented a new system. Heat produced by a central furnace room traveled through piping under the floor rather than the previously used hypocaust. Around the 13th century monks in Europe brought the idea of central heating back to life by developing a heating system powered by indoor wood fired furnaces. The next big development began around the 1700s when several Russian engineers began to design a hydrologically based system for central heating. It was not long after in 1716 when the first use of water to distribute heat for heating systems came in Sweden. Some of the earliest steam powered central heating systems can be traced back to around 1830. Angier March Perkins designed and installed a steam power central heating system in the home of the Governor of the bank of England so that he could grow grapes indoors in England's cold climate. Common day central heating systems borrow heavily off the designs of the historical systems. Many modern central heating systems use under the floor vents similar to the pipes used to run the heat under the floors in classic systems. The use of electric and gas central heating systems is currently the most common. However steam-powered central heating systems are not uncommon in larger buildings and industrial complex in the present day.
|
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.articlesbacklink.com/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites
