Turner County herald. (Hurley, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1886-02-25
A Few Words About Hot Air Furnaces. "a
the Hurley peonIe

pirate. Hence, respectfully submit
the following:
First, will say that hay not been
In the basement, nor do I know what
sort OF furnace you haye; but what
have noticed summed up would be that
you have no reason to lay all of the
blame on the furnace or teacher, nor,
in plain words, any oft, until you have
given 1T fair trial, as no furnace can
work satisfactorily under such condit-
ions as this one is placed. Furnaces
are generall7 made to work, and can
be made to do so. Some of these det.
rimental conditions are:
1st. Proper preparations are not
made to carry out the same amount of
air as is brought in.
I'd. That the ventilator back into
the basement is detrlment, as is PROV
en- by its being covered in order to keep
the foul air out, as under certain con-
ditions it tends to rise.
Now, 1 ask, how can you expect to
force q yolumn of air lexis in. or there
abcuts. into room with current
enough to blow paper to the ceiling,
without proper provision being made
for its exit2
1t would require about a 10 horse.
power engine to force tie required
amount, which would be hundreds of
cubic feet of air per minute, which
would have to be sent whizzing out of
the cracks. To those that do not real
ize that your room is already full of air
with pressure of fifteen pounds per
square inch. try to form q vacuum, or
even 60 into comparatively tight.
small room that has two doors, one
opening inward the other outward, now
close the outward one but do not fasten :
open the other suddenly and you will
throw the other open with the same
force. Now change, leave the outer
one about one-fourth open, close the
other quickly, and the other Will close
with bang.
1t IS said that a practical man was
employed to test the furnace, to see if
1t were the furnace or lack of proper
management. claim that no prac.
tical man can,make it work under these
conditions, and more, that no practical
man would attempt to work furnace
under such conditions, satisfactorily.
l will say here, that any ordinary
stove, with proper dampers and so con-
structed that it will not be liable to
puff or throw out bad gases, and that
Will give off most Of its heat before
reaching the chimney, can be made to
work well by simply fixing hot air
box for it out Of sheet metal with pro.
per air ducts for the airs entrance and
exit. So don't blame Il furnace until
you have given it a fair trial and find
the trouble to be there.
a few points which are necessary for
u hot air furnace to work we'll, are
these:
First there should be two cold air
ducts, from which to obtain your air
as you wish to have it pure) running to
the outside, in the direction of the gen.
eral wind currents. which are here
and northwest. These should
not be less than one foot square with
funnel shaped hopper at the outer ends.
as when the wind blows more heated
air is required. Fixed thus. with cut
offs, yon can take advantage of the
wind which will greatly help your cur
rent. Then after placing the furnace,
your hot air ducts next in order, should
be made of proper metal and large
enough to carry the current desired
with as little friction as possible. These
should by all means rise gradually from
the furnace to the hot air register.
Never run them on level, but give
them all the rise possible. Avoid quick
turns.
You may have all of this as perfect
as possible for aught l know, but the
work is only half completed, or hardly
that, as the rest needs more careful
construction than the former. Right
here is where it seems to me that the
builder was at fault. so look we'll to the
ventilator, which should be so as to let
foul air out, not carry it in. This one I
believe is kept covered in order to keep
1t out. II you expect to carry this back
into the basement look moment and
see the folly: In using the same air
over again and again, you would be
making one law counteract the other,
or even worse, making the same law
work both ways; hence. perpetual mo-
tion with one law.
Your ventilatlng ducts should begin
at the very bottom of the cellar and go
to the top OF the highest chimney. 1t
Is proven, now, that you would have at
nearly all times current of air up this
duct. | understand that there are
none of these in the walls, so the cheap
est way that know of would be to
construct them out of lumber on the
outside. Your ventilating registers
should be two in number, one in the
wall near the ceiling the other near the
floor or below the mouth. These should
be larger than the hot air re yister. The
reason that two are better that one, is
that you can govern the heating and
ventilating capacity. "As hot air rises,' .
when you wish to warm the room the
upper air must be warmed first, SO close
the upper ventilating register, open the
lower, then the hot air rising will press
out the cold, which will be found to
flow out easily with large ventllator
with an upward current in the duct to
help it. Then to cool and ven tilate,
reverse the method. You should have
two cut-offs IN the.ventilatlng duct one
below the other above the lower venti-
lating register, in order that you may
have CONTROL over it at all conditions
of the atmosphere. Do not be afraid of
getting IN too much cold air, you have
enough friction to overcome at hest