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Steam-Age Kettle
Re-live the glory of the Steam Age, when men were men, and proper engineering was proper engineering. | |
So, It turns out modern ways of boiling water aren't very
efficient (See link). In addition, they're boring. It's all
water in, flick-a-switch-switch drudgery. It's clearly
contributing
to
the downfall of civilization.
My idea is a more sophisticated kettle, thus. The kettle
will be
a terrifyingly huge and complex piece of
engineering reminiscent of the steam locomotives that
inspired it, only this is designed to sit on top of a gas
stove, or possibly have it's own gas supply. It will
consist
of an outer reservoir chamber with a volume of about 3-
4
gallons, enough for quite a lot of tea, which is
important,
as tea is important. The inner chamber will be the
boiler,
perforated from bottom to top by a number of tubes.
Making it a multi-tube boiler (See Link). Because gas
flames are pretty clean and because the transit will be
pretty short, they should be perhaps formed into a gentle
helix to improve heat transfer.
Alert as to the boiling status of the water will be,
predictably, provided by a whistle. Once this goes off,
you
may decant the nicely-boiling water into the vessel of
your
choice, preferably via a dangerously hot hissing-spitting
brass tap. Following this you turn a series of valves on
and
off, some real, some for show, to allow (pre-warmed)
water into the boiler from the reservoir.
The whole device should be carefully priced as to be so
expensive it just exceeds the savings made by the
increased efficiency. It should also require monthly
maintenance by a man in a boiler suit with soot on his
face. There, nice.
Efficiency of standard water boiling techniques
http://hackaday.com...iencies-of-boiling- [bs0u0155, Jun 07 2012]
Boilers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_boiler [bs0u0155, Jun 07 2012]
[link]
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what I don't get is why we don't have more steam heat in more areas, it's just in NYC. In this green day and age you'd think they'd change whatever laws prevent it.
Why don't they want more of that? Is there like a really huge explosion risk with boilers/power plants? Surely the potential damage depends on the size of the boiler/power plant? |
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We have steam rising out of gratings in the road here
in Philly.. so I assume it's used here also. |
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