October, 1919 
35 
METHODS OF HEATING THE HOUSE 
The Principles and Details of the Hot Air, Steam, Vapor and Hot Water Systems 
— The Advantages and Limitations of Each 
H EATING the dwelling is a science that 
has long depended upon the most rudi¬ 
mentary application of practically the same 
principles as those upon which most ventilat¬ 
ing systems are devised. 
The tendency of heated air to rise (and of 
cold air to drop) was probably discovered by 
some aboriginal inventor, who noticed that the 
rising smoke from the fire burning on the 
hearth stone in the center of his conically- 
shaped cave dwelling, rose to an aperture pro¬ 
vided by nature in the roof, taking with it a 
considerable proportion of the heated air as 
well. Probably his first attempt to make better 
use of the heat was to devise some method of 
reducing this opening to a point where it was 
only large enough to permit the smoke alone 
to escape! When he finally became convinced 
of the impracticability of this idea, his next 
move was probably to provide an artificial 
passage through which the smoke would escape 
and, possibly in the endeavor to draw it out 
at the side of his cave dwelling, he discovered 
that heat radiated from the walls of the flue, 
and itself gave the same comforting warmth 
that he found in the original source of the 
heat and smoke, around the fire itself! 
This discovery has been made use of down 
to the present day. It was the origin of the 
old-fashioned “drum,’’ a barrel-shaped en¬ 
largement of the smoke pipe from a stove or 
range, generally located in the second story 
room over the stove below, and still in use in 
the country and Middle West. The same prin¬ 
ciple was utilized in the old systems of heat¬ 
ing found in Pompeii, and excavations in 
ancient Greece, where steam or heat rising in 
hollow walls from furnaces below produced 
heated chambers or warmed water in bathing 
pools in the public and private baths. 
G RADUALLY the smoke passage was ex¬ 
tended and brought down nearer and 
closer to the fire; then the hearth stone was 
moved from the center of the room to the side 
wall and partly recessed or enclosed by project¬ 
ing wings or buttresses on the wall, until it 
gradually took on the recognized form of the 
modern fireplace on the one hand, while on the 
other, it shaped itself into the stove—made of 
various materials but always with the same 
intention of providing radiating surface for 
the heat, while carrying off the smoke, gas and 
odor from the burning wood, charcoal or coal. 
Some of the best types of stoves were the 
old-fashioned, circular, sheet iron heaters, of 
which occasional remnants still survive in re¬ 
mote suburban New England railway stations. 
There also exists a hybrid type—a cross be¬ 
tween the two breeds just described—-which 
has taken its best known and most attractive 
form in the so-called “Franklin stove,” which 
is actually an open fireplace constructed en¬ 
tirely of iron and placed a foot or so into the 
room and clear of the wall behind, to which 
the smoke pipe connection is made, thus taking 
advantage of every possible inch of radiating 
surface provided by the fire. 
Modifications of this type sometimes show 
doors or shutters pulling in from the sides to 
enclose the front, thus reducing the draught 
FRANK CHOUTEAU BROWN 
and enabling the fire to be kept over night 
with the utmost economy of fuel; while still 
another type takes the form of a soapstone box 
with iron door on one end or the side, and of 
almost the same shape or proportions as the 
Franklin grate. This, too, is of unequaled 
radiating value; and when found in some old 
house or country village should still be cher¬ 
ished as a rarely efficient and economical 
source of heat, to which we may be forced—or 
perhaps even be glad!—to return, if the pres¬ 
ent tendencies in strikes and higher freight 
rates combine to bring the cost of coal much 
higher! 
T ODAY, there are three kinds of heating 
which are of most general use, and there¬ 
fore of probably greatest interest to the readers 
of this article. First, because it is both the 
cheapest to install and the most generally in 
use, is hot air. By this method of heating 
cold fresh air is taken from without the build¬ 
ing, drawn down through a box conduit which 
ends in an air chamber beneath the heater, 
and then drawn up around the fire pot, heated, 
and sent up through tin pipes to registers, 
located in the floor, or in the walls just above 
the floor, in the rooms to be heated. 
