HEALTH AND COMFORT IN HOUSE-BUILDING. 71 



11. The apartments should provide a large cubic space for air; 

 because plenty of air is essential to the health and comfort of the in- 

 mates. The apartments should therefore be as large and lofty as pos- 

 sible. 



12. The apartments, besides providing a large cubic space for air, 

 should also provide for the escape of the foul and admission of fresh 

 air ; because, however large an apartment is, the air is sure to become 

 deteriorated and contaminated when the apartment is occupied by 

 living beings. There should, therefore, be two special openings to 

 each apartment, one for the escape of the foul air, and another for the 

 admission of fresh air. There must be two openings, an outlet and an 

 inlet. It is useless to make one without the other; it is useless to 

 make an outlet unless there is also an inlet, for no air can go out if 

 none comes in. This is a self-evident fact ; still it is very frequently 

 disregarded in attemping to ventilate apartments. There will, for in- 

 stance, be a perforated or louvered pane in the window, a perforated 

 brick or grating in the wall, an Arnott's ventilator in the chimney- 

 breast, an opening above the gas, with a tube leading to a grating 

 in the wall or into the chimney smoke-flue, or some other contrivance 

 for the escape of the foul air, while there is no opening at all for the 

 admission of fresh air; and the doors and windows are made to fit as 

 tightly as possible, and even list put round them to prevent any pos- 

 sibility of air getting in by them, as though that could go out which 

 never got in ! In these cases, if the outlet act at all as an outlet, it 

 must obtain its supply down the chimney — hence a smoking chimney ; 

 but generally, instead of acting as an outlet, it becomes an inlet to 

 supply the current up the chimney, and always so when the fire is 

 burning — hence the cold draught so generally complained of from the 

 ordinary ventilators, and hence the reason that ordinary ventilators 

 are so generally closed up in disappointment and disgust, and ventila- 

 tion decried as a nuisance, failure, and farce. 



13. These openings providing for the escape of foul air and the ad- 

 mission of fresh air should, both of them, be special and permanent, 

 and altogether independent of every other arrangement of the house ; 

 such as opening the windows, doors, chimneys, etou ; because the 

 escape of foul air and the admission of fresh air are most needed when, 

 in consequence of the coldness of the external air, we close the doors 

 and shut the windows. Special ventilation is most needed in winter, 

 in cold, frosty weather, with an east wind blowing, and when we are 

 very careful to shut the doors and windows, and adopt every other 

 means we can to exclude the out-of-doors air, particularly of sitting at 

 table for meals, or round the fire for evening entertainment. 



14. The outlet should take the foul air from the upper part of the 

 room ; because the foul air, being more heated, is specifically lighter 

 than the fresh air, and so rises to the upper part of the room. The 

 outlet should, therefore, be in or near the ceiling. 



