Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1899-10-26
OVERHEATED HOUSES.
Every Furnace-Hented Room should
he "Washed Out" with Cold
Fresh Air.

A vast amount of i'll health in this
country may be directly traced to over
heating our dwelling houses. There
are very few people who are correct
judges of the proper amount of heat
by their feelings. 1t is not an uncom-
mon thing in this land of the furnace,
where a household of moderate means
can secure this method of heating, to
find entire families living habitually in
rooms heated far beyond the limit of
safety. 1t is dangerous to health to
live in a house heated to rs or so de-
grees. Yet these figures are not in
excess of the amount to which we often
find rooms heated where women and
children are living habitually. 1t is not
strange that persons who have become
Injured to this degree of artificial heat
should complain of being chilly if the
temperature is at normal point.
There are thousands of people who
habitually sleep with the heat from
the furnace turned on and their Sleep
ing rooms heated even far beyond the
temperature of 6S degrees given as the
proper temperature of the sleeping
room of an invalid. A person in health
ought not to sleep in winter in a room
heated to such a point.
The doctrine of fresh air has been
widely published and preached, but it
is often ignored, nevertheless. 1t is
not an uncommon thing for uniformed
women TO imagine that the air which
comes from the register of a hot al.
furnace is sufficient to ventilate a room
if it is supplied from a cold air box
opening outdoors. Such air superior
as it is to the various substitutes for
it, is not sufficient to keep a whole
some supply of pure air in the house.
Every room heated by the furnace
should be thoroughly washed out"
with cold fresh air from outdoors at
least twice in the "a hours. even when
the heated air of the furnace comes
from a cold air box opening outdoors.
Everyone knows that the furnace takes
more coal in cold weather, and that
if the air of the cold air" box comes
from outdoors it will burn more coal
than when j. comes from within the
house. Some furnaces, therefore, are
for economic reasons supplied with the
air of the living rooms upstairs. A
more ingenious project for introduce
ing the vitiated, breathed over air of
the house repeatedly into the lungs
could hardly be conceived. 1t is even
more Objectionable than introducing
the air of the cellar into the living
rooms upstairs.
As matter of health, the furnace
should be started as late as possible
in the season. This can be done in
houses where there are open freplaces
and other means of supplying little
pure heated air sufficient to take the
chill and dampness off house, with
out heating the air to an undue point.
In many parts of the country the fur
mace is not started for the season un-
til after the pleasant days of Indian
summer, which come from the first to
the second week of November. Once
started. the furnace fire must be kept
up steadily. and it is seldom safe to
let it go out until the middle of April
or the first of May. All the best fur
naces, whether those which supply heat
by hot air or by hot water or steam,
are now arranged so that the heat may
be regulated, and it is neglect of the
simple rules that regulate the heat
supply, and not necessity, which causes
houses to be overheated so Often.-N.
Y Trihrnp