Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1892-07-15
HEATING A HOUSE.

Communication OF Fuel La Not the Only
Confederation In Keeping Warm.
How best to keep house warm Is
a question that every cold and biting
..waveo forces upon the attention OF
many a housekeeper. People gener-
ally imagine that with those to whom
economy in fuel is no great object
the problem Is simple enough and Is
only question of using more or less
coal. As matter of fact, however,
the consumption Of fuel is not the
only chief factor; the exclusion OF
cold and understanding how fully to
utilize the heat obtained by the vari-
Gus fires is quite as important. The
importance of the former aids to
warmth in house is well exempli-
fed in those northern countries where
necessity is the law of existence and
where we read Of the Greenlander's
hut with an inside temperature OF 30
degs., the only fire being from piece
of walrus fat, while outside 1t may
be 40 dogs. below zero.
We would find. however, but few
advocates of this degree of exclusion
of fresh air and ventilation, and the
fewer the better, no doubt. Whole
some ventilation is Of vast impor-
lance, but it should enter our houses
through the channels provided for
it, and not under the doors and
through the window joints. People
who reside in town and are protected
by their neighbors on either side,
with only the front and rear ex-
posed, have but simple problem to
encounter. But to those who live In
the country in frame houses, whose
defenseless walls are exposed in ev-
cry direction to the cutting wintry
blasts, the subject is very serious
one.
In the west it is a common custom
to bank earth around the house to the
depth of several feet, and a single
foot of manure placed in this way
adds greatly to the warmth besides
affording protection to the vines and
plants. In old houses whose win
dow castings and door lintels have be-
come loose and shrunken tiny strips
of felt put on with long, slender
'.brads" will be found very effica-
cious, and if cut extremely narrow
are quite unnoticeable and can be put
in many places where it would not be
possible to insert weather strips.
In heating, furnaces are Of course
the chief factors. Of these there are
many kinds, and we are told success
sively that each one is the best
People themselves, too, differ great
ly as to what is the best method OF
heating a house, some preferrine
the hot air furnace, which seems,
on the whole, to be more popular
than any other continuance, and
others finding steam or hot water
more satisfactory. There is this al
ways to be remembered, however
no hot air furnace will carry heat sat
isfactorily through pipe running
any distance in lateral direction.
For rambling house, therefore
where there is but one furnace, hot
water or steam will give more diff
fused heat. The somewhat primitive
but most effective base burning stove
will be found a capital supplement tx
the hot air furnace, and if arranged
with drum" and a register in tn,
floor above will be nearly as effica
cious as a second furnace.
Modern science has also managed
to utilize the waste heat from dow
stairs open fireplaces in the room
above in the most admirable fashion
making every fire heat secont
room as well as the one in which it i
laid; and when one considers tn
amount of precious warmth. not t.
say actual money, that goes up tn
chimney in smoke, it would seem tina
there is a great field for further i'm
provement still in practically utiliz
ing escaping heat.-New York Trit
une