Chapter 3

It is impossible to have a sweet home where there is continual dampness. By its presence chemical action and decay are set up in many substances which would remain in a quiescent state so long as they continued dry. Wood will rot; so will wall papers, the paste used in hanging them, and the size in distemper, however good they have been in the first instance; then it is that injurious exhalations are thrown off, and the evil is doubtless very greatly increased if the materials are bad in themselves. Quickly grown and sappy timber, sour paste, stale size, and wall papers containing injurious pigments are more easily attacked, and far more likely to fill the house with bad smells and a subtile poison. Plaster to ceilings and walls is quickly damaged by wet, and if improper materials, such as road drift, be used in its composition, it may become most unsavory and injurious to health. The materials for plaster cannot be too carefully selected, for if organic matter be present, the result is the formation of nitrates and the like, which combine with lime and produce deliquescent salts, viz, those which attract moisture. Then, however impervious to wet the walls, etc., may be, signs of dampness will be noticed wherever there is a humid atmosphere, and similar evils will result as if wet had penetrated from the exterior. Organic matter coming into contact with plaster, and even the exhalations from human beings and animals, will in time produce similar effects. Hence stables, water closets, and rooms which are frequently crowded with people, unless always properly ventilated, will show signs of dampness and deterioration of the plaster work; wall paper will become detached from the walls, paint will blister and peel off, and distemper will lose its virtue. To avoid similar mishaps, sea sand, or sand containing salt, should never be used either for plaster or mortar. In fact, it is necessary that the materials for mortar should be as free from salts and organic matter as those used for plaster, because the injurious effects of their presence will be quickly communicated to the latter.

Unfortunately, it is not alone by taking precaution against the possibility of having a damp house that we necessarily insure a "sweet home." The watchful care of the architect is required from the cutting of the first sod until the finishing touches are put on the house. He must assure himself that all is done, and nothing left undone which is likely to cause a nuisance, or worse still, jeopardize the health of the occupiers. Yet, with all his care and the employment of the best materials and apparatus at his command, complete success seems scarcely possible of attainment. We have all much to learn, many things must be accomplished and difficulties overcome, ere we can "rest and be thankful."

It is impossible for the architect to attempt to solve all the problems which surround this question. He must in many cases employ such materials and such apparatus as can be obtained; nevertheless, it is his duty carefully to test the value of such materials and apparatus as may be obtainable, and by his experience and scientific knowledge to determine which are best to be used under varying circumstances.

But to pass on to other matters which mar the sweetness of home. With many, I hold that the method usually employed for warming our dwellings is wasteful, dirty, and often injurious to health. The open fire, although cheerful in appearance, is justly condemned. It is wasteful, because so small a percentage of the value of the fuel employed is utilized. It is dirty, because of the dust and soot which result therefrom. It is unhealthy, because of the cold draughts which in its simplest form are produced, and the stifling atmosphere which pervades the house when the products of imperfect combustion insist, as they often do, in not ascending the flues constructed for the express purpose of carrying them off; and even when they take the desired course, they blacken and poison the external atmosphere with their presence. Some of the grates known as ventilating grates dispose of one of the evils of the ordinary open fire, by reducing the amount of cold draught caused by the rush of air up the flues. This is effected, as you probably know, by admitting air direct from the outside of the house to the back of the grate, where it is warmed, and then flows into the rooms to supply the place of that which is drawn up the chimneys. Provided such grates act properly and are well put together, so that there is no possibility of smoke being drawn into the fresh air channels, and that the air to be warmed is drawn from a pure source, they may be used with much advantage; although by them we must not suppose perfection has been attained. The utilization of a far greater percentage of heat and the consumption of all smoke must be aimed at. It is a question if such can be accomplished by means of an open fire, and it is a difficult matter to devise a method suited in every respect to the warming of our dwellings, which at the same time is equally cheering in appearance. So long as we are obliged to employ coal in its crude form for heating purposes, and are content with the waste and dirt of the open fire, we must be thankful for the cheer it gives in many a home where there are well constructed grates and flues, and make the best use we can of the undoubted ventilating power it possesses.

A constant change of air in every part of our dwellings is absolutely necessary that we may have a "sweet home," and the open fireplace with its flue materially helps to that end; but unless in every other respect the house is in a good sanitary condition, the open fire only adds to the danger of residing in such a house, because it draws the impure air from other parts into our living rooms, where it is respired. Closed stoves are useful in some places, such as entrance halls. They are more economical than the open fireplaces; but with them there is danger of the atmosphere, or rather, the minute particles of organic matter always floating in the air, becoming burnt and so charging the atmosphere with carbonic acid. The recently introduced slow-combustion stoves obviate this evil.

