The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1894-02-01
House Warming.

In our time every well to do farmer or
Village resident who builds house pro-
vides for heating it with furnace in
stead of with the old fashioned clumsy
stoves and freplaces, filing the rooms
with ashes and dust and requiring twice
the labor and fuel necessary by the new
way. But there are furnaces and fur
naces, as everybody does not know.
Charles F. Wingate, sanitary engineer
and philanthropist, writes in The Out
look an instructive paper on furnace
building. He shows how furnace may
be constructed to obviate all the old
faults Of cooked air drafts and alternate
roasting and freezing. Open fires are
picturesque and cheerful, with all old
TINY air about them that appeals to ev-
erybody who had ancestors, and fire
places may in all cases be provided in
the rooms. But the open fires will never
do to depend on to heat house, al
though for picturesque effect and for
cool days before the furnace is started in
autumn they will serve q good purpose.
But Of the proper way to warm an
American house Mr.. Wingate writes:
Let me deal in simple and practical way
with the problem of warming an ordinary
frame or brick dwelling in the middle states,
such thousands of readers Of this article
now occupy and costing from $1,000 to $500.
The same general principles will apply to larg-
er and more costly dwellings.
If the house is very much exposed to the ele-
Il, l.
doWs. storm doors, piaZzas inclosed with glass
and other expedients common to northern To-
calltles. Again, great care must be taken to
rightly locate the chimneyS and heating appa-
ratus. A chimney built in a thin wall with a
northern exposure will not draw. and furnace
or stove placed on the leeward side of a build
ing cannot force hot air any distance against
the wind pressure, especially through a cold
cellar, any more than heat will rise through
hues that are almost horizontal. Therefore it
is very desirable to have high ceiled warm,
dry cellar, as to provide ample head room
for the heating apparatus and a good incline
to the tlues.
It is easier and more economical, and also
more hygienic, to have one big stove in the Gel
lar, called furnace, which never need go out
from October to May, which requires little care
and uses but little fuel, and which, being con-
nected with outdoors by a wooden prefer
ably galvanized iron conduit, brings copi-
GUS supply of fresh air into hot chamber
above the firepot, where 1t is sufficiently
warmed, and which then rises through tin fiues
into the different living rooms.
A furnace is the result of a natural process
Of evolution, yet few persons seem to under
stand its construction. A furnace should be of
ample size and well made, so that it need not
be driven too hard in the coolest weather, with
constant risk Of leaky joints, racking the fire
pot and heating it so unduly that the fresh air
coming in contact with the redhot metal &C.
Quires burned quality, which is both unpleas-
ant and unwholesome. Formerly, when most
furnaces were cheap and inferior, one heard
constant complaints about coal gas, dry air.
etc. But now that they are better built and
better adapted for their purpose they give
greater satisfaction.
To do good service a furnace should be kept
FREQ from ashes and carefully regulated. The
water pan should be kept filled so as to moisten
the air after it is warmed Above ALL the cold
cir box should be tight and take the fresh air
from some place where it cannot be contain
mated. 1t will not do to let 1t end under
yeranda, covered with decaying leaves and
other litter, or where rats, cats or other vermin
harbor. Nor, as is so common, should 1t end
near where food or refuse Is kept. The best
plan by far is to raise the end Of the cold air
box four Or five feet, with an upward bend, and
opening at the side, protected by a wire net
ting, SO as to secure purer quality of air than
Is found ut the surface of the ground.
1could relate scores of instances within nv
personal experience where serious sickness has
resulted from neglect in these vital particulars