Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1874 — An Ingenious Device. [ARTICLE]

An Ingenious Device.

The liability of water-pipes to burst from the effect of frost is one of the most prolific sources of discomfort and expense both in households and in manufacturing establishments; and no effectual safeguard from the evil lias liiiharto been found. An English inventor now proposes a method which has certainly the merit oi ingenuity, and seems well adapted to its object. The increase in bulk of water, in freezing, is about onetwelfth, and the expansive force thus exerted is so powerful that no pipe or vessel yet made can resist it. But this inventor adroitly evades the difficulty bypassing through the water-pipe an indiarubber tube of such diameter that the space inside of it is a little more than the increase in the volume of water in freezing. The rubber tube is kept full of air, its supply being acted upon by the water pressure in such a way that the equality of tension is automatically preserved. When the water in the pipe freezes and expands the rubber-tube simply yields to it and is compressed, giving space for tlie increase in bulk which would otherwise exert an irresistible bursting pressure upon the pipe. When the ice melts the air tube again expands, and the original position of thiugs is restored; It is also worthy of note that by communicating heat through the rubber tube the pipe when frozen can be thawed out. For water-closets, boiler supply-pipes, kitchen boilers, etc,, the device seems to be in the highest degree desirable. —Mechanical Sac.-t.