It is possible to warm our houses without having separate fireplaces in each room, viz., by heated air, hot water, or steam; but there are many difficulties and some dangers in connection therewith which I can scarcely hope to see entirely overcome. In America steam has been employed with some success, and there is this advantage in its use, that it can be conveyed a considerable distance. It is therefore possible to have the furnace and boilers for its production quite away from the dwelling houses and to heat several dwellings from one source, while at the same time it can be employed for cooking purposes. In steam, then, we have a useful agent, which might with advantage be more generally employed; but when either it or hot water be used for heating purposes, special and adequate means of ventilation must be employed. Gas stoves are made in many forms, and in a few cases can be employed with advantage; but I believe they are more expensive than a coal fire, and it is most difficult to prevent the products of combustion finding their way into the dwellings. Gas is a useful agent in the kitchen for cooking purposes, but I never remember entering a house where it was so employed without at once detecting the unpleasant smell resulting. It is rare to find any special means for carrying off the injurious fumes, and without such I am sure gas cooking stoves cannot be healthy adjuncts to our homes.

The next difficulty we have to deal with is artificial lighting. Whether we employ candle, oil lamp, or gas, we may be certain that the atmosphere of our rooms will become contaminated by the products of combustion, and health must suffer. In order that such may be obviated, it must be an earnest hope that ere long such improvements will be made in electric lighting, that it may become generally used in our homes as well as in all public buildings. Gas has certainly proved itself a very useful and comparatively inexpensive illuminating power, but in many ways it contaminates the atmosphere, is injurious to health, and destructive to the furniture and fittings of our homes. Leakages from the mains impregnate the soil with poisonous matter, and it rarely happens that throughout a house there are no leakages. However small they may be, the air becomes tainted. It is almost impossible, at times, to detect the fault, or if detected, to make good without great injury to other work, in consequence of the difficulty there is in getting at the pipes, as they are generally embedded in plaster, etc. All gas pipes should be laid in positions where they can be easily examined, and, if necessary, repaired without much trouble. In France it is compulsory that all gas pipes be left exposed to view, except where they must of necessity pass through the thickness of a wall or floor, and it would be a great benefit if such were required in this country.

The cooking processes which necessarily go on often result in unpleasant odors pervading our homes. I cannot say they are immediately prejudicial to health; but if they are of daily or frequent occurrence, it is more than probable the volatile matters which are the cause of the odors become condensed upon walls, ceiling, or furniture, and in time undergo putrefaction, and so not only mar the sweetness of home, but in addition affect the health of the inmates. Cooking ranges should therefore be constructed so as to carry off the fumes of cooking, and kitchens must be well ventilated and so placed that the fumes cannot find their way into other parts of the dwelling. In some houses washing day is an abomination. Steam and stife then permeate the building, and, to say the least, banish sweetness and comfort from the home. It is a wonder that people will, year after year, put up with such a nuisance.

If washing must be done home, the architect may do something to lessen the evil by placing the washhouse in a suitable position disconnected from the living part of the house, or by properly ventilating it and providing a well constructed boiler and furnace, and a flue for carrying off the steam.

There is daily a considerable amount of refuse found in every home, from the kitchen, from the fire-grate, from the sweeping of rooms, etc., and as a rule this is day after day deposited in the ash-pit, which but too often is placed close to the house, and left uncovered. If it were simply a receptacle for the ashes from the fire-grates, no harm would result, but as all kinds of organic matter are cast in and often allowed to remain for weeks to rot and putrefy, it becomes a regular pest box, and to it often may be traced sickness and death. It would be a wise sanitary measure if every constructed ash pit were abolished. In place thereof I would substitute a galvanized iron covered receptacle of but moderate size, mounted upon wheels, and it should be incumbent on the local authorities to empty same every two or three days. Where there are gardens all refuse is useful as manure, and a suitable place should be provided for it at the greatest distance from the dwellings. Until the very advisable reform I have just mentioned takes place, it would be well if refuse were burnt as soon as possible. With care this may be done in a close range, or even open fire without any unpleasant smells, and certainly without injury to health. It must be much more wholesome to dispose of organic matter in that way while fresh than to have it rotting and festering under our very noses.

