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Ventilation

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Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Sep 26, 1878

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 4, No. 36.

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Ventilation.

By M. G. K.

How shall I ventilate a room in winter that is warmed by an air tight stove? We are often asked the above question. As simple as this question may seem, it is one for which it is difficult to find an answer that is free from all objections.
It is very important that every room in a dwelling-house be thoroughly ventilated night and day throughout the entire year, if the inmates would have health. The habit that many people are in, of calking every crack and crevice through which air can enter a room, is suicidal, if the room contains an air-tight stove, and has no other means of ventilation, for most of the oxygen is soon used up in consuming the fuel within the stove, and the air within the room is speedily rendered unfit for respiration. We will give several plans for ventilating rooms in winter.
1. Houses that are already built, and in which no special provision has been made for ventilation, can be ventilated by lowering the upper window sash and raising the lower sash. There is an objection to this mode of ventilation, however, as the heated air all rises to the top of the room and passes out of the upper opening, while the cold air, which is denser than warm air, passes in at the lower opening and settles at the lower part of the room. This plan makes the air that surrounds the feet colder than that which surrounds the head, and has a tendency to induce headache or brain congestion; yet this mode of ventilation is far better than none.
Where open fireplaces, grates, or stoves with open fronts, are used, this difficulty is obviated, as the outward draft takes place through the fire at the lower part of the room; therefore it is unnecessary to raise the lower sash for the outward draft. The upper sash should be lowered, however, to let fresh air into the room. By this means, the air in the upper part of the room is kept equally cool with that in the lower part of the room.
2. Cast-iron ventilators, suitable for insertion into the walls of buildings between studding, can be obtained of most hardware dealers. Two of these should be placed in each room, in which case the windows and doors may be tightly closed.
These ventilators should be placed in opposite walls, near the ceiling. They should always be placed between studding that runs to the cornice, and the chamber or flue formed by the studding, siding and plastering, should have a communication with the outside atmosphere by an opening through the frieze or flancier. When ventilation is secured by this method, the cool air coming in at the cornice becomes somewhat warmed as it passes down the wall, and as it enters the room near the ceiling, it becomes well mingled with the warm air of the room. This method of ventilation is less objectionable than the plan of ventilating through the windows, yet it is far from perfect, as the warm air passes out at the upper part of the room, causing the lower air to be always cooler than the upper, as in the first case.
3. A system of perfect ventilation is one that causes a constant change of the air in the room, and by means of which the upper stratum of air is never warmer than the lower stratum. This may be accomplished very cheaply, while the house is building, in the following manner: Make a flue with a capacity of twenty-four square inches, say two by twelve inches. Place this flue between the studding. It should be the same length as the hight of the story. The lower end of the flue must open externally through the water table or base board of the outside sheathing, while the upper end opens internally at the ceiling. Through this flue a constant draft occurs, which carries fresh air into the upper part of the room.
Another flue of the same size must be provided, the lower end of which will open into the room through the base, or mop-board, while the upper end extends to the cornice, or, better still, to the ridge of the roof. The upper end must open externally. Through the last flue there is also a constant draft which carries the air from the lower part of the room, while fresh air enters at the upper part. The last plan is the most perfect of any with which we are acquainted, as by this method the temperature is equalized in all parts of the room.—M. G. K., in Health Reformer.