Lectures on Ventilation/Lecture II

LECTURE II.

As I stated in our last lecture, much interest is being awakened, in this country and in Europe, by recent investigations showing the enormous numbers of untimely deaths that are caused throughout all classes of society by foul air.

It would have been a startling announcement, ten years ago, to have stated that impure air caused as many deaths, and as much sickness, as all other causes combined, and yet the most diligent and accurate investigations are rapidly approaching that conclusion.

Few really comprehend the immense pecuniary loss, to say nothing of the amount of suffering, that we endure by this extra and easily preventible amount of sickness.

I propose, this evening, to enter upon the consideration of one of the most important parts of our subject—the effect produced by upon the movements of air.

I think it probable that many of us do not comprehend the actual reality of the air.

We are apt to say of a room that has no carpet and furniture in it, that it has nothing in it, while, if it is full of air, it has a great deal in it.

A room between twenty-seven and twenty-eight feet square contains one ton of air—a real ton, just as heavy as a ton of coal. Now, there is not only twenty-seven feet, but more than twenty-seven miles of air piled on top of us. The pressure of the atmosphere at the level of the ocean is about fifteen pounds to the square inch. An ordinary sized man sustains a pressure of about fifteen tons, and were it not that this pressure is equal in all directions, we would be crushed thereby.

We must accustom our minds, therefore, to consider air a real substance, and that it is as totally unable to move itself, or to be moved, without power, as water or coal. It requires just as much power to move a ton of air from the cellar to the second story, as it does a ton of coal.

Heat is the great moving power of air. Those whose attention has not been especially directed to the subject of the amount of power exerted by the sun's rays upon the earth, have little conception of its magnitude.

The power of all the horses in the world, added to the power of all the locomotives, and of all the immense steam engines in all the world, express but a small fraction of the power exerted by the sun's rays upon the earth. It is estimated to be sufficient to boil five cubic miles of ice-cold water every minute.

His rays are the chosen power of the Creator for moving all matter upon the globe. It is his rays that lie buried in the vast coal fields beneath the earth. His rays cause every spear of grass to grow, rear the mighty oak, form the rose, burst its beautiful buds, and send its perfume through the air.

No bird warbles its sweet music in the air, no insect breathes, save by his power, and all animals love to bask in the genial glow of his light and heat. He rolls the scorching air of the tropics to frozen lands, and wafts the ships across the seas. He forces the heated waters of the equator to the poles, tempering all the earth. He lifts the water from the sea to sprinkle all the land and cap the distant mountains with eternal snow.

Now, let us examine a little more minutely how this influence is exerted upon the air, which is the subject we are especially interested in at present.

Does it commence at the top, and heat it, layer by layer, until it reaches the bottom? Not at all; but it passes through the whole forty-five miles of air, heating it very little, if any, and falls upon the solid substances at the earth's surface, heating them, which, in turn, heat the air by its individual particles coming into immediate contact with those solid hotter substances.

We will endeavor to illustrate this in a crude way.

Fig. 7

Here we have a tin tube, a, fifteen feet long and ten inches in diameter, open at both ends; two feet from one end we introduce this ascending pipe, b, the upper end of which is merely inserted in a small flue, extending to the top of the building. The height of this flue is sufficient to make a current of air pass through this tube, as you will see by holding this smoking taper at the far end. We will now place a large heated ball, o, at this end, and outside of that we will place this reflector, d, pressing it quite close to the end of the tube, so that no air can enter here.

The rays of heat from this ball, or from any other warm body, are thrown like rays of light, in every direction equally; there would, therefore, be some of the rays thrown through this tube to the other end without any reflector, but the proportion that would reach the other end would, of course, be small.

We therefore collect those going the other way, and change their course, and then send them straight through the tube to the far end. We will place another reflector, e, at the far end, to receive and concentrate those rays, in the focus of which we will place a candle,, with a little phosphorus on it, to show you that the rays of heat are passing through.

There you see the candle is lighted, thus proving that there is a strong current of radiant heat coming from the hot ball, through the tube to this end. And you see by this smoke that there is a current of air passing the other way.