A greater evil yet is the privy. In the country, where there is no complete system of drainage, it may be tolerated when placed at a distance from the house; but in a crowded neighborhood it is an abomination, and, unless frequently emptied and kept scrupulously clean, cannot fail to be injurious to health. Where there is no system of drainage, cesspools must at times be used, but they should be avoided as much as possible. They should never be constructed near to dwellings, and must always be well ventilated. Care should be taken to make them watertight, otherwise the foul matter may percolate through the ground, and is likely to contaminate the water supply. In some old houses cesspools have been found actually under the living rooms.

I would here also condemn the placing of r. w. tanks under any portion of the dwelling house, for many cases of sickness and death have been traced to the fact of sewage having found its way through, either by backing up the drains, or by the ignorant laying of new into old drains. Earth closets, if carefully attended to, often emptied, and the receptacles cleaned out, can be safely employed even within doors; but in towns it is difficult to dispose of the refuse, and there must necessarily be a system of drainage for the purpose of taking off the surface water; it is thereupon found more economical to carry away all drainage together, and the water closet being but little trouble, and, if properly looked after, more cleanly in appearance, it is generally preferred, notwithstanding the great risks which are daily run in consequence of the chance of sewer-gas finding an entrance into the house by its means. After all, it is scarcely fair to condemn outright the water closet as the cause of so many of the ills to which flesh is subject. It is true that many w. c. apparatus are obviously defective in construction, and any architect or builder using such is to be condemned. The old pan closet, for instance, should be banished. It is known to be defective, and yet I see it is still made, sold, and fixed, in dwelling houses, notwithstanding the fact that other closet pans far more simple and effective can be obtained at less cost. The pan of the closet should be large, and ought to retain a layer of water at the bottom, which, with the refuse, should be swept out of the pan by the rush of water from the service pipe. The outlet may be at the side connected with a simple earthenware s-trap with a ventilating outlet at the top, from which a pipe may be taken just through the wall. From the S-trap I prefer to take the soil pipe immediately through the wall, and connect with a strong 4 in. iron pipe, carefully jointed, watertight, and continued of the same size to above the tops of all windows. This pipe at its foot should be connected with a ventilating trap, so that all air connection is cut off between the house and the drains. All funnel-shaped w. c. pans are objectionable, because they are so liable to catch and retain the dirt.

Wastes from baths, sinks, and urinals should also be ventilated and disconnected from the drains as above, or else allowed to discharge above a gulley trap. Excrement, etc., must be quickly removed from the premises if we are to have "sweet homes," and the w.c. is perhaps the most convenient apparatus, when properly constructed, which can be employed. By taking due precaution no harm need be feared, or will result from its use, provided that the drains and sewers are rightly constructed and properly laid. It is then to the sewers, drains, and their connections our attention must be specially directed, for in the majority of cases they are the arch-offenders. The laying of main sewers has in most cases been intrusted to the civil engineer, yet it often happens architects are blamed, and unjustly so, for the defective work over which they had no control. When the main sewers are badly constructed, and, as a result, sewer gas is generated and allowed to accumulate, ordinary precautions may be useless in preventing its entrance by some means or other to our homes, and special means and extra precautions must be adopted. But with well constructed and properly ventilated sewers, every architect and builder should be able to devise a suitable system of house drainage, which need cause no fear of danger to health. The glazed stoneware pipe, now made of any convenient size and shape, is an excellent article with which to construct house-drains. The pipes should be selected, well burnt, well glazed, and free from twist. Too much care cannot be exercised in properly laying them. The trenches should be got out to proper falls, and unless the ground is hard and firm, the pipes should be laid upon a layer of concrete to prevent the chance of sinking. The jointing must be carefully made, and should be of cement or of well tempered clay, care being taken to wipe away all projecting portions from the inside of the pipes. A clear passage-way is of the utmost importance. Foul drains are the result of badly joined and irregularly laid pipes, wherein matter accumulates, which in time ferments and produces sewer-gas. The common system of laying drains with curved angles is not so good as laying them in straight lines from point to point, and at every angle inserting a man-hole or lamp-hole, This plan is now insisted upon by the Local Government Board for all public buildings erected under their authority. It might, with advantage, be adopted for all house-drains.

