Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 3.djvu/209

Rh keep a steam engine in an ordinary house to pump in the warmed air. These open fireplaces would then, however, be wasting the spare heat which each fireplace sends up its own chimney; but, on the other hand, very much smaller fires would be needed, to keep the rooms warm, than when the rooms are not supplied with fresh warmed air. Theoretically, however, it can be shown that if we. are prepared to give up open fireplaces, and arrange our houses on the plan of having flues which would draw off the air from near the floors of our rooms, and which would also warm fresh air, heated from a central fire, to be constantly admitted near the ceilings, and if the climate were such as to make us desire to have the system in continuous operation, such a system would probably be by far more economical of fuel than open fireplaces, because the fuel used could then be made to do its full duty. The variations of our climate and the low price of fuel, which have hitherto prevailed, have prevented such systematic arrangements from being adopted in this country.

The plan of carrying the heat from the fire to the air to be warmed by means of hot-water pipes affords also a very economical method of warming air, because the best-constructed hot-water apparatus will enable the full heating value to be got out of the fuel. Fuel may be consumed to far greater advantage in a close furnace than in any open grate, because the admission of air for the combustion of the fuel can be regulated to any required extent. The heating surface of the boiler may also be so arranged as to absorb a very large proportion of the heat generated by the fire.

But in deciding on the amount of heat in hot-water pipes which is most favorable to economy, the following considerations occur: At least twice the quantity of air which is strictly necessary by theory passes through the fire in the best-constructed furnaces. In an ordinary grate this consumption is enormously increased. Each part of oxygen supplied by the air and necessary for combustion is accompanied by four parts of nitrogen, which is of no value for combustion. Consequently, if twice as much oxygen passes through the fire as is strictly necessary, we have one part which combines with carbon and produces combustion, and nine parts which, being inert, must act, in the first place, to lower the temperature of the fire, and, secondly, to carry a larger amount of unutilized heat up the chimney. Moreover, when water is heated sufficiently to generate steam, each particle of water converted into steam absorbs or makes latent 960° Fahr. of temperature. In experiments on the evaporation of water, the temperature of the gases passing off in the chimney was ascertained to vary from 430° to 530°, diminishing to 415° at the top of a flue 35 feet high, with the dampers open; and about 380° at the bottom of the flue with the dampers closed. With a boiler of which the temperature of the water is maintained at 200° without evaporation, the temperature of the flue need not exceed from 230° to 240°.