Now, we want to know how much that air is heated in passing the whole length of this tube against that shower of radiant heat, or whether air absorbs radiant heat at all; but, before going to the other end, where the hot ball is, we will take two thermometers that have been lying here, side by side, both indicating a temperature of 69°. One of them, g, we will hang at this end, about opposite to the centre of our tube, which, I think, will give us a fair average of the entering air, first removing, however, the candle that has been lighted, and the reflector.

We will hang the other thermometer in the ascending tube, at the end near the heated ball. We have had two glasses,, inserted here, so that we might observe what was going on within by the smoke from this taper. You see there is a strong current of air passing up the tube, all of which must come from the far end, flowing against the strong current of radiant heat going in the opposite direction. Now, leaving this thermometer to rise or fall according to the temperature of the air flowing through, we will go to the other end and examine another very interesting part of this experiment: it is the manner in which the radiant heat is received and appropriated by different substances.

Radiant heat is thrown from a hot body in every direction equally, but no two kinds of substances receive those rays of heat in the same manner, nor do they make the same use of them after they have received them.

Every substance receiving heat, however, must give a strict account of it. It must give out an equal amount of heat, or, what is taken as an equivalent, some action or power.

I have a sheet of ordinary tin, and as I hold this polished side behind this light, you see it throws a belt of light across the room; and as I put it in front of the end of our tube, and turn it so that the rays of heat will be reflected in your faces, I think some of you will be able to feel the reflected heat. The rays of heat are turned from their course, and thrown in a belt across the room, similar to the rays of light.

But you cannot give away and keep the same thing. This bright polished surface appropriates but a very small portion of the radiant heat. A thermometer hanging for some minutes against the back has scarcely risen one degree; but we have given the other side a coating of lamp black, with a little varnish, and by turning that side towards the pipe, the result will be quite different. By this coat of back varnish the whole character of the sheet of tin is changed. The black, however, has but little to do with it; if it were white, or red, or blue, the formation of the surface being similar in every respect, the result would be the same almost precisely.

Instead of acting merely as a guide-post, to change the direction only of the rays of heat, as before, it now becomes a receiving depot, absorbing nearly all the heat that comes to it. It must soon become filled, however. The thermometer hanging at the back has risen six degrees already, and is going up rapidly; it must soon begin to distribute its extra stores. But mark the different manner of distributing the heat. Instead of reflecting the whole all in one direction, as when received on the other side, it now radiates them equally in every direction.

Some solid substances allow the rays, both of heat and light, to pass directly through them without either reflecting or absorbing them. Other substances allow the rays of light to pass through them, but absorb much of the radiant heat, like clear glass.

Rock salt is one of the best non-absorbents of radiant heat, allowing nearly the whole of the rays of heat to pass through unobstructed.

We will now return to our experiment at the other end of the tube. I find there is something wrong here—the mercury in the thermometer has risen several degrees. I knew this was rather a crude arrangement for illustrating this very beautiful and interesting part of our subject, but I hoped it would assist me a little in conveying to you the idea I desired to impress upon your minds. I find, however, that it is scarcely delicate enough to illustrate perfectly what I wanted to show.

But this increased temperature is not owing to the effect of radiant heat on the air coming from the far end, for I find by the heat at the top of the pipe, between the heated ball and this ascending pipe,, and by the current of heated air on the side next the ball, that there is a current of circulating air that has been heated by coming into immediate contact with the hot ball.

I designed this smaller tube, k, to carry off the air thus heated, but it appears to be too small.

We ought to have had a piece of rock-salt to have closed the end of this tube, so that the radiant heat would have passed through without allowing any circulation of heated air, but I was unable to find such a piece. But Professor Tyndall, in his lectures before the Royal Institute of Great Britain, gives the results of a large number of very accurate and beautiful experiments tried for the purpose of determining whether the forty-five miles of atmosphere surrounding the earth absorbed any of the sun's rays, and if so, how much?

