CHAPTER XXVII THE WARMING AND LIGHTING OF THE HOUSE
The Warming of the House. — The earliest method of warming human dwellings was the open fire, in hut, cave, or wigwam, and when chimneys were added to carry off smoke and improve combustion by creating drafts, the open fire still remained for a time the sole resource of mankind for heating purposes. It is still the most attractive and most cheerful method of heating, and has been well called “the eye of the room.” It is a coveted luxury in all tasteful homes, not so much for the heat it furnishes as for its cheerful glow and the constant interest which it excites. The home and the fireside have become everywhere almost equivalent terms.
The Open Fire may be of either coal or wood. In England it is almost always of coal, and in that country is still the principal means of heating. In some other countries, and especially in the United States, it is made of either coal or wood, but is less depended upon for heating purposes. The open fire may be on a hearth in a fireplace, or in an open grate or an open stove. In all modern cases of true open fires, a chimney rises above the fire to carry off the smoke, and the draft of the chimney (caused by the rising of the column of lighter heated air) constantly sucks away the air of the room and produces considerable ventilation by removing vitiated air. The air thus removed is replaced by air from adjoining rooms or from outdoors, driven in by the atmospheric pressure through open doors or windows or through the walls themselves which, if of wood or plaster, or even of stone or brick, are to some extent porous. But while such ventilation has great advantages and is one of the best things about open fires, such fires are wasteful of heat and often do not effectively warm the entire room. This is because the warmed air is not returned to the room, but is drawn up the chimney, and because the movement of the cold air which is pressed in from the outside tends to make the room “drafty.” Radiation from the fire itself, rather than convection by air currents, thus becomes the chief means of warmth; and the complaint against open fires that those gathered about them, whether indoors or out, are “roasted in front and frozen behind,” is undoubtedly well founded. Open fires, nevertheless, serve admirably to ‘take the chill off’ from a room in those days of late spring or early autumn when the temperature is only a few degrees below the proper point (see p. 201).
<Callout type="tip" title="Efficiency Tip">Open fires are most effective for warming rooms during transitional seasons, but they can be wasteful and drafty.</Callout>
Stoves are superior to open fires as sources of warmth, but far inferior in attractiveness and as aids to ventilation. A stove is usually placed in a room at some distance from the wall, and connected with the chimney by a stovepipe to carry off the products of combustion. There is no such thing as an “air-tight” stove, a term often used because some stoves seem tightly closed, only enough air being allowed to enter to supply the actual need for combustion. A stove warms a room by the mixture of currents of heated air around the stove with the cooler air in other parts of the room, i.e., by convection, and also by direct radiation from the fire itself.
Hot-Air Furnaces are usually enclosed stoves placed in the basement or cellar. They are provided with smoke pipes and surmounted by a space, the hot-air chamber, to the lower portion of which a pipe, or “air box,” conducts cold air, while a second pipe or system of pipes leading off from the upper portion of the chamber supplies the various rooms with the warmed air. This is a convenient, economical, and popular method of heating a house, and possesses the great advantage of bringing constantly into the various rooms supplies of fresh air. If this air has not been overheated while passing by the furnace, little objection can be brought against it on any ground. It is true that, having been warmed, its relative dryness has been increased; but this condition may be corrected to some extent by always keeping in the hot-air chamber of the furnace a vessel of water for evaporation.
If, however, the air supplied to the furnace is not fresh and drawn from the outer atmosphere, but is simply taken from the cellar in which the furnace stands; or if the furnace is not tight, but cracked or loose-jointed, so that the gases of combustion may escape and mingle with the air as the latter flows through the pipes and rises into the rooms of the house; or if, as often happens, the air is overheated and greatly overdried, then furnaces of this kind may, and do, become objectionable. In very cold and windy climates, and for houses in bleak or exposed places, furnaces are less satisfactory than steam or hot-water heaters. As they usually deliver warm air under very small pressure, it is often impossible, especially in windy weather, ‘to put the heat where it is wanted,’ a difficulty not encountered in the use of steam or hot water.
A simple combination of stove and furnace is much used in some places, where a stove (usually in or against the fireplace) on the first floor heats not only the room in which it stands but also, by means of a pipe, or pipes, and registers, one or more rooms overhead. Unfortunately the air thus supplied to the upper rooms is not always pure air from out of doors; sometimes it is the already vitiated air of the room below.
