FLAME SPREADER LAMPS AND HEATERS
 A CENTURY OF EXCELLENCE

Robert E. Dietz submitted the first patent for a flat wick lantern burning the new "coal oil" in 1857.   Production of the lamps begin in 1859.  Dietz was not just an inventor - he was one of the first environmentalists.   Prior to his new flat wick lamps, lamps burned whale oil.  Whale oil lamps were smelly and smoked a lot, and the light output was poor.   Dietz could also see there was a infinite supply of coal, a rather finite supply of whale oil, and getting the whale oil was rather rough on the whales.  Within a few years, the whaling industry took a hit and more whales survived, while at the same time home lighting was vastly improved.

But flat wick lamps and lanterns have a problem: turn the wick up higher for more light, and they admit insufficient oxygen for proper combustion and begin smoking. The flame spreader was patented on Jan. 15, 1884 for use in circular, center-draft worsted woven wick lamps.  This development introduced oxygen to both the inside and outside of the wick, resulting in considerably greater efficiency when a properly designed flame spreader was inserted into the center draft tube.

Quite the opposite from a flat wick, the flame spreader type lamps mandated that the heat output be maintained at a high rate so the flame spreader itself was heated sufficiently to burn all the various liberated hydrocarbon products (coal oil), and turning them down caused in incomplete combustion process. All this was before the discovery of kerosene as a petroleum byproduct. The oil companies did their best to imitate coal oil with a product they called kerosene so they could have a market share in an already established market. 

Flame spreader design heater and lamp wicks are made of cotton.  Modern catalytic converter heaters operate at a higher temperature than flame spreader heaters and also utilize a wick with the top section being fiberglass fibers (to contend with the higher heat), and thus can burn lesser quality kerosene, some even red dye kerosene, with a clean, odor free burn.  Absolutely clear kerosene must be burned in flame spreader design lamps and heaters to have them produce a clean, odor free burn.

HOW LONG WILL COTTON WICKS LAST IN USE?

Fiberglass wicks can be burned dry.  The disadvantage of cotton wicks is that the cotton itself can burn.  With care, a cotton heater wick can last one heating season.  But if the heater is allowed to run out of fuel then the wick itself will burn down 1/4".  If the heater runs out of fuel 3 times the wick is shortened 3/4" and the wick life is consumed - a new wick is required.  So how long a wick lasts depends upon the user.

HISTORY OF FLAME SPREADER HEATERS AND LAMPS

Beginning in 1884, circular wick lamps with flame spreaders were produced in great quantities in the area around Meriden, CT, by Bradley & Hubbard, Plume & Atwood, Miller and many other companies, most of the early models sold under the Rochester name and made by Miller.  By 1886, Rochester lamps were in production of "store lamps" using a 2 9/16" wick, soon followed by almost all other lamp companies.  In 1888, the Perfection company began producing center draft, flame spreader lamps at their Cleveland Foundry. 

Beginning in the late 1880's, Miller, B&H, P&A and the Standard Lighting Co. of Cleveland began making lamp-based heaters with the principle concept being their store lamp font with modified gallery to eliminate a chimney being dropped into a metal cabinet.  This provided up to 10,000 BTU/hr of heat without a blinding light. 

In 1894, Perfection basically scaled up their lamps to use a 2 9/16" diameter wick, put the fount in a housing, and began selling portable space heaters using their new "500" wick, although the name "Perfection" was not used until 1901.  The difference between the heaters sold by Perfection and the large lamp companies was in the wick carrier:  they all used essentially the same 2 9/16" diameter wick, but the Perfection wick system was sold with the wick carrier while other heaters used the same wick carrier as in their lamps.  It was easier to change the wick in a Perfection heater than in a lamp-based heater, Perfection heaters were inexpensive, and that pretty much ended production of lamp-based heaters.

Work on flame spreader lamps and heaters was also taking place in Europe.  In France, a beautiful series of Kosmos lamps (Gaudard) were designed in the late 1880's; the equipment to make them using a modified water wheel was manufactured in Brooklyn, and is still in use today in the South of France.  In England, Valor and Beatrice were producing some very fine parlor heaters, most using a variation of the 1 1/2" center-draft wick used in B&H and P&A lamps, although Valor did produce a virtual clone of the Perfection 500 heater.  Photos of some of those Valor and Beatrice heaters from my collection are shown below.

With a few exceptions, production of flame spreader heaters ended in about 1981 with the introduction of catalytic converter heaters made in Japan.  The exceptions were the Moonlighter and Omni 15 heaters made by Toyotomi, the Corona SS-DK and SS-DX, the KOGY 200A (all being essentially shrunken Perfection heaters with an updated cabinet design), and POD heaters.  Production on all but the POD ended by the early 1990's.  POD may still be making heaters, but it is extremely difficult to determine as they try very hard to have no visible marketing plan.

Flame spreader designs must be fed very high quality fuel in order to burn clean, but catalytic converter heaters could consume even relatively low quality fuel and still burn very clean.  The fiberglass wicks used in catalytic converter heaters were also very reliable and long lasting compared to the cotton wicks used in flame spreader heaters, and thus the century-old flame spreader design was doomed to obsolescence.

To reiterate, flame spreader lamps and heaters must be burned at a very high heat setting so that the flame spreader is sufficiently heated to complete the combustion process;  turn them down to an "idle" setting, and they will produce a distinct aroma.

Parker lamp gallery circa 1881	Beatrice 4120 gallery circa 1920's	Valor 420 gallery circa 1982	Perfection gallery circa 1970's

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Note the similarity of design - the English Beatrice on the left uses a 1 1/2" wick, while the Perfection 730 on the right uses the standard 2 9/16" Perfection 500 wick.  Both are hinged and open the same way, although the Beatrice has a built-in fuel tank and the Perfection font is removable. The Beatrice is essentially a small Perfection!

The Beatrice 4012 is unique in being an exceptionally poorly designed heater.  Whoever designed it knew nothing about air flow and draft requirements for heaters - it was designed to fail, just like the GSW heater.  Turn the wick up enough to have heat output and the fuel would heat up, lowering the viscosity of the fuel, the flame would raise until it was almost uncontrollable and smoke and soot, and lowering the wick to eliminate the smoke and soot would extinguish the flame.  It was literally impossible to have a steady flame! The photos below illustrate the problem.  The wide Beatrice flame spreader and narrow opening in the gallery, combined with the flame spreader being only 0.50" above the burner plate, insured the flame from the wick would be turn down, back onto the fuel tank, and excessively heat the fuel!!!  Guaranteed lousy burning.  I modified an 1896 B&H Jauch flame spreader to fit into the Beatrice draft tube, as shown in the photo below right.  Now there is sufficient airflow past the fuel tank, the wick gets enough oxygen to burn clean - and the fuel is no longer being excessively heated!  I won.  The Beatrice 4012 finally burns clean and steady.