AN IMPROVED METHOD OF CONSTRUCTING AND APPLYING BLOCKS OF CONCRETE OR OTHER MATERIALS FOR BUILDING AND OTHER PURPOSES WHICH METHOD ALSO PROVIDES AN EFFICIENT MEANS OF VENTILATION
Year: 1883

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Richard Cornell at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 18th October 1883.
WILLIAM RICHARD CORNELL of 7 Upland Road, East Dulwich in the county of
Surrey AN IMPROVED METHOD OF CONSTRUCTING AND APPLYING BLOCKS OF
CONCRETE OR OTHER MATERIALS FOR BUILDING AND OTHER PURPOSES WHICH
METHOD ALSO PROVIDES AN EFFICIENT MEANS OF VENTILATION
The object of my invention is to construct blocks of concrete or other materials
in such a manner and of such a form that when they are applied in my manner in
the walls of a building or elsewhere passages or spaces for air are left in the
interior of the walls through which all the foul air can be withdrawn from within
the building by the action of the ordinary fires and either burnt in the same or
discharged into the atmosphere outside.
With this object I form the blocks of concrete or other materials in any
convenient manner and of any desired shape or size. One of the sides of each
block is made smooth and level to form the face of the wall and in the opposite
side is formed a deep depression or recess in the centre thereof. The walls all
round this depression or recess form the edges of the block.
I then build the wall in the following manner. Preferably a course of ordinary
blocks is first laid down and on this is placed a course of my blocks formed as
al ove described. These are placed and secured by mortar or otherwise close
together in two parallel rows and are arranged in such a manner that while the
smooth level sides thereof form the outer side and the inner side of the wall the
depression in the one block faces and is opposite to the two adjacent lateral
vertical edges of the other blocks. There is thus formed an irregularly shaped
horizontal space for air the whole length of the wall. Above this course is then
preferably laid a course of ordinary blocks which when made the whole breadth of
the wall or thereabouts assist in binding the double course of blocks together.
Above this again is another similar course of my blocks and so on until the wall is
completed wherein therefore there are a series of horizontal spaces for air.
When the house or other building is completed in this manner one or more
passages are made from the floor spaces or from the sewers or dustbins or closets or
Price d

page_text: elsewhere into the lowest horizontal space. The foul air passing into this space is
heated therein when it passes behind the kitchen or other fire whereby a circulation
is set up in this space and the air passes round inside the wall until at a suitable
position in regard to the house or other building and the arrangement thereof it
meets a stop where this horizontal space is blocked up in any convenient manner
near to which stop is made a passage upwards through the edges of my blocks and
through the intervening course of blocks if any into the next above horizontal
space through which passage the air finds its way and passes round inside the wall
in this horizontal space until it is again stopped when it again passes upwards into
the next above horizontal space and so on until it reaches the ridge of the roof
where it is allowed to escape in any convenient manner and by any suitable
appliances.
Other supplementary passages may also be made from any place on the inter-
mediate floors into the corresponding horizontal spaces and if desired the several
horizontal spaces can be divided vertically so that there would be created two
three or more complete systems the air in each of which would not intermingle
with the air in the others and which all would be actuated and would act in the
manner as before described
I can also if I should so desire make a passage from the horizontal space into the
kitchen or other fire so that the foul air may be burnt,