- Warming by Steam and by Hot Water. — It is very common in the United States to find houses (and other buildings) heated by steam or hot water. Through the ‘radiators’ or ‘coils’ placed in the various rooms there is maintained a circulation of steam or of hot water from a ‘heater’ below. Here the room is warmed partly by direct radiation and partly by convection currents, very much as in the case of the stove. The chief objection to this method of heating is that the heating and the ventilation of the room are not effected by the same process; the room must be ventilated by opening windows, and the air thus introduced is apt to be cold and to produce undesirable drafts. On the other hand, steam and hot water are both superior to hot air in convenience and efficiency. They can be carried anywhere and are free from disturbances by atmospheric conditions, wind-pressure, natural ventilation, etc., which greatly interfere with the proper distribution of hot air.
Sometimes a combination of direct and ‘indirect radiation’ is employed, the latter being used for all ordinary heating, and the former kept for aid in extremely cold or windy weather. On this plan fresh air drawn from outside is first passed over coils of pipes placed in a basement or cellar and containing steam or hot water, and then carried (as in the hot-air furnace) to the various rooms which it is desired to warm. In addition, radiators are placed in these rooms, often near doors or windows, and in extreme cold weather are charged with steam or hot water to furnish supplementary heating by direct radiation.
- Oil Stoves, Gas Stoves, and Electric Heaters. — These do not greatly differ from other stoves except in the sources of the heat which they provide, and in the important fact that in the first two the products of combustion are not usually carried off by chimneys but, as in oil or gas lamps (which are also powerful room warmers and really only luminous stoves), escape directly into the room and thus tend to vitiate its atmosphere without causing any compensating ventilation. In the case of gas stoves special care must be taken to see that the unburnt gas does not escape into the room from leaks in the connections or elsewhere. Here the same considerations apply as in the case of gas used for lighting. The flexible rubber tubes often used for supplying gas stoves deteriorate with age and then frequently permit the escape of gas directly into the room. Whenever possible, permanent (metallic) connection of the stove with the iron gas pipe is advisable. Where rubber connections are used, the gas should always be turned off at the cock on the main pipe, never at that on the stove.
Electric stoves, like electric lights, are heated by electricity, and even electric lights, though inferior in this respect to oil or gas lights, are often noteworthy factors in the warming of houses. Stoves used for cooking add materially to the warmth of houses, and hence gas or oil stoves may be used with advantage when, as in summer, heat is undesirable.
Solar Heating. Glass Verandas. — Less use is made of the direct heat of the sun than is often advisable or advantageous. Rooms flooded with sunshine are always more economically warmed than those without it, and a solarium, or glass-covered room or veranda, on the south side of a house is often useful as well as agreeable in winter. If provision is made for heating it at night, and in cold and cloudy weather, it may be made to answer also as a plant conservatory, or greenhouse, and thus become a source of added interest and pleasure.
Overheating. — If the temperature of the house is too high, we suffer from many of the objectionable conditions of hot weather; mental work is more difficult and we are disinclined to muscular exercise. It is probably unwise to keep the temperature of the house above 68° or 70° F. A good rule is to keep it between 65° and 70° F (see pp. 889-391). Those who, by reason of infirmities of age, cannot enjoy regular muscular activity often find rooms of this temperature too cold; but the aged should be encouraged and even urged to keep up at all hazards the habit of doing some muscular work every day. With careful attention to muscular exercise and outdoor life they can not only endure but also enjoy lower room temperatures than is generally supposed, and thus permit the younger members of the household to live under more wholesome temperature conditions. Appetite is also improved by this practice and old age made in general more comfortable and more cheerful. Youth should remember, however, that the aged, largely because they cannot ‘get warm from the inside,’ not only desire but actually require warm clothing and often very warm rooms.
The Lighting of the House. — The fire light and the light of the pine knot, with which the hut, the hovel, or the wigwam were lighted, were objectionable chiefly because of their inconvenience, smoke, and flare or flicker. The invention of the lamp without chimney, and of the candle, marked a step forward, though their light was weak and flickering. A much greater advance was the invention of the lamp chimney, as it provided what nothing else had done, steadiness of flame, and avoided flare and flicker. Once the latter was overcome, it became easy to improve the fuel, until now the oil lamp with chimney not only illuminates and decorates the home of wealth but also brightens and cheers the hut of the fisherman and the cabin of the sailor; it aids and comforts the seamstress in her toil, in the humblest lodging; it warns the mariner by night from dangerous coasts by lighthouses, and throws about the student a warm and cheerful radiance as he ‘burns the midnight oil.’ Candles are still much used both in churches and in houses, but chiefly because of sentiment. or for decoration. They still furnish the softest and most beautiful light, especially for quiet places; but they are unfit for reading purposes because of their flickering and their feebleness.
