With a hot water heater of some type installed in almost every building in Canada today, most people should be very aware of the multitude of benefits of having hot water available on demand. Cooking, cleaning, and personal hygiene have all been dramatically improved thanks to this invention.
Being able to run hot water directly from your tap is, relatively speaking, a recent innovation. Home hot water heaters only saw popular use beginning in the early 1900s.
Benjamin Waddy Maughan, an English painter, is purported to have invented the first hot water heater in 1868. His device, which he named the ‘geyser,’ heated piped in cold water, then pushed the resulting hot water out into a sink or tub. As part of his legacy, hot water heaters are sometimes referred to as ‘geysers’ in parts of the UK to this day.
A Norwegian engineer by the name of Edwin Ruud was influenced by Maughan’s geyser, and developed an ‘automatic water heater’ around 1889 after emigrating to the United States. This invention would later become popularized and even common in homes throughout Canada and the US. Modern hot water tanks still bear a strong resemblance to Ruud’s tank-style heaters.
Here at the Gentlemen Plumbers Edmonton, we understand how important clean, safe, and well-working hot water heaters are for you and your family. Our plumbing experts are trained and ready to help you with any installation, maintenance, or repair you may need.