These experiments prove, in the most conclusive manner, that dry pure air is almost a perfect non-absorbent of radiant heat. Thus, were the air entirely dry and pure, the whole forty-five miles through which the sun's rays have to pass, would absorb a very small fraction thereof, so that in the length of our tube it would be but an exceedingly small fraction of one degree, that is, for pure dry air.

But is the air of this room pure and dry? Very far from it.

Professor Tyndall found that the moisture alone in the air of an ordinary room, absorbed from fifty to seventy times as much of the radiant heat as the air does. Air and the elementary gases—oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen—have no power of absorbing radiant heat, but the compound gases have a very different effect; for instance, olifiant gas absorbs 7950 times as much as air; ammonia, 7260; sulphurous acid, 8800 times. Perfumes, also, have a wonderful power of absorbing radiant heat.

The moisture in the air, however, is of the greatest practical importance in various ways. It is the great governor or regulator or conservator of heat; it absorbs it and carries it from point to point and into places where the direct rays of the sun could not get; it is like a soft invisible blanket constantly wrapped around us, which protects us from too sudden heating or too sudden cooling.

Professor Tyndall, speaking of the moisture in the air, says: "Regarding the earth as a source of heat, no doubt at least ten per cent. of its heat is intercepted within ten feet of its surface." He also says: "The removal for a single summer's night of the aqueous vapor from the atmosphere which covers England, would be attended by the destruction of every plant which a freezing temperature could kill.

"In Sahara, where the soil is fire and the wind is flame, the refrigeration is painful to bear."

And in many of our furnace-heated houses, we have an atmosphere very similar in point of dryness to that of Sahara, but more impure.

The foregoing remarks in regard to the impossibility of heating air, apply especially to radiant heat. Air does become heated, but in a different manner; it is heated by each individual particle or atom coming in immediate contact with some hotter substance. See what a wonderful provision for creating a constant circulation of the air. The sun's rays pass through it without heating it, but they heat the surface of the earth at the very bottom of the ocean of air; this, in its turn, heats the air by each individual atom coming in immediate contact with these hotter substances, expanding them so that they must rise, thus enabling the colder and heavier particles to rush in and take their places. With this great universal moving cause, in connection with the innumerable minor causes resulting from the very different absorbing, radiating and reflecting powers of various substances, it becomes almost impossible for the air to be entirely and absolutely at rest, even in the most minute crack or cranny, or bottle corked air-tight.

Now, to apply these principles to every-day life, to the heating and ventilation of our houses, taking the open fire first, we find that it acts like the sun, heating exclusively by direct radiation. The rays of heat fall upon the sides of the room, the floor and ceiling, and the solid substances in the room, which thus become partially heated, and in their turn become secondary radiators. This radiant heat from the fire does not heat the air in the room at all, but the air becomes partially warmed by coming in immediate contact with the sides of the room, the furniture, &c.

One great reason, therefore, why an open fire is so much more wholesome than any other means of artificial heating, is because it more nearly imitates the action of the sun.

The rays of heat fall upon our bodies, heating them, while it leaves the air cool, concentrated and invigorating for breathing. The bright glow of an open fire has a very cheering and animating effect. It produces a very agreeable and healthy excitement.

It is not improbable that future careful investigations may prove that there is an important change takes place in the electric or ozonic condition of air as it passes over, or in contact with, hot iron, which does not occur to the air of a room heated by the open fire.

The air in a room heated by an open fire can scarcely become stagnant, because that fire must necessarily be constantly drawing a considerable amount of air from the room to support combustion, the place of which will be supplied by other air, and here is where one of the greatest inconveniences arises in the use of the open fire; if the air entering to supply this exhaustion comes in at a crack of the door or window, on the opposite side of the room, and that air is cold, say 10° or 15° above zero, it flows across the floor to the fire, chilling the feet and backs of those sitting in its track. It is quite possible to roast a goose or round of beef in front of a fire, while the air flowing by it into the fire is freezing cold. This should be remedied by having the air flowing in partially warmed before it enters, say to a temperature of 40° to 50°, either by having the halls overflowed by partially warmed air, and opening a door into it, or by admitting the air to enter around the back of the fire-place, as Dr. Franklin arranged it.