This system possesses many advantages— 
especially for the small house of compact plan, 
for which it is peculiarly adapted. To provide 
the best results, care has to be taken with its 
installation; the cold air duct has to be of a 
properly proportioned area, taken from the 
north or west sides of the house; the furnace 
has to be located near the center—or, better 
still, somewhat north of the center—of the 
house, about equidistant from the location of 
the registers in the plan. The pipes supply¬ 
ing the registers have to be properly propor¬ 
tioned, and taken off the hot air chamber that 
forms the top of the furnace in such a way 
that the rooms to the north of the heater will 
connect with the more favored locations. The 
registers have to be properly located in the 
rooms, with the piping connections between 
them and the furnace of even inclination, di¬ 
rect in their arrangement, and not too much 
flattened in shape when enclosed and carried 
in partitions. It is also important to have a 
separate pipe for each register, as whenever 
two registers open from the same box, one is 
bound to steal the heat from the other. 
This system cannot be used to advantage in 
a long and narrow house, as it is difficult to 
force the air into those rooms in the directions 
from which come the coldest winds or weather; 
but for the small house with nearly square 
plan it makes the cheapest and most economical 
heating system. A still cheaper variant of 
this is a “single pipe” installation, where all 
the heat is delivered through a single flue di¬ 
rectly over the top of the heater, pouring the 
warmth up through the center of the house, 
leaving it to “mushroom out” to all the vari¬ 
ous rooms. As the air cools it settles down 
near the outside walls and then is drawn back 
over the floor to the center of the house and 
down through a hollow circular collar or ring 
surrounding the hot air supply pipe, which 
conducts the air down into the furnace, where 
it is reheated and again circulated through 
the house. 
T HIS system has no cold air box bringing 
air in from outdoors. To be successful, 
the heat has to be supplied to a central room 
or hallway from which it passes uninterrupted¬ 
ly to surrounding rooms through open door¬ 
ways. A certain economy is effected by this 
method, first in the installation, in the saving 
of pipes and registers to the different indi¬ 
vidual rooms; and second, by reheating and 
using over again the air inside the house, in¬ 
stead of continually drawing in air of the out¬ 
door temperature, which requires a greater 
amount of heat to warm it sufficiently to heat 
the dwelling. 
On the other hand, it is this continual sup¬ 
ply of cold air, fresh from outdoors, which 
makes the hot air heating system the healthiest 
possible method, because it is impossible to 
obtain results without a constant supply of air 
to be heated, the circulation of which also pro¬ 
vides in itself the best possible ventilation 
system! It is also possible and, indeed, de¬ 
sirable with a hot air furnace to humidify 
the atmosphere inside the house by placing 
inside the furnace a water receptacle, which, 
if kept filled, will evaporate and distribute 
the water in the form of moisture over the 
house, at the same time as the warm air itself 
is circulated. This moisture in the air pre¬ 
vents furniture from being dried up and fall¬ 
ing apart, while it also makes the heat more 
effective in the case of the dwelling’s inhabi¬ 
tants—according to a principle which requires 
no convincing argument to those individuals 
who have been rendered additionally uncom¬ 
fortable in hot weather by an unusually moist 
or “muggy” day. 
To produce the best results in the individual 
rooms, it is necessary to install the hot air 
register near an inside partition, so that the 
air can rise and fill the upper part of the 
room before it becomes cooled by contact with 
an outer wall or window. It should also be 
on the opposite side of a room from an open 
fireplace or doorway. Rooms must be kept 
open, however, as it is impossible to heat a 
room which is closed, because the warm air 
will not enter—being held back by the cushion 
of dead air already filling the closed room— 
until a door or window is opened, thus start¬ 
ing up a circulation which, by the formation 
of a current of air, begins to move the cold 
air out and allow the warm air to enter the 
room. 
T HERE are also various modifications of 
the hot air system to adapt it better to 
meet special conditions. On a larger house 
two furnaces, one large, the other small, can 
be installed under a common hot air chamber, 
permitting one furnace to be run in the milder 
weather, and requiring both to be lighted only 
in the middle of the winter. The firepot can 
also be surrounded by a water-jacket, in which 
a certain amount of water can be heated and 
then circulated through hot water coils or 
radiators in the bathrooms or to the mast 
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