Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1908-01-25
KEEP The HOUSE AIR PURE
Strange Lack of Ventilation Is
Greatast Menace in Houses
on Many Farms.
BY JOSEPH GARTER, ILLINOIS.

ana otnef serious diseases which have
not been slow to come in and take first
place on the mortality list.
The dwellings, of early days with
their open fireplaces and the many
cracks and crevices between the logs,
not to mention the open roofs through
which snow might sift, let in plenty
of pure air. In such houses our pa
rents and grandparents lived to old
age, unveXed by pneumonia consump-
ton, scarlet fever, diphtheria and
other house diseases. But great
change has come and now our houses
are built substantially air tight, ex-
Guiding the pure air.
Breathing fifteen times minute and
taking thirty cubic inches of air at
each breath man uses 375 cubic feet
of air in tWenty-four hours. If it were
possible for him to take this from pure
out-of- doors air and then have the air
of each expiration removed entirely
from him, as is done when he is NOV
ing about out of doors, then 375 cubic
feet of air would be enough for a man
for a day, but when he is in the house
the eXhaled air is not removed from
him; he breathes it into the other air
with which it mingles and from which
he must instantly draw another breath,
and thus it goes fifteen times each
minute, 900 times each hour.
Then the amount of foul air to be
removed and of pure air to be sup
piled must be determined by the num-
Der of persons collected in the house
Moreover, fires, gas and lamps use up
the oxygen of the air and add carbon
=; 10 +r "a 40, Lot;
be made for these in arranging the
ventilation.
The air in an air-tight room ten feet
high, twenty-five feet wide and thirty
feet long would be made unfit for fur
Their respiration after being occupied
by one man for a day.
TWenty-four men could spoil the air
in such a room in one hour and fifty
men, in less than thirty minutes. To
breathe it longer would produce drows-
mess, headache and a general feeling Of
disability, and it would reduce both
the physical and the mental powers
and also the power of resisting dis
ease.
In order to have air to breathe in a
fairly pure state every person should
have for his permanent allowance at
least 900 cubic feet-that is, room
ten feet square and ten feet high with
arrangements for ventilation sucffiient
to remove each minute five cubic feet
of air and to supply five cubic feet of
fresh air.
AT this rate, family of six would
need two-story house 20 by 80 feet
with ventilation sufficient to supply
thirty cubic feet of air each minute.
Just as we breathe without thinking
about breathing, so the ventilation of
a house and of a sleeping room should
be SO arranged that the moving of the
air will require no personal care or at
tention.
From every room there should be
an. equal flow of impure air.
The fresh air would better be
warmed before it enters the rooms by
passing over heated surface; this
heated surface may be hot-air fur
mace, or pipes or radiators heated by
steam or hot water. Each of these
three ways requires a special con-
struction and these should be carefully
studied before putting in heating
system.
In every room the air that ought to
be removed by ventilation is the air
which lies next to the floor for the
lower air is cooler and heavier and
contains the principal impurities. To
do this a f1ue is needed from each
room.
The best ventilation is an open fire
place for burning wood. With flue
~ by IS inches, inside measurement,
this fireplace in our modern built
house, where the parlor, sitting room,
dining room and the hall and open
stairway are substantially but one
great room, will ventilate all the lower
floor except the kitchen. If wood can
not be conveniently obtained then a
coal CRATE can be substituted, but
there must be no damper in the
throat of the chimney to cut off it's
capacity to carry air.
The kitchen should have a double
brick fue, one part for smoke and the
other for ventilation, with an opening
at the floor for ordinary ventilation
and another near the ceiling above the
stove to carry off the doors of the
cooking.
No part of the house is in greater
need of ventilation than the cellar
where lllllh, DulIeI, IIetl, SSSeldDlGS
and fruit are kept. A ventilating fue
SKIP inches inside should follow each
chimney to the top. There can be no
better germ breeder than the average
cellar without ventilation.
In the days of open houses and fire.
places pulmonary and tubercular dis
eases We're almost unknown. The old
fashioned fireplace will never be sur
passed by any other device for ventil-
alton We have gradually changed our
whole life in a generation and we have
not learned to live in safety.
There is every reason to believe that
those who live in thoroughly ventilated
houses and whose other living and
food are thoroughly hygenic are en-
tirely free from danger of attack by
any of these much dreaded diseases.
The largest orchards in the world are
near Berlin GERMANY They extend