Thus, while an open fire is the healthiest known means of heating a small room, and should be in the family sitting-room of every house, and in offices and other places where the occupants are at liberty to move closer or further from the fire at pleasure, yet it is entirely unsuitable for a large building, or for rooms where many persons are assembled, and have fixed seats, similar to a school, lecture-room, factory, &c.

A stove in a room heats both by direct radiation and by heating the air that comes in immediate contact with it.

But our latest styles of elegant new patent gas-consuming air-tight stoves, require so small an amount of air to support combustion, that there is a strong probability of the occupants of a room thus heated smothering to death for want of fresh air, sooner or later, and generally the former.

But a stove, if properly used, creates a comfortable and wholesome atmosphere, and is one of the most economical means of heating now known. There should always be a separate pipe for introducing the fresh air from the external atmosphere, which fresh and cold air should be discharged on or near the top of the stove. And if this supply of fresh air is abundant, with a constant evaporation of moisture sufficient to compensate for the increased capacity therefor due to the additional heat given it, and an opening into a heated flue near the ceiling, to be opened in the evening when the gas-lights are burning, or when the room is too hot, and kept shut at all other times, with another opening into a heated flue on a level with the floor, which should be kept always open to carry off the cold, heavy foul air from the floor—a stove thus arranged for many small isolated rooms, makes one of the most economical as well as most comfortable and wholesome means of heating at our command. It combines the three great essentials necessary for comfort and health—warmth, partially by direct radiation, fresh air and moisture. But neither the open fire nor the stove, as desirable as they may be in many small rooms, are suitable for large rooms, especially where many persons are assembled. Heating principally by circulating warmed air, or in combination with direct radiation from exposed pipes filled with steam or hot water, is in such cases more convenient.

It is in connection with this system of heating by circulating warm air, that the erroneous views in relation to ventilation generally entertained by the public, produce the most injurious effects.

The special points to be borne in mind in considering this subject are that, when in motion, warmer air rises and colder air falls; but when at rest, the stratums of air of different temperatures arrange themselves horizontally.

One other thing: we must remember temperature has nothing to do with the purity or impurity of the air. The pure air entering a room is sometimes colder than the average temperature of the room, and falls to the floor, forcing the warmer, and, in that case, fouler air to the upper part of the room.

But frequently, in winter, the fresh air enters warmer than the average temperature of the room, and rises to the ceiling, and flows across the room above the colder and fouler air that has been longer in the room. You must not forget the experiments in our first lecture, showing that the breath in an ordinary room, of a temperature of 70°, fell to the floor instead of rising to the ceiling. I propose illustrating this part of our subject, by using a little glass room to show the movements of air of different temperatures. We can either use air of different temperatures, showing the motion of the various currents by a little smoke; or, as the laws governing the circulation of liquids of different densities are so similar, and by the use of a little coloring matter will express to an audience of this kind more promptly and clearly the ideas which we wish to convey, we therefore propose using the different colored liquids this evening.

The colors, of course, have nothing to do with the densities, but are merely used as a convenient method of designation; the red representing heat or rarity, and blue, coldness or density.

Fig. 1

The room is now filled with clear water, slightly blue, to represent cold, and a little salt, which makes it a little more dense than fresh water. Now, I will let in at the top a little fresh water, colored red by cochineal, to represent heat, and by making a similar opening on the opposite side for its escape, you will be able readily to see in what direction it moves. There, see it entering—see how it flows directly across the top of the room, and escapes at the opening on the opposite side. You see it disturbs the lower and colder parts of the room but very little. Thus a large flow of pure fresh warm air might be going through a room all day, and be entirely wasted, neither warming nor ventilating it. Fortunately, there are but few buildings arranged in quite so absurd a manner as this. I believe it was tried in the House of Lords, on the erection of the new Houses of Parliament, but, of course, failed. I think they still adhere to it in some of the wards of some Insane Asylums, where they depend, I suppose, upon the excitement of the patients to keep themselves warm and the air stirred up. I also noticed this arrangement in a new building just being finished, a few years since, at Yale College. The architects of that building had probably been impressed with the dreadful effects upon the health of students of the air from our ordinary hot air furnaces, and thought they would avoid all such danger. I think, however, it would have answered their purpose just as well, and been much more economical, to have placed the furnaces at the coal mines, and saved the trouble and expense of carrying the coal so far. I expect they have made other arrangements, probably, by this time.

