Science in Short ChaptersWilliams, W. Mattieu (William Mattieu)
Science
Science in Short Chapters
Williams, W. Mattieu (William Mattieu)
Science
The openings into and out of the rooms being adjustable, they may be so
regulated that each shall receive an equal share of fresh warm air; or,
if desired, the bedroom chimney valves may be closed in the daytime,
and thus the heat economized by being used only for the day rooms; or,
_vice versâ_, the communication between the upcast shaft and the lower
rooms may be closed in the evening, and thus all the warm air be turned
into the bedrooms at bedtime.
If the area of the entrance apertures of the rooms exceeds that of the
outlet, only the latter need be adjusted; the room doors may, in fact,
be left wide open without any possibility of “draught,” beyond the
ventilation current, which is limited by the dimension of the opening
from the room into the shaft or chimney.
So far, for winter time, when the ventilation problem is the easiest,
because then the excess of inner warmth converts the whole house into
an upcast shaft, and the whole outer atmosphere becomes a downcast. In
the summer time, the kitchen fire would probably be insufficient to
secure a sufficiently active upcast.
To help this there should be in one of the upper rooms—say an
attic—an opening into the chimney secured by a small well-fitting
door; and altogether enclosed within the chimney a small automatic
slow-combustion stove (of which many were exhibited in South
Kensington, that require feeding but once in twenty-four hours), or a
large gas-burner. The heating-chamber below must now be converted into
a cooling chamber by an arrangement of wet cloths, presently to be
described, so that all the air entering the house shall be reduced in
temperature.
Or the winter course of ventilation may be reversed by building a
special shaft connected with the kitchen fire, which, in this case,
must not communicate with the house shaft. This special shaft may thus
be made an upcast, and the rooms supplied with air from above down the
house shaft, through the rooms, and out of the kitchen _viâ_ the winter
heating-chamber, which now has its communication with the outside air
closed.
Reverting to the first-named method, which I think is better than the
second, besides being less expensive, I must say a few concluding words
on an important supplementary advantage which is obtainable wherever
all the air entering the house passes through one opening, completely
under control, like that of our heating-chamber. The great evil of our
town atmosphere is its dirtiness. In the winter it is polluted with
soot particles; in the dry summer weather, the traffic and the wind
stir up and mix with it particles of dust, having a composition that
is better ignored, when we consider the quantity of horse-dung that is
dried and pulverized on our roadways. All the dust that falls on our
books and furniture was first suspended in the air we breathe inside
our rooms. Can we get rid of any practically important portion of this?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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