Hot Air and Cool Rooms.

Cromwell Argus, Volume V, Issue 269, 24 November 1874, Page 7

Hot Air and Cool Rooms.

(From the Lancet.) Because, when the air of the streets marks 30 or 40 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale, a room overwarmed by a fire can be cooled by opening the windows, the average British householder adopts the ready conclusion that whenever a room fegls hot the way to cool it is to let in the external air. Accordingly in these piping times he, and more often she, opens the windows on the sunny side of the house, and lets in air of a temperature varying from 100 to 120 degrees, or so. Then, because in a very short time the room, naturally enough, becomes much hotter than it was, it is considered that the windows are not opened widely enough, aud the supposed error being remedied, a still larger quantity of hot air is then let in. And so we find Materfainilias sitting with a very light muslin upon her frame, and a great deal of perspiration upon her upper lip, her face the colour of an Orleans plum, and her condition of mind to the last degree dejected, simplv because she persists in disregarding the most elementary principles of natural philosophy. We tell her that if she will open the windows on the shady side of the house only, and keep the others closely shut, her dwelling will be at least not hotter than the shady side of the street, whereas by- her arrangement it acquires the heat of the sunny side. We tell her also that if her house be large and the inmates few, she may live in a delightful state of coolness by only opening the windows at night, and keeping them closed during the day. Her house will then be 10 or 15 degrees lower in temperature than the streets, and convey very much the refreshing effects of a cool bath upon entering it. We tell her all this and she is very much interested. At our next visit we find every window open, and the house full of red-hot air. It stands to reason, she says triumphantly, “ that you cannot possibly cool a house without plenty of ventilation.”