CAVEMEN MAY HAVE USED SPACE HEATING FIRST

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31057, 12 May 1966, Page 9

CAVEMEN MAY HAVE USED SPACE HEATING FIRST

Someone living in a cave probably started it all. He remembered the night there was a storm and a piece of rock fell from the ceiling of the cave, struck another piece on the floor, and the spark set a dry bush, alight which kept the family warm for the rest of the night.

He remembered that and dropped the rock himself the next cold night, thereby becoming the first to supply the principle of space heating.

More than likely it was a bit smoky and, when he shifted from a cave into a hut, he thought of cutting a hole in the roof to let out the smoke, but it wasn’t until the twelfth century A.D. that he thought of a chimney. Unless he has read about the Improved efficiency of space heating since then he is still probably sitting in front of his fire with a chimney, letting 85 per cent of the heat go up the chimney just the same. He may, of course, have read about improved efficiency and rejected it. Before that providential rock fell to the floor of the cave, he had probably found that the best way to keep warm was to huddle his family close together in the

cave. His animals formed the outer family circle.

Huddling together in an igloo is the way the Eskimo keeps his family warm. They are aided by an oil lamp. In giving off his body heat the human is burning fuels stored in his body.

A refinement of the animals keeping the family warm can still be found in Europe, where the animals are kept under the house and their body heat rises, providing one form of central heating. Very likely the prosperity of the Common Market countries has changed much of that, and the farmers are getting used to the sweeter smells of success.

The earliest civilisation both north and south of the equator, were limited to lands in about the 70 deg. F Isotherm: civilisation spread only when a means of controlling the indoor climate was found.

The Romans had a method of warming buildings by passing hot gases through flues. They were known to have this about 750 B.C.

In certain parts of Russia the system is still in use with practically no change.

A couple or more thousand years before that gentleman arrived in Christchurch a year or so ago to say that the perfect steak was one grilled over charcoal, it was known that charcoal gave off a wonderful heat. Charcoal braziers are still in use in parts of the Mediterranean. Shallow dish-like braziers are used in southern Italy, for example.

One of the homeliest methods was in Persia. A charcoal brazier was set in a shallow hole in the ground, over which was placed a framework table, A cloth was draped over the table and the family sat around the table with the cloth well draped over the lower parts of their bodies.

Had the baby of the Persian family crept under the cloth, avoided falling into the brazier, and gone to sleep, it is very likely that he would have died from poison gases. Ventilation was well and truly sacrificed in the interests of efficiency.

Asphyxiation in the same sort of manner no doubt

accounted for many deaths among the pre-pakeha Maori. If he was privileged be would sleep in an elaborate whare, with a slow fire burning in the stone-lined pit. But the advantage over the fireless less elaborate sleeping quarters was probably doubtful, because down draughts would bring poisonous gases to the floor. His death would be attributed to the evil spirits.

The man who lived in the castle or mud hut had one significant advantage of his descendant of our day. His walls were thick. They kept his dwelling warm in winter and cool in summer.

The saying about a man’s home being his castle is best kept in its figurative sense in New Zealand where the walls most dwell within are matchbox thin. The manufacturers of insulation offered to do something towards keeping the winter warmth in.

The advertisers in these pages say they have something more to offer than those methods cursorily described here. The task of the reader is to choos; among them.