November, 1909 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
r 75 
pentine tubes surrounding the firepot, instead of a continuous 
space. One or more of these separate tubes may be connected 
with the duct leading to a difficult room and the warm air will 
have to go there. The advantage is also solved occasionally 
by putting a hot water coil over the firepot and heating the 
refractory room by means of a hot water radiator. 
Steam heating for houses is given the additional name “low 
pressure,” to distinguish it from the high pressure system used 
in office buildings. It consists of a boiler, usually made up of 
tubes, heated by coal in a firepot, and a system of wrought iron 
pipes through which the steam is forced to the radiators located 
throughout the house. The whole system is closed, air pockets 
being vented by means of air valves on the radiators. Then there 
are two classes of low pressure Steam heating systems. One has 
its radiators connected to the system by but one pipe, through 
which both the inflowing steam and the returning water of con¬ 
densation flow. The other system has the inflow entering one 
end of the radiator at the bottom and it has also an outlet pipe at 
the other end. The latter type is very much like the Hot Water 
system, but there is always the fundamental difference that 
Hot Water heating always requires radiators of about thirty 
per cent greater area. 
The advantages of Steam are that it requires less coal than 
the Hot Air system and less radiating surface than Hot Water. 
It responds quickly to firing and is easily controlled by shutting 
off the valves of individual radiators, separating them from the 
system. It has the advantage over Hot Air of being readily 
carried to remote rooms. On the other hand, Steam has the 
disadvantage of not producing heat until the fire has been made 
hot enough to bring the water in the system up to two hundred 
and twelve degrees. This in practice means that the whole house 
becomes quite cold at night and has 
to have the fire started early in the 
morning to heat things up again. 
Hot Water is a system that has 
come into very much wider use in 
recent years. Although it costs 
more to instal than either Hot Air 
or Steam, it has the advantage of 
burning less fuel in a given time. 
In this system the boiler, pipe sys¬ 
tem and radiators are similar in a 
general way to the system installed 
for Steam, but the whole thing is 
full of water instead of merely the 
boiler as with the latter. Hot 
Water has the advantage of pro¬ 
ducing heat at low temperatures so 
that the fire does not have to be 
forced so hard at any time. A much 
more even heat is the result and the 
water in the system does not be¬ 
come cold in the night. This same 
factor, however, makes the Hot 
Water system a difficult one in 
which to bring about quick changes, 
for the reason that all the water in 
the system has to be heated orjal- 
lowed to cool, and this takes con¬ 
siderable time. 
The ideal system, of course, is 
that known as the Indirect, or, 
sometimes, as the Direct-indirect. 
It does away with bulky and at 
times unsightly radiators in the 
rooms and also provides for a con¬ 
stant flow of warmed air into the 
rooms. The radiating surfaces are grouped together, usually be¬ 
low the first floor joists, and, through the enclosed space around 
these, fresh air is drawn from the outside, warmed by contact 
with the coils and passes up through heat ducts into the various 
rooms through registers. The system is not only the most ex¬ 
pensive, however, to instal but it burns approximately as much 
coal as a hot air furnace. 
Still another nomenclature for the available heating systems 
recognizes three kinds: the Direct, the Semi-direct and the Indi¬ 
rect. 1 n the first of these comes heating by air and also the system 
that is above referred to as the Direct-indirect, in which air is 
warmed by passing around radiating surfaces heated by steam 
or hot water in the cellar. The Semi-direct uses radiators in the 
rooms themselves, heated, of course, by the circulation of steam 
or hot water from the boiler in the cellar. The Indirect system 
provides radiators in the rooms, but instead of heating the air 
that is in the rooms it draws fresh air from outside through open¬ 
ings in the outside wall made back of and at the base of each 
radiator. 
It is astonishing what liberties people will take with furnaces 
or boilers installed for heating, when they would be afraid to 
touch any other piece of machinery without a working knowledge 
of its make-up. See to it that the person who manages your 
furnace or boiler is thoroughly familiar with its details. It would 
do you no good to have a satisfactory system if the operator 
does not know how to manage it. Practically, all of the better 
known manufacturers supply with each furnace a printed set of 
rules and suggestions which should be nailed up on the coal-bin 
as a permanent record in case of a change of operators. 
One detail of furnace management is not well covered in 
most of these printed instructions. It has to do with the cold-air 
duct which brings the fresh air in 
to be warmed. Have a door in this 
duct, which, by the way, should be 
made of galvanized iron rather 
than of wood — so that in stopping 
the passage of air from the out¬ 
side it opens a side of the duct 
into the cellar. This is for use only 
at night or when there is a high 
wind blowing directly into the duct 
opening. Do not get into the habit 
cf taking the air in from the cellar 
at all times. It is not healthful. 
Some heating experts counsel 
against taking air from the cellar 
at all. They usually provide an 
arrangement of dampers by which 
you can draw the air down from a 
large open register in the main hall. 
This means economy in fuel but it 
also means giving up the great ad¬ 
vantage of the Hot Air system, and 
that is the introduction of fresh air 
from the outside. If the dust 
brought in by the air is too much of 
a nuisance you can shut out a great 
deal of it by the use of a cheese¬ 
cloth screen across the outside of 
the cold-air duct. This necessitates 
a larger duct than the usual one 
having a cross section equal in area 
to three-quarters of the total area of 
the heat pipes. And by all means 
see that the cheesecloth is fre¬ 
quently renewed or it will defeat 
its own purpose. 
The Direct-indirect system does away with radiators in the 
rooms. The air is warmed over coils heated by steam in 
the cellar and brought into the room through a register, as 
in the Hot Air system 