Fig. 2

We will now close the opening at the top for the inlet of the fresh warmed air, and open a valve, so as to allow it to flow in at the bottom. We will allow the opening at the top for the outlet of the foul(?) air to remain as before, (see Fig. 1, Lithograph plates.) This is quite an improvement; it agitates the air much more than the other, and by going and standing directly over the register, you can always get in the current of fresh warm air. But you see to what a very small portion of the room the heated air is confined, rising in one perpendicular column directly to the ceiling, and then flowing horizontally along the ceiling to the outlet. How little it disturbs the main portions of the room, especially the lower and occupied part.

I hope you will notice that this illustrates the popular notions of ventilation. I suppose three-fourths of all the buildings in this country, or in Europe, where any attempts at artificial ventilation have been made, are thus arranged. Dr. Franklin knew better, and made a much more perfect arrangement than this. But we are probably mostly indebted to that very able and enthusiastic advocate of ventilation, Dr. Reid, for this popular opinion. The whole of the plan that he advocated is but little understood by the public. He assumed that the natural warmth of the body created an ascending current around us, and caused the breath to rise towards the ceiling, and consequently, in all artificial arrangements, it was best to endeavor to imitate this natural movement of the air. And to overcome the great practical difficulty we see here exhibited, of the fresh warm air flowing through the room, and disturbing so small a portion of it, he proposed making the whole floor one register, and thus have an ascending column over the entire room. For this purpose, the floors in the Houses of Parliament were perforated by hundreds of thousands of gimlet holes, and the whole cellar made a hot air chamber. This was a magnificent idea, and, I believe, in some few instances, where fully carried out, has given a good degree of satisfaction ; but it is always difficult to adjust the opening and the pressure so as to cause an even, flow over so large a surface, and at the same time to be so gentle as not to be offensive to those with whom it comes in contact. But this thorough diffusion cannot be conveniently applied in one case in a thousand. It must necessarily be always very extravagant, as it will constantly require a great amount of air to insure a thorough circulation through all parts of the room. I wish, therefore, most emphatically, to condemn all systems relying upon openings in the ceiling for the escape of the foul air, while depending upon the circulation of warmed air for obtaining the necessary additional warmth. In practice they are universally closed in winter, for the purpose of keeping warm, and as such openings have been so generally considered the only ones necessary for the proper ventilation of a room, and as they had to be shut in winter, just when artificial ventilation was most necessary, it has created a very strong prejudice in the popular mind against all ventilation.

Fig. 3

The result of the advocacy of these impracticable theories by so many able and learned men, (most physicians writing upon this subject have adopted them,) has been the shutting up of many thousands and tens of thousands, till they have smothered to death.

The ravages of consumption and the excessive infantile mortality, and the many diseases resulting from foul air poisons, are in a great measure due to the general advocacy of these false theories. As I have before said, Dr. Franklin knew better than this, and had we been contented to have followed his simple practical advice, instead of being dazzled by the splendid theories of others, thousands of our friends would now be with us who died long since for the want of fresh air.

