The objections are less numerous but more weighty.  The liability to imperfect construction and careless management often makes a furnace, especially a cast-iron one, a savor of death unto death rather than of health and comfort; also, when we are warmed by air thrown into a room at a high temperature, and dry at that, a greater degree of heat is necessary for comfort than if our bodies and clothing absorb heat from a radiating surface.  The furnace, in short, compels us to breathe an atmosphere highly rarefied.  We have the most careful and competent authority for believing this to be gravely injurious.

Direct radiation from stoves, or other heating apparatus, except open fireplaces, is, moreover, economical of fuel, but, on the other hand, unless abundant ventilation is provided, the atmosphere in rooms thus warmed soon becomes unfit for respiration.

Now you may stop and think.  Next time you shall have the conclusion of the whole matter.

LETTER XXXIX.

From John.

HOW TO DO IT.

MY DEAR ARCHITECT:  I’m in a hurry.  Let me ask you a few square questions.  Give me square answers if you can; if not, say so.  What kind of a furnace shall I get?  I’ve interviewed about a dozen; each one is warranted to give more heat, burn less coal, leak less gas, give less trouble and more satisfaction, than all the others put together.  I suppose you object to cast-iron, because it’s liable to be heated red-hot and burn the air.

Is wrought-iron any better?

Shall I put the registers in the floors or in the partitions?

What do you say to steam?

How shall I ventilate?

Will it answer to have the ventilating flues in the outer walls?

There seems to be no doubt that the foul air should be drawn from the bottom of a room; but if it’s cold, how am I to get it to the ventilator on the top of the house?  If a room is as tight as a fruit-can, a chimney might draw like a yoke of oxen without doing any good, and Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace wouldn’t drive air into it unless, in both cases, the inlets and outlets were about equal!  When I go to sleep in such a room I want to be sure the dampers won’t get accidentally shut.

Give me your opinion on these points, but don’t make a long story or a tough one.  If a house is to be kept warm from turret to foundation-stone, I don’t see that shutting up the spaces between the timbers would amount to much, except to stop sounds from echoing through them; but when the attic is as cold as out-doors, it’s plain that the cold air will be always crawling down next the inside plastering of every room in the house if it finds a chance.

Yours,

JOHN.

LETTER XL.

From the Architect.

THE BREATH OF LIFE.

DEAR JOHN:  No man ever built himself a house without getting out of patience before it was finished.