INDOOR AIR

Evening Star, Issue 19760, 10 January 1928, Page 2

INDOOR AIR

VENTILATION PROBLEMS In a private house custom may be regulated, and what is good lor one is good lor all. Bedroom windows should never he closed excepting during a storm or a severe I'rost. Downstairs sitting rooms, being exposed to the attentions of the possible thief, must be closed and fastened at night, writes “AV.H.W.,” in the ’Press.’ In sash windows divided by panes it is a good plan to make one of the upper panes-open independently, so that effective ventilation is secured with the sash fastened. It is almost an axiom that where there is a fire in a room a window must be open. No regulator of an old-fashioned grate should ever be closed, for the chimney is the most valuable ventilation in the house. It provides a constant current of air. in cottages in country districts it is not at all uncommon to find the chimney openings in the bedrooms stuffed up with rags and old newspapers. Then the windows are tightly shut, and the much-desired stuffiness is assured. For a door, even if wide open, is no use whatever as a ventilator unless there is some other opening to induce an air current. Many builders have unwittingly assisted, for a bncllybuilt house contains so many ill-fitting doors, windows, and floor boards that it is difficult to keep out the air. AVheu you sec the carpet rise up in a goutle billow, your consciousness of the cheap and shoddy in building construction may well go hand-in-hand with the consolation that the wide cracks between the boards beneath provide at least effective ventilation^ Ideas about fresh air and ventilation for bedrooms are now more or less j fixed, but our houses are not yet being built to suit these ideas. Bedrooms should bo made just large enough to take a bed with no window, but with one side of the room entirely open to the air. Such a bedroom, with a pressing room properly heated so that dressing can take place in comfort and without freezing in cold weather, should simplify matters, as well as prove more economical. When one comes to think of it there is no particular satisfaction in sleeping in a bed surrounded by a handsome suite of furniture. Practical experience with gas fires leads many people.to believe that they dry up the atmosphere. The use of a dish of water is advocated in order that the resulting steam may recharge the air with the moisture it has lost. But this method produces rather a steamy 'atmosphere, though it _may he better than having no water in the room at all. It is only fair to point out, however, that enormous improvements have been made in gas fires within recent years, and that the drying up referred to was often due to carelessness and the use of imperfect patterns of stoves. Open windows with a gas fire are the best corrective, and, of the chimney should never be stoppea up. The groat advantage with gas tires is the fact that they need be burning only when wanted, and are cheap, if used by economical people. This last qualification can bo applied equally to every provision in a home which should reduce expense. No invention will change the habits of an extravagant man or woman. Electricity is economical, chiefly because it never need bo in use until the moment it is required; so the number of hours it burns can bo kept down. But careless people leave the switches on for odd minutes when leaving a room. These minutes mount up, and at the end of the month complaint is made that electricity is very nice and dean, but it is so expensive. It is exactly the same with gas, which should never be burning one moment longer than required. Gas companies are usually anxious to make this clear to their customers. They prefer the thrifty user to the extravagant one, notwithstanding the smaller bill of the former, the reason being that the economical householder speaks well of the use of gas, whilst the wasteful one is always complaining about it. Gas companies will clean your cooking and beating stoves if the fittings become foul, for it is a poor advertisement for fumes to penetrate all over the house, ns is common with dirty appliances. At the same time, the enjoyment of a comfortable monopoly on the part of a lighting company has a tendency to reduce the sweet reasonableness with which it treats the requests of the common householder, who is regarded sometimes with a nonchalant haughtiness by picturesque officials in peaked caps and Brass buttons.