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Heating, Lighting, and Refrigeration: Franklin

The Franklin Stove. - The celebrated device invented in 1782 by Benjamin Franklin, and called by him the "Pennsylvania fireplace," is still in some respects the most satisfactory contrivance in existence for heating individual rooms. Oddly enough, in modern stoves of this pattern a principal feature of Franklin's invention has been neglected. The Franklin stove had an air chamber behind the grate, communicating with the outer air through a pipe passing beneath the hearth; by this means a current of pure, warm air was admitted to the room for ventilation. If this device could be revived and widely advertised, there is no doubt that its superior advantages would be generally recognized. The modern Franklin stove is similar to an ordinary closed stove except for its open hearth. It combines the cheerful open grate of a fireplace with economy of the heat lost in a fireplace by passing up the chimney. The Franklin stove can be connected by means of stovepipe with an ordinary flue.

Closed Stoves. - Closed stoves burning coal, oil, or gas as fuel are, of course, in very general use for heating individual apartments. Of these, the coal stove has the very decided advantage that the products of combustion pass through the stovepipes into the chimney, whereas both gas and oil stoves vitiate the air with carbonic-acid gas and other injurious substances. For this reason, gas logs and gas grates should not be used except immediately under a chimney flue, nor should small gas stoves or oil stoves be used in living rooms or bedchambers without abundant ventilation.

Open Grates. - The old-fashioned open fireplace is the most cheerful and sanitary means of heating, and would be by all means to be preferred were it not that so much of the heat escapes up the chimney. It has been estimated that only 5 per cent of it is thrown into the room. A recent invention known as the ventilating grate overcomes this difficulty. This is an open furnace, to which fresh outdoor air is introduced by pipes which pass below the hearth and are heated by circulating around the grate, and flues through which the products of combustion escape. The pure air thus warmed is admitted into the rooms through registers. By a suitable arrangement of the flues, the warm air from the ventilating grate can be distributed through the walls to adjacent or upper rooms, and thus two or more of these grates can heat a house of six or eight rooms at less cost than a furnace.

Open fireplaces may also be profitably utilized for supplementary heat in connection with different systems, as they afford the most perfect system of ventilation obtainable.

Economy of Stove Heat.-The heat from an ordinary stove or a Franklin stove may be economized and utilized in upper rooms by adjusting a modern drum radiator to the stovepipe. A number of small tubes within the drum absorb the heat and radiate it into the apartment. The open flames of lamps and gas jets also give a good deal of heat which can be utilized by equipping them with small detachable radiators that operate on the same principle.

Gasoline Stoves. - Those who have generator gasoline stoves often complain that the gasoline smokes and ruins wall paper. To avoid this generate the fire with wood alcohol. Keep the alcohol in a glass bottle holding about a quart. Or a machine-oil can holding about a pint will be found convenient. If the latter is used, a piece of cork should be inserted in the end of the spout to keep the gasoline from evaporating. Or use a piece of Irish potato for this purpose.

Pour a little alcohol in the generator cup, and light it the same as gasoline.

Gas Stoves. These are of two sorts, adapted for heating and cooking respectively. Gas stoves for heating may be obtained in a variety of sizes, from small cylinders to large-sized stoves of the radiator pattern. These are cleanly, cheap, and efficient, and have nothing about them to get out of order. Gas stores for cooking may be had in all sizes、from the oneburner stove of the hot-plate type, costing about $1, to the gas kitchen range, ranging in price up to $50.

The average type is a two-wven range that will broil, roast, or bake, and can be fitted with laundry conveniences.

The standard size has two 16-or 18inch ovens, and is provided on top with one double and three single burners. These are equal to every requirement of a complete kitchen range, and "Demonstrate Superiority in Summer." unlike the latter have no fire brick to burn out, or other parts likely to become warped, cracked, or injured. A gas range has every possibility of service of a coal range except heating, but of course demonstrates its greatest superiority in the summer months, when cooking can be done with a minimum of heat and fuel consumption.

The temperature of a gas oven can always be accurately gauged, and it is possible to have a slow fire and a hot fire at the same time, on different parts of the gas range, which is im- HEATING, LIGHTING, AND REFRIGERATION possible with a coal range. Further, a gas range is always clean, requires no blacking, kindling, or carrying of coal, removal of ashes, and similar nuisances.

Gas Water Heaters. -A gas waterheating appliance attached to an ordinary kitchen boiler will consume about thirty feet of gas in an hour for a thirty-gallon boiler, or forty to forty-five feet for a sixty- to eightygallon boiler. A smaller quantity of hot water for ordinary household purposes can be heated in ten or fifteen minutes at a cost of less than one cent. A similar appliance may be put into the bathroom, which would heat water sufficient for a bath at a cost of from two to three cents. This is an ideal summer arrangement. But care must be taken that accidents do not occur with these, by persons locking the bathroom door and being overcome by the gas. CHIMNEYS AND FLUES Chimneys have a twofold objectto remove the smoke and gases produced by combustion, and to produce a draught to increase the rate of combustion. They were first introduced in Europe about the twelfth century.