Fairhaven herald. [volume] (Fairhaven, Wash.) 1890-????, 1892-12-03
A New Idea in RuiIdinr.

A French civil engineer, NJ. Somesco
has built himself house on a marsh be
tween two rivers. 1t is so dry and warn
that measures have been necessary Il
produce greater moisture in the rooms
II is likely that as the science of sanitary
architecture advances NJ. Somesco's man.
sion will become the type of modern
dwelling houses.
The ground was SO swampy that it was
necessary to dig six feet below the cellar
floor to get solid foundation. The eel
lar walls are Of massive masonry. Then
Somescos new plan begins. The house
is square, and has two walls, one inside
the other, with hollow space of five
inches between them. Up through this
hollow space the heat from the furnace
which warns the house passes and filters
in through the porous walls all through
the mansion.
Somesco has his furnace room outside
the house. A pipe passes from it con-
veying the smoke and heat TO the
house into heat chamber in the cellar
or basement. Inside the basement.
about level with the top of the ground,
hollow, square passageway runs all
around the walls. Supported upon
brackets in the center of this passage
way runs the iron fpe which CONVEYS the
smoke and heat all around the bottom
of the house walls. At intervals are
openings from the passageway to the
hollow between the walls. The iron
pipe heats the air of the hollow pas
sageway, while carrying the smoke
around again to fue whence it escapes
upward. Inlets Of fresh air from the
garden open at intervals into the hot air
passage.
Somescos great idea is the porosity
Of his walls, both the inside and outside
one. He will allow no paper or plaster.
Both are made of porous bricks, the in
side one being covered with wooden
tapestry hangings that can be taken
down and cleaned. The whole house is
so warm that constantly in all weathers
II is possible to leave the windows open.
A writer in the London Lancet says:
Over and above all these considerations M.
somesco maintains he has realized the ideal
That dwelling should be like our clothes,
only not portable, but permeable. II should
be warm, because It should be made Of mate
rails that are bad conductors of heat. Indoors
we should possess means Of counteracting the
chilling effects Of the outer air. We ought to
i've indoors as we live out OF doors, and we
should consider our house merely as IL Il were
an extra greatcoat. The coat. IL porous, will
be warm and healthful One of the reasons. he
says. why we are apt 70 feel uncomfortable
when II rains is that the rain blocks up the
porosity OF the walls, and that. too, on the
windwsrd side.
AZ for microbes, NJ. somesco proudly pointed
70 the artistic drapery which covered the bare
bricks Of his porous walls. These are,- he
exclaimed. my microbc traps. II have any
reason TO believe that injurious microbes have
been introduced into my house. I know pretty
well where 70 find them II would take but
little time or trouble 10 unlock all this drap-
cry. 70 put II into the disinfectine stove. and
there snperheated steam under pressure. with
out in3nring the cloth. would assuredly XIII the
microbes Even without these artificial meth
DDS OF purihcafion, II the walls were porope.
oxygen would 80 wherever the microbe went
and nature would eject its own cure-~