WARMING AND VENTILATING OF DWELLINGS. 831 



WARMING AND VENTILATING OF DWELLINGS. 



THE best practical application of the principle of warm walls 

 and cold air is undoubtedly the house which M. Sornesco, 

 civil engineer, has built for himself at Creil. We were fortunate 

 in visiting M. Somesco on a day when a strong northeasterly 

 gale was blowing. Wind creates greater difficulties than cold ; 

 but on this occasion we had both wind and cold. It is important 

 to note that M. Somesco's house is built on marsh land. On both 

 sides of the house there is a river, and but for the construction of 

 embankments flood would constantly occur in this spot. It was 

 necessary to dig six feet below the level of the cellar floor to find 

 a foundation. As much masonry had to be placed under the 

 house to form a foundation as would have sufficed to build it. 

 The garden, in the midst of which the house stands, was also 

 artificial. Nor is there any shelter from the winds. The house 

 stands alone in the midst of what is now a garden, but which 

 used to be a dismal swamp. The system of warming and of 

 ventilation has therefore been tested under the most trying 

 circumstances. In shape M. Somesco's house is square, measur- 

 ing twelve metres. It has cellars, two floors, and above these 

 under the roof a large sort of hall which serves as a billiard- 

 room. The hollowed walls are fifty-five centimetres thick. The 

 external wall is twenty-two centimetres and the inner wall eleven 

 centimetres, so that there is an intervening space between the 

 walls of twenty to twenty-two centimetres. These walls are made 

 with porous bricks, but in the basement the walls are massive. 

 The house is like one box inside another box, with a space of four 

 to five inches between the two boxes. 



Outside, at the back of the house, there is an ordinary coal- 

 furnace. The smoke and heat from this furnace pass into a 

 chamber built in the cellar of the house, measuring about six 

 feet in length and not quite two feet square. From this heat- 

 chamber and going all round the outer walls of the cellar there 

 is an inclosed passage. Suspended in the center of this passage 

 and also going the whole way round the house is a metallic flue 

 of more than a foot in diameter (thirty-five centimetres internal 

 and thirty-seven centimetres external diameter). This serves as 

 a chimney and draws off the smoke and the heat from the furnace 

 and heat-chamber, traveling horizontally round the four sides of 

 the house ; and then, when it is nearly back to the furnace, the 

 flue opens into a chimney ; the smoke and what heat remains go 

 up vertically to the roof. In other words, the basement of the 

 house is surrounded by a narrow closed passage, in the center of 

 which is suspended the flue or chimney from the furnace, and 