Fig. 4

Now, let us see how Dr. Franklin says a room ought to be ventilated. He says, "the fresh air entering, becoming warmed and specifically lighter, is forced out into the rooms, rises by the mantel-piece to the ceiling, and spreads all over the top of the room, whence, being crowded down gradually by the stream of newly warmed air that follows and rises above it, the whole room becomes in a short time equally warmed." This is the principle upon which his celebrated Franklin stove was arranged. Now, let us see if we can arrange our little glass house so as to illustrate this. We will first fill it with what we call our cold air, and will close the outlet at the top, and take out the fire-board. Now, as I let in the warm fresh air, it rises immediately to the top, as before, and flows across the ceiling, but as it cannot escape there, it forces the cold air down, and causes it to flow out at the fire-place. See how quickly the whole room is filled with the fresh warmed air. Ah! I see I am a little too fast—there appears to be a stratum of a foot or two, lying on the floor, that is not disturbed yet. It flows out at the top of the fire-place, and therefore does not reach to the floor. This is frequently the cause of cold feet and much discomfort. We will make the opening directly at the floor, (see Fig. 2, Lithograph plate,) and that forces all the cold air out, warming and ventilating the whole room. Here is the whole problem solved in the most beautiful and simple manner. And you may exclaim, as you see the simplicity and perfect working of this, how came any one ever to think of anything else.

Fig. 5

Here, again, you see the value of that most excellent and valuable of household arrangements, the open fire-place; even without the fire it serves a most important purpose.

Fig. 6

We must not forget, however, that there are other circumstances in which it will not do to depend on the fire place alone for ventilation. Now, by leaving the fire-place open, just as it is, and the room fall of warm air, we will simply change the condition of the air supplied, and allow cold air to flow in at the bottom instead of the top. (See Fig. 3.) There, you see the fresh cold air simply falls to the bottom and flows across the floor, without disturbing the upper part of the room at all. It acts just the reverse of the hot air let in and taken out at the top of the room. When you are ventilating a room by opening a window, therefore, it is often necessary to open it at the top; but remember when you are ventilating by doors and windows, (which are the great natural ventilators,) they are an entire substitute for flues—flues are then of no account. All windows, therefore, ought to be made to lower from the top, and all ventilating flues ought to be made to open at the bottom of the room.

I have noticed another very interesting feature in regard to the circulation of liquids of different densities; for instance, suppose we fill our little room half full with salt water, and the remainder with fresh water, we will now apply a spirit lamp to the bottom of the room. As the salt water becomes heated it rises rapidly, yet not to the top of the room, but only half-way, or to the top of the denser liquid, and then spreads across the room horizontally. Thus the salt water will keep up a rapid circulation, and may be heated almost to a boiling temperature underneath, and without heating or disturbing, the cold fresh water above. I have tried some very beautiful experiments of this kind with a number of liquids of different densities in the same vessel. Gases of different densities are probably influenced in a similar manner by the application of heat. And here we see the value of that beautiful law of the diffusion of gases, by which each gas, no matter what its density, is equally diffused in all directions through the other gases, independent of temperature.

I desire to call your attention this evening to one other distinct system of heating—I mean that very convenient, economical, cleanly and system of heating by direct radiation from steam-pipes.

As steam has become such a common article in all large buildings, both for power and as a convenient means of distributing heat, most large buildings are thus heated; and as a perfectly air-tight building can be very easily heated thus, and as most persons are too ignorant or too careless to provide a separate and distinct supply of fresh air simply for ventilation alone, the consequence is, that this system, thus so shamefully abused, is probably drying up more talent and killing more business men in our cities than any other system in existence. This applies especially to the editorial rooms of nearly every one of our leading newspapers and publishing houses, They use steam for driving their beautiful printing presses, and the heating and ventilation, or rather, the entire want of ventilation, in their offices, would indicate that they think that the same power that drives their presses, to do the printing so nicely, is entirely sufficient to drive them to write the original articles for the printer, and that they have no more need of fresh air than their presses.

You may think that I am certainly mistaken that so intelligent a class of the community, who are building such splendid fire-proof buildings, such perfect palaces of iron and stone and marble, as our newspaper establishments are building in New York, Philadelphia and other large cities, would never make such a blunder as to omit providing the most abundant supply of pure, fresh air to every employé in their establishments, and at all times, both in summer and winter.

Should there be any one present thus doubtful, I wish he would undertake to get any one of our enterprising newspaper establishments to publish in their paper an accurate intelligible account of their system of ventilation, illustrating clearly the known quantity of pure, fresh air delivered within using distance of each one of the editors and employes.

I think he would soon come to the same conclusion I have, that the advice of the minister to his congregation would be very applicable to them—"Always do as I say, but never do as I do."