Domestic Ventilation : Part 2

American Woman's Home
by Catharine Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe

(Page 6 of 41)

How few understand that after air has received ten percent of this fatal gas, if drawn into the lungs, it can no longer take carbonic acid from the capillaries! No wonder there is so much impaired nervous and muscular energy, so much scrofula, tubercles, catarrhs, dyspepsia and typhoid diseases. I hope you can do much to remedy the poisonous air of thousands and thousands of stove-heated rooms."

In a cold climate and wintry weather, the grand impediment to ventilating rooms by opening doors or windows is the dangerous currents therefore produced, which are so injurious to the delicate ones that for their sake it can not be done. Then, also, as a matter of economy, the poor can not afford to practice a method which carries off the heat generated by their stinted store of fuel. Even in a warm season and climate, there are frequent periods when the air without is damp and chilly and yet at nearly the same temperature as that in the house. At such times, the opening of windows often has little effect in emptying a room of vitiated air. The ventilating-flues, such as are used in mines, have, in such cases, but little influence; for it is only when outside air is colder that a current can be produced within by this method.

The most successful mode of ventilating a house is by creating a current of warm air in a flue, into which an opening is made at both the top and the bottom of a room, while a similar opening for outside air is made at the opposite side of the room. This is the mode employed in chemical laboratories for removing smells and injurious gases.

The laboratory-closet is closed with glazed doors and has an opening to receive pure air through a conductor from without. The stove or furnace within has a pipe which joins a larger cast-iron chimney-pipe, which is warmed by the smoke it receives from this and other fires. This cast-iron pipe is surrounded by a brick flue, through which air passes from below to be warmed by the pipe and therefore an upward current of warm air is created. Openings are then made at the top and bottom of the laboratory-closet into the warm-air flue and the gases and smells are pressed by the colder air into this flue and are carried off in the current of warm air.

The same method is employed in the dwelling-house shown in a preceding chapter. A cast-iron pipe is made in sections, which are to be united and the whole fastened at top and bottom in the center of the warm-air flue by ears extending to the bricks and fastened when the flue is in process of building. Projecting openings to receive the pipes of the furnace, the laundry stove and two stoves in each story, should be provided, which must be closed when not in use.

A large opening is to be made into the warm-air fine and through this the kitchen stove-pipe is to pass and be joined to the cast-iron chimney-pipe. Therefore the smoke of the kitchen stove will warm the iron chimney-pipe and this will warm the air of the flue, causing a current upward and this current will draw the heat and smells of cooking out of the kitchen into the opening of the warm-air flue. Every room surrounding the chimney has an opening at the top and bottom into the warm-air Hue for ventilation, as also have the bathroom and water-closets.

The writer has examined the methods most employed at the present time, which are all modifications of the two modes here described. One is that of Robinson, patented by a Boston company, which is a modification of the mining mode. It consists of the two ventilating tubes, such as are employed in mines, united in one shaft with a roof to keep out rain and a valve to regulate the entrance and exit of air, as illustrated in Fig. 30. This method works well in certain circumstances, but fails so often as to prove very unreliable. Another mode is that of Ruttan, which is effected by heating air. This also has certain advantages and disadvantages. But the mode adopted for the preceding cottage plan is free from the difficulties of both the above methods, while it will surely ventilate every room in the house, both by day and night and at all seasons, without any risk to health and requiring no attention or care from the family.

By means of a very small amount of fuel in the kitchen stove, to be described hereafter, the whole house can be ventilated and all the cooking done both in warm and cold weather. This stove will also warm the whole house, in the Northern States, eight or nine months in the year. Two Franklin stoves, in addition, will warm the whole house during the three or four remaining coldest months.

In a warm climate or season, by means of the non-conducting castings, the stove will ventilate the house and do all the cooking, without imparting heat or smells to any part of the house except the stove-closet.

At the close of this volume, drawings, prepared by Mr. Lewis Leeds, are given, more fully to illustrate this mode of warming and ventilation and in so plain and simple a form that any intelligent woman who has read this work can see that the plan is properly executed, even with workmen so entirely ignorant on this important subject as are most house-builders, especially in the newer territories. In the same article, directions are given as to the best modes of ventilating houses that are already built without any arrangements for ventilation.

About the Author

Catharine Esther Beecher (1800 - 1878) was a noted educator, renowned for her forthright opinions on women's education as well as her vehement support of the many benefits of the incorporation of a kindergarten into children's education.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811 - 1896) was a white American abolitionist and novelist, whose Uncle Tom's Cabin attacked the cruelty of slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential, even in Britain.