VENTILATION AND HEATING.
By Lewis W. Leeds.[1]
These bear much the same relation to a building that the lungs and blood-vessels do to the human body. You may chisel from the solid marble an elegant statue of a man, perfectly formed and well proportioned in every respect, yet that is not much of a real man after all, no matter whether it does cost a great deal of money.
So with a building it matters not how elegant and comely you make the exterior proportions, nor how strong and substantial you make the interior, if you neglect to secure for it a constant supply of pure air and provide for a comfortable warmth in winter, it is a mere graven image of what you want; it lacks the essentials of the life and vigor of the real man. To make the necessary arrangements for the thorough and economical ventilation and the comfortable warming of many buildings frequently requires much careful study.
It must be done, however, and it is the Architect's business to do it, and he will soon find it to his interest to do it thoroughly.
The styles of dwellings are changing so rapidly, as well as the manner of their occupation, that it constantly requires individual study to meet satisfactorily these ever varying changes. A thorough familiarity, however, with the leading principles, is the great essential.
The impression is rapidly gaining ground, that it is necessary to make a special provision for the supply of fresh air to every pair of lungs; that it will not do to trust this to a mere accident, any more than it does, to trust the much less important matter of supplying the body with food. To be sure, Nature would supply the air, if Art did not interfere with the action of her laws.
This point gained, have the people learned that they must pay their money to secure this lung food ? Scarcely. This is just the point they are now studying. Some few have already begun to comprehend it, but more cannot understand why they should have to waste their valuable dollars and cents on any thing as cheap and abundant as air. They scarcely comprehend the reality of air; that a very small bulk weighs a ton; and that it requires a positive power of some kind to move a ton of air as well as a ton of water; and that, if they require it moved artificially through their artificially-constructed houses, they must supply sufficient power to overcome the great natural laws of motion. They are learning this very rapidly, however; and, as Architects are so especially concerned in this new demand of an enlightened public, they should lose no time in making themselves familiar with all the details. They will soon find that it is an almost unexplored wilderness; that the few guide-posts which they may discover are like the names on the street lamps, liable to have been turned round, and just as likely to point the wrong way as the right. So they had better be sure they start on the right foundation ; and build their own superstructure with care.
Owing to the fact that we cannot see air and have no ready means of detecting the impurities that may contaminate it, a higher order of intellect and a keener imagination are necessary, to compre- hend fully all the points bearing upon the subject.
I think one of the simplest ways of realizing the motions of ah', of different densities or temperatures, is, to use a glass-house filled with water ; as the laws governing the circulation of liquids are so similar to those of gases, that the
- ↑ Consulting Engineer of Ventilation and Heating, No. 110 Broadway, New York.
