The weekly tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1891-1894, 1894-01-12
House Warming.

In our time every well to 10 farmer OF
village resident who builds a house pro
vidS for heating it with q furnace in.
stead of with the old fashioned clumsy
stoves and fireplaces, filling the rooms
with ashes and dust and requiring twice
the labor and fuel necessary by the new
way. But there are furnaces and fur
paces, 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 a 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 an 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 a house, al
though for picturesque effect and for
cool days before the furnace is started in
autumn they will serve a good purpose.
But of the proper way to warm an
American house Mr.. Wingate writes:
Let me deal in a simple and practical way
with the problem of warming an ordinary
frame or brick dwelling in the middle states,
such as thousands of readers of this article
now occupy and costing from $3,0OOto $500.
The same general principles will apply to larg-
Or and more costly dwellings.
n the bousa Ia yary nurh avpneoI 70 tba ola
ments, it should be protected by double win
dows, storm doors, piazzas inclosed with glass
and other expedients common to northern To-
calities. Again, great care must be taken to
locate the chimneys and heating appa-
ratus. A chimney built in a thin wall with n
northern exposure will not draw, and a furnace
or stove placed on the leeward side of a build
ing cannot force hot air any distance against
wind pressure, especially through a cold
cellar, any more than heat will rise through
f1ues that are almost horizontal. Therefore it
is very desirable to have a high ceiled, warm,
dry cellar, so as to provide ample head room
for the heating apparatus and a good incline
to the 1ues.
1t is easier and more economical, and also
more hygienic, to have one big stove in the cell
called a 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 or prefer
ably a galvanized iron conduit, brings a copi-
JUS supply Of fresh air into a hot chamber
above the firepot, where it is sufficiently
and which then rises through tin fues
INTO the different living rooms.
A furnace is the result Of a natural process
# evolution, yet few persons seem to under
its construction. A furnace should be of
ample size and well made, so that it need not
% driven too hard in the coolest weather, with
constant risk Of leaky joints, racking the fire
Dot and heating it SO unduly that the fresh air
'oming in contact with the redhot metal ac-
luires a burned quality, which is both u~npleas-
mt and unwholesome. Formerly, when most |
urnaces were cheap and inferior, one heard
constant complaints about coal gas, dry air,
'tc. But now that they are better built and
'etter adapted for their purpose they give
satisfaction.
To do good service a furnace should be kept
rec from ashes and carefully regulated. The
vater pan should be kept filled so as to moisten
he air after it Is warmed. Above all, the cold
.r box should be tight and take the fresh air
rom some place where 1t cannot be contain
mated. 1t will not do to let 1T end under a
covered with decaying leaves and
litter, or where rats, cats or other vermin
Iarbor. Nor, as is so common, should 1t end
ear where food or refuse Is kept. The best
by far is to raise the end of the cold air
OK four or five feet, with an upward bend, and
pening at the side, protected by a wire net
ing, so as to secure q purer quality of air than
!, found at the surface of the ground.
! could relate scores of instances within my
ersonal experience where serious sickness has
from neglect in these vital particulars.