Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1898-10-21

containing human occupants. One cubic |
foot of carbonic oxide gas discharged in
to five thousand cubic feet of air forms
mixture that is pronounced respiratory
poison, its effects being enhanced by i'll
health of the person breathing the mix
ture. The alarming and increasing preva-
lence of diseases of the lungs, catarrhal
affections and chronic disease arising
from nervous prostratiOn in the New
England and eastern states is in no
small degree engendered and developed
in persons of sedentary habits from their
inhaling during the winter months de-
vitalized, poisoned air from that engine
of disease and death known as the hot
air house-heating furnace.
The third objection to the hot air
house-heating furnace is its want of
economy as a fuel consumer, air being
the poorest absorbent and conductor of
heat that is known. From whatever
point of view the hot air house-heatng
furnace may be regarded, excepting the
one of cheapness of price to the purchas-
er, 1t is not only found devoid of merit,
but veritabe engine of disease and
death in every home into which it finds
its way. With the advent of correct san
itary knowledge in the household the
work of this health and life-devastating
monster will ultimately cease.
While the steam-heating house furnace
Is not the deadly foe to human health
and life that the hot air house-heating
apparatus is, still, from sanitary and
economical point of view it has nothing
to recommend it. The steam.heated
radiator simply heats the air in room
over and over again, making no preten-
sons of supplying a current of fresh,
mildly-heated, ozonized air.
A system of ventilation Is inseparable
from an ideal system of house-heating,
as it is only by means of heat that cir
culation of air can be established and
maintained in an apartment. ANY sys-
TEN of house heating that does not carry
with it perfect system of ventilation is
defective in the most important element
of all-the means of preserving human
health.
Every adult person of average weight
(l50 pOunds) consumes in the function
of respiration fifteen cubic feet of air
every hour and eXhaes in the same time
800 grains of carbonic acid gas and 200
grains of water. Also in the same time
from 80 to 200 grains of effete organic
matter, constituting the respiratory and
cutaneous excrementitous ptomaines, or
pOisOns, are given off.
! Without ventilation an apartment con-
tanning human occupants becomes in
little time veritable cess.pool of organ
ic, eXcrementtious gaseous poisons.
Filth and pOisons remain filth and poi
sons, though the eye cannot see or the
hand handle them. And because they are
Invisible they are the more dangerous, for
they may contain the invisible spores
and germs of deadly disease.
In an ideal system of ventilation, fresh.
pure air must be taken from the outside
of the dwelling and heated to that mild
degree as not to injure the stability of its
element ozone distributed to each of
Its apartments containing human occu-
pants.
a second objection to any steam house
heating system now in use, from an
economical point of view, is the enor-
nous loss of heat through its terminal
gases Into the atmosphere or up the
chimney. In an efficient sream-heating
apparatus steam temperature must be
constantly maintained IN the steam boiler
varying from PIG degrees F. to 225 de-
grees F., according to The pressure neces-
sary for the free circulation of the steam
in the distribution of its heat. And 1t
follows as a necessity that the heat of
the terminal or spent gases delivered into
the chimney must be of higher temper
atuTe than the steam in the boiler, for
the reason that the heat # the steam is
derived directly from the heat of these
gases acting on the boiler The temper
ature of room containing human Occu-
pants should average 20 degrees F., hence
the difference in the temperature of such
a room and the steam temperature in a
steam boiler In a steam-heating plant
(Which is 220 degrees f. on an aVerage), ,
leaves a surplus of $50 degrees F. as a
waste produce. This means in practice
throwing away the heat contained in the
whole volume of terminal gases from the
boiler above the temperature of 20 de-
grees F., ins tead of transferring a greater
part of it to fresh, pure air. Ninety per
cent. of this heat can and should be
saved.
Another source of immense loss of heat
in steam house heating plant is the loss
by direct outward radiation through the
walls of the furnace. This is computed
at from ten to twelve per cent of the
whole volume of heat generated in the
furnace What is true of loss of heat
from the steam house-heating plant
though its terminal goes into the chimney
and by direct outward radiation is equal
ly true of the hot air house-heating
furnace.
Added to all of these losses and obiec-
tiOns the direct loss of fuel by its incom-
plete combustion in both the steam and
hot air house heating furnaces of today
is at least seventy-flve per cent of its
actual weight. No competent engineer