The introduction of gas lighting was a great advance over lighting by lamps, owing to its convenience and cleanliness and the intensity of the light afforded. But gas lights, unless provided with chimneys, are generally unsteady and therefore objectionable for use in reading. Gas lights (and oil lamps) also produce much heat, and by this as well as by their products of combustion may greatly vitiate the air of rooms in which they are used.
While some kinds of ‘duluminating gas’ are more poisonous than others, all manufactured — as distinguished from ‘natural’ — gas contains a considerable percentage of poisonous constituents. When the gas is burned, these are oxidized and form harmless substances, and hence there is little or no danger from the products of its combustion. But the greatest care should be taken to avoid the entrance in any way of unburned gas into the air of a room. This may happen by the gas escaping through leaky fixtures, or after ‘blowing it out’ instead of turning it off. It may also occur when the light has been turned down very low in the sleeping room and is afterwards blown out by a draft, or goes out because of lessened pressure in the main, and the unburned gas escapes freely when the pressure is restored. Still another source of danger exists when the gas cock used to turn off the gas works too easily in its socket, and so is capable of being turned on by slight jars, touches, etc. The student is referred to Chapter XXXII for a full description of the dangers of inhaling unburned illuminating gas. Illuminating gas is also explosive when mixed with air in certain proportions.
Electric lighting is in many respects an ideal method, giving a convenient, steady, and powerful light; but as is stated in the next paragraph, care must be exercised that such light is not too bright.
- The Best Light. — Probably there is no one kind of light which is best for all purposes. For general illumination of public squares and public buildings the electric light seems to be generally preferred. The same thing is probably true of private houses. For reading and for microscopic work, on the other hand, the electric light may easily be too bright; but this objection can be overcome by using lamps of proper candle power, by having the lamp at a suitable distance, or by using bulbs with ground glass. The same thing may be true of the light yielded by any incandescent solid, such as the ‘lime’ (oxyhydrogen) light and the various ‘mantles’ made from incombustible earths, such as that in the Welsbach light. In general, for reading a ‘soft’ light is best, and it is desirable to have the larger part of the light come to the book by reflection from the walls of the room rather than solely and directly from any source of light near by. For this reason, dark-colored walls are objectionable for rooms in which a number of people do much reading, sewing, or other near work.
<Callout type="warning" title="Safety Warning">Gas lighting can be dangerous if not properly maintained; always ensure the gas is turned off correctly to avoid unburned gas entering the air.</Callout>
- Solar heating and glass verandas are effective in warming rooms, especially during colder months or for greenhouses.
<Callout type="important" title="Temperature Management">Maintaining a temperature between 65° and 70°F is ideal to balance comfort with energy efficiency.</Callout>
Key Takeaways
- Open fires are effective for transitional seasons but can be wasteful and drafty.
- Stoves provide better warmth than open fires, though they lack the aesthetic appeal of a fireplace.
- Hot-air furnaces are convenient and economical, but may not deliver heat where needed in windy conditions.
- Gas lighting is safer with chimneys to avoid unburned gas entering the air.
- Maintaining a temperature between 65° and 70°F ensures comfort without excessive heating.
Practical Tips
- Use open fires for transitional seasons but ensure they are well-ventilated to prevent smoke buildup.
- Install chimneys or ventilation systems with gas stoves to avoid unburned gas entering the air.
- Consider using a combination of direct and indirect radiation in hot-air furnaces for better heat distribution.
Warnings & Risks
Gas Safety
Always ensure that gas connections are tight and free from leaks to prevent unburned gas from entering your home.
Avoid overheating rooms, as it can lead to discomfort and health issues like dehydration. Be cautious with gas lighting; unburned gas can be dangerous if not properly managed.
Modern Application
While the specific heating methods described in this chapter may differ from modern technology, the principles of efficient and safe heating remain relevant. Understanding these historical techniques provides valuable context for evaluating contemporary heating systems and their energy efficiency. The importance of proper ventilation, avoiding overheating, and ensuring safety with gas appliances are timeless lessons that can enhance our preparedness for survival scenarios.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is the best temperature range to maintain in a house according to this chapter?
The ideal temperature range suggested by the chapter is between 65° and 70°F (18-21°C) to balance comfort with energy efficiency.
Q: How can I ensure safe use of gas stoves and lamps?
Always ensure that gas connections are tight and free from leaks. Turn off the main gas supply at the cock on the main pipe, not just at the stove. Use chimneys to avoid unburned gas entering the air.
Q: What are some traditional methods of heating described in this chapter?
The chapter describes open fires, stoves, hot-air furnaces, and solar heating as traditional methods of warming homes.