The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1886-01-30
Is Your Air Moist

we CANNOT 700 frequently, or TOO
strong ~, impress upon every reader
the Importance of providing abundant
moisture, for every room heated in
any manner during winter. All know
that it is difficult to grow thrifty
plants ID aiving room. Does any one
suppose that an atmosphere in which
ordinary plants will not flourish, can
be healthful one for living people E?
The amount of dull feeling, of languid-
ness, OF poor health, of positive sick
ness, arising from very small and
overlooked causes, Is beyond ordinary
conception. Mrs. Franklin, in her
practical Economies, touches upon
one OF these causes, in telling how she
grows plants successfully in an Ordi-
nary stove or furnace heated room.
Look at the following carefully enough
to understand 1t, and then act. With
out going INTO the scientific why, let it
be remembered that air, on the slight
est increase of temperature, has the
power OF uniting with little water or
moisture, IN way to destroy its prop
critics as water, for the time being.
Encase a room in sheet-irOn or tin, so
that no air can pass in or out. Sup
pose the air to be at 80, or 35, or 40
degrees, temperature. Let a stove
pipe, or a closed steam-pipe, pass
through the room so as to warm the
air therein, without letting any air in
or out. The air which at 35 degrees
feels damp or DIST, will on being
warmed to 40 or so degrees, be dry
and husky.
Simply increasing the temperature
OF the atmosphere has concealed it's
sensible moisture; rather it has com
bmed the moisture with the air in
a way that it is no longer moisture at
all, any more than water is water after
it has combined with lime in shaking.
There Is only dry, caustic powdered
lime left, and no visible or sensible
water at all. Every degree that you
heat the atmosphere in the closed
room, the more water it abstracts
and hides away. At so or so de-
grees the air becomes so hungry for
water that 1t draws out the moisture
from furniture, it sucks it up from
ones skin, from the lungs, from every
where 1t can get any moisture.
1t does not make any difference
how you heat room. Steam pipes,
with steam inside OF them, add no
new moisture to the air. Stoves add
no moisture to supply that stolen
and hidden by the warming air. An
open fireplace which carries up a
great amount OF air, draws in cooler.
moist air from without, at the ex-
pense OF warmth and fuel. The warm
air coming up through the register
from a furnace does not add to the
moisture, unless there is a water yes
sci with a wide top evaporating sur
lace, inside the furnace or register. to
supply moisture to the hot air.
Can air thus literally dried out bv
simply warming it be healthful for
people or plants to live in? Certainly
not. 1t stands to reason. Remember
this always, and without fail have an
open vessel with water kept in it, on
every stove in every room used fol
living people or living plants; they
cannot flourish without it. If furnace
heat, or that from steam or hot water
pipes is used, look out that somewhere
there IS plenty of water evaporatinp
to keep the warm air moist, that IS.
to supply the moisture rendered in
sensible by the warming process. This
wide water vessel may be down in the
furnace or IN the register We have
had several kinds of heating furnaces.
all supplied with water vessel, but
never found one with enough open
surface OF water to furnish all the
moisture that ought to go into the
warmed air; we usually put in extra
pans.