STRAY NOTES

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 83, 2 January 1929, Page 15

STRAY NOTES

MODERN HEATING lu an address on "Smoke Abatement” at the Koyal Sanitary Congress, Plymouth, L)r. S. G. Moore, medical officer of health for Huddersfield, pointed to the opportunities for reducing the smoke evil where new estates are springing up and smokeless appliances could be introduced.

Reputable British makers, he said, aad caused prolonged scientific researches to be made into the whole question of gas heating, and the results were seen to-day in serviceable, scientifically constructed equipment that could be safely used without the slightest detrimental effects to health. The good modern gas fire heated adequately and assisted in helpful ventilation, and for these reasons it must be given an important place in the heating arrangements of new housing schemes. Municipal housing authorities and builders had come to see in gas a powerful ally in the campaign against smoke, and were making plentiful use of it. Gas > stoves were now regularly used in the I kitchens of most houses in the land. This i development alone had made a great difference. He asked them to imagine if they could what the effect would be if this change had not taken place, and. say. on a Sunday morning, 10,000.000 coal ranges were simultaneously cooking he Sunday dinner, causing 10,000,000 kit•chen chimneys to belch forth volumes of black smoke. They would then have a very good idea of what domestic smoke could really achieve in the way of nuisances.

Dealing with the all-gas and all-electric house, Dr. Moore said it was desirable to point out in the case of the latter type of structure the undesirable practice that had crept in of omitting flues from the rooms.

“In this country,” he declared, “an air channel of adequate dimensions from near the floor to the roof top is the no>--maf means of ventilation in the rooms of buses, and, whatever the system f heating provided, one should be allowed tor in every apartment designed for human occupation. The grid or air brick is not sufficient to ensure properly hygienic conditions when free ventilation does not es,st ‘ while the earthenware pipe of small dimensions and similar contrivances are utterly useless and lend themtffiiHon.” CVIIS al ' iSing frOm batl vel1 ’