Lectures on Ventilation: Being a Course Delivered in the Franklin Institute of PhiladelphiaLeeds, Lewis W.
Science
Lectures on Ventilation: Being a Course Delivered in the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia
Leeds, Lewis W.
Ventilation
Now let us change the programme. Let us build a fire in this fire-place
in the lower story--that burns up brightly. Where does it get fresh air
from now? There can be no current down the chimney. Let us search it out
with this smoking taper. Ah, here it is coming down through the ventilator
from the very top of the house. We will soon stop that by this cap. But
see, it still burns as brightly as ever. Let us try again. Ah, do you
see the smoke rushing down the second story chimney and across to the
stairway, and down the stairs, and across the room again to this fire?
_There is a valuable hint._ Have you not noticed frequently gas in the
room from the fire-place or stove, and especially at night? And do you see
how easily it would be to account for it if the house were shut up tight
at night, with a large fire in the kitchen or furnace in the cellar,
and but a small fire in the second story? Don't you see how the whole
products of combustion, all the poisonous gases, may be drawn out into
the room? You often notice accounts of whole families being smothered to
death in one night, but many seem to think if they are not smothered to
death the first night, that it is not so very dangerous after all, and
not knowing how to remedy it easily go on from day to day and sometimes
escape the whole winter with a little of their lives left.
Now, let us put out the fire in the first story and make one in the
second.
You must remember that this is not a fashionable double ceiled and
plastered air-tight house. It is much more open, in proportion to its
size, than any ordinary house. And now, as this lower flue has been so
highly heated, it may take some time for the fire in the second story
fire-place to become heated sufficiently in excess to cause the air to
draw down the longest flue to the bottom of the house and up the stairs
to the second story fire-place, but it will soon do it.
I wish you to notice one thing here particularly, and each one apply
it to your own particular case. You know the lower part of the house is
closed up tight to keep out the robbers, and if great care is not taken
to give an abundant supply of fresh air to your chambers otherwise,
it will be drawn up through the hall out of your kitchen and cellar,
and as the cook has left the range lid off and shut the dampers, you
will have a suffocating smell of gas all over the house. But the worst
danger of all is the air that may be drawn in from an untrapped sewer
or cesspool. This is a very common but great source of ill-health.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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