Now, in consequence of the trouble and expense attending the opening up and examination of a drain, it may often happen that although defects are suspected or even known to exist, they are not remedied until illness or death is the result of neglect. But with drains laid in straight lines, from point to point, with man holes or lamp holes at the intersections, there is no reason why the whole system may not easily be examined at any time and stoppages quickly removed. The man holes and lamp-holes may, with advantage, be used as means for ventilating the drains and also for flushing them. It is of importance that each house drain should have a disconnecting trap just before it enters the main sewer. It is bad enough to be poisoned by neglecting the drainage to one's own property, but what if the poison be developed elsewhere, and by neglect permitted to find its way to us. Such will surely happen unless some effective means be employed for cutting off all air connection between the house-drains and the main sewer. I am firmly convinced that simply a smoky chimney, or the discovery of a fault in drainage weighs far more, in the estimation of a client in forming his opinion of the ability of an architect, than the successful carrying out of an artistic design. By no means do I disparage a striving to attain artistic effectiveness, but to the study of the artistic, in domestic architecture at least, add a knowledge of sanitary science, and foster a habit of careful observation of causes and effects. Comfort is demanded in the home, and that cannot be secured unless dwellings are built and maintained with perfect sanitary arrangements and appliances.--_The Building News_.

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HOUSE AT HEATON

This house, which belongs to Mr J. N. D'Andrea, is built on the Basque principle, under one roof, with covered balconies on the south side, the northside being kept low to give the sun an opportunity of shining in winter on the house and greenhouse adjacent, as well as to assist in the more picturesque grouping of the two. On this side is placed, approached by porch and lobby, the hall with a fireplace of the "olden time," lavatory, etc., butler's pantry, w. c., staircase, larder, kitchen, scullery, stores, etc.

On the south side are two sitting rooms, opening into a conservatory. There are six bedrooms, a dining-room, bath room, and housemaid's sink.

The walls are built of colored wall stones known as "insides," and half-timbered brickwork covered with the Portland cement stucco, finished Panan, and painted a cream-color.

All the interior woodwork is of selected pitch pine, the hall being boarded throughout. Colored lead light glass is introduced in the upper parts of the windows in every room, etc.

The architect is Mr. W. A. Herbert Martin, of Bradford.--_Architect_

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A MANSARD ROOF DWELLING.

The principal floor of this design is elevated three feet above the surface of the ground, and is approached by the front steps leading to the platform. The height of the first floor is eleven feet, the second ten feet, and the cellar six feet six inches in the clear. The porch is so constructed that it can be put on either the front or side of the house, as it may suit the owner. The rooms, eight in number, are airy and of convenient size. The kitchen has a range, sink, and boiler, and a large closet, to be used as a pantry. The windows leading out to the porch will run to the floor, with heads running into the walls. In the attic the chambers are 10x10 feet, 13x14 feet, 12x13 feet, 10x10½ feet, and a hall 6 feet wide, with large closets and cupboards for each chamber. The building is so constructed that an addition can be made to the rear any time by using the present kitchen as a dining room and building a new kitchen.

These plans will prove suggestive to those contemplating the building of a new house, even if radical changes are made in the accompanying designs.--_American Cultivator_.

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THE HISTORY OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

[Footnote: Aug. Guerout in _La Lurmière Electrique_.]

An endeavor has often been made to carry the origin of the electric telegraph back to a very remote epoch by a reliance on those more or less fanciful descriptions of modes of communication based upon the properties of the magnet.

It will prove not without interest before entering into the real history of the telegraph to pass in review the various documents that relate to the subject.

In continuation of the 21st chapter of his _Magia naturalis_, published in 1553, J. B. Porta cites an experiment that had been made with the magnet as a means of telegraphing. In 1616, Famiano Strada, in his _Prolusiones Academicæ_, takes up this idea, and speaks of the possibility of two persons communicating by the aid of two magnetized needles influenced by each other at a distance. Galileo, in _Dialogo intorno_, written between 1621 and 1632 and Nicolas Caboeus, of Ferrara, in his _Philosophia magnetica_, both reproduce analogous descriptions, not however without raising doubts as to the possibility of such a system.

A document of the same kind, to which great importance has been attached is found in the _Recreations mathematiques_ published at Rouen in 1628, under the pseudonym of Van Elten, and reprinted several times since, with the annotations and additions of Mydorge and Hamion and which must, it appears, be attributed to the Jesuit Leurechon. In his chapter on the magnet and the needles that are rubbed therewith, we find the following passage.