History
The chip heater is embedded in Australian and New Zealand social history as many people can remember using one or someone who had one. The precise history of the chip heater is unclear.
The original idea surely must be derived from vertical steam boilers. Professor Miles Lewis notes that “the 'instantaneous water heaters', which were being sold by Douglas & Sons of Melbourne by 1888 were probably of this sort. In 1892 the Melbourne iron founder Angus McLean was advertising as the sole proprietor and manufacturer (presumably for Victoria) of Fischer's Patent Bath Heater, which could be heated with wood in three minutes at the cost of one farthing.”
Catalogues from the National Radiator Company (Hull, United Kingdom) from 1913 and 1919 which were marketed in Australia do not show chip heaters suggesting that the chip heater was local innovation.
Read more about this topic: Chip Heater
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