The second force in ventilation is the motion of air or winds. This is
the most powerful agent of ventilation, for even a slight,
imperceptible wind, traveling about two miles an hour, is capable,
when the windows and doors of a room are open, of changing the air of
a room 528 times in one hour. Air passes also through brick and stone
walls. The objections to winds as a sole mode of ventilation are their
inconstancy and irregularity. When the wind is very slight its
ventilating influence is very small; on the other hand, when the wind
is strong it cannot be utilized as a means of ventilation on account
of the air currents being too strong and capable of exerting
deleterious effects on health.
The third, the most constant and reliable, and, in fact, principal
agent of ventilation is the specific gravity of the air, and the
variations in the gravity and consequent pressure which are results of
the variations in temperature, humidity, etc. Whenever air is warmer
in one place than in another, the warmer air being lighter and the
colder air outside being heavier, the latter exerts pressure upon the
air in the room, causing the lighter air in the room to escape and be
displaced by the heavier air from the outside, thus changing the air
in the room. This mode of ventilation is always constant and at work,
as the very presence of living beings in the room warms the air
therein, thus causing a difference from the outside air and effecting
change of air from the outside to the inside of the room.
=Methods of Ventilation.=--The application of these principles of
ventilation is said to be accomplished in a natural or an artificial
way, according as mechanical means to utilize the forces and
properties of air are used or not. But in reality natural ventilation
can hardly be said to exist, since dwellings are so constructed as to
guard against exposure and changes of temperature, and are usually
equipped with numerous appliances for promoting change of air.
Windows, doors, fireplaces, chimneys, shafts, courts, etc., are all
artificial methods of securing ventilation, although we usually regard
them as means of natural ventilation.
=Natural Ventilation.=--The means employed for applying the properties
of diffusion are the materials of construction. A porous material
being favorable for diffusion, some such material is placed in several
places within the wall, thus favoring change of air. Imperfect
carpenter work is also a help, as the cracks and openings left are
favorable for the escape and entrance of air.
Wind, or the motion of air, is utilized either directly, through
windows, doors, and other openings; or indirectly, by producing a
partial vacuum in passing over chimneys and shafts, causing suction of
the air in them, and the consequent withdrawal of the air from the
rooms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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