Chats on a Healthy Home.—VIII.
Introduction
The article discusses different types of fireplaces that can improve the warming and ventilation of a room. It describes the Galton Grate, which has a false back and a passage for warm air that enters the room through an inlet behind the grate. It also mentions Saxon Snell’s Thermhydric Gate, which has a boiler that regulates the temperature of the incoming air. It acknowledges some drawbacks of these devices, such as dust and odour, and suggests some ways to overcome them. It concludes by saying that open fires are more homely than stoves, but stoves have some advantages in terms of efficiency and evenness of heating. The article is from The House magazine, published in November 1902.
Galton Grate
The Galton Grate is a type of fireplace grate invented by Sir Francis Galton in the mid-19th century. It consists of a series of narrow, parallel bars set at an angle in a V-shaped frame. The grate allows air to circulate freely around the fuel, which promotes a more efficient and complete combustion process. The design of the Galton Grate was a significant improvement over earlier grates, which tended to restrict airflow and trap ash and unburned fuel. The Galton Grate was widely adopted in Victorian homes and remains a popular choice for traditional fireplaces today.
The Galton grate improved home hygiene by promoting better air circulation and reducing the accumulation of soot and other debris in the fireplace. The grate was designed with small openings that allowed air to circulate under the coal bed, which helped to burn the fuel more efficiently and reduce smoke emissions. This, in turn, helped to prevent the buildup of soot and other pollutants in the chimney, which could pose a health hazard and increase the risk of chimney fires. By improving air quality and reducing the accumulation of debris, the Galton grate helped to create a healthier and more comfortable living environment in homes.
I should say a word now upon certain improved forms of fire-places, invented with the object of assisting in a healthy way the warming and ventilation of the room. The Galton Grate is one of these. It possesses a kind of false back, with a small fireclay smoke flue. Behind this false back, and around the shaft, by which the smoke escapes, is a passage for the warm air. Behind the back of the grate is an inlet through the walls, to admit a fresh supply of atmosphere, which, entering here, rises as it encircles the smoke Hue, until it reaches an outlet; above the grate, and enters the room. It will be observed that a device like this not only supplies an inlet of fresh air, but effects some considerable economy in the heating, for a great deal of the warmth, which in the ordinary grates only heats the chimney shaft, assists, as I have described, in warming the air of the room. Translated into pounds, shillings, and pence, this fact is worth remembering by economical housewives. Of course, great care must be taken to see that the air shaft is perfectly sealed from the flue by which the smoke escapes. Otherwise, the incoming air will be contaminated and the arrangement will break down utterly.
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Saxon Snell's Thermhydric Gate
There is another stove called Saxon Snell's Thermhydric Gate where the air inlet passes through a series of pipes communicating with a boiler. The water in the boiler is kept warm and equalises the temperature of the air admitted. This device is intended to obviate an objection which might hold against the "Galton Grate" that variation in the stoking of the fire causes fluctuation in the temperature of the fresh air admitted.
A Thermhydric Gate is a type of fireplace that was designed by Henry Saxon Snell, a noted architect who specialised in health facilities and designed many London hospitals and other public buildings. It's a device that aims to regulate the temperature of the fresh air that enters the room through an inlet behind the grate. The air inlet passes through a series of pipes communicating with a boiler. The water in the boiler is kept warm and equalises the temperature of the air admitted. This device is intended to obviate an objection which might hold against the Galton Grate, another type of fireplace, that variation in the stoking of the fire causes fluctuation in the temperature of the fresh air admitted. Victorian heating is described on this excellent page, 19th-century Radiators and Heating Systems.
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Common Heating Problems
Many people appear to prefer the old-fashioned fires to all devices, however new, for the reason that the warming of a room by hot air, as they say, creates an unpleasant odour, and is responsible for dust. This may seem an unscientific and unreasonable suggestion, but, as a matter of fact, it is not so. In towns, or in densely populated districts where the atmosphere contains much dust, the ceiling and walls near each inlet of warm air are apt to become dirty, and the partial combustion of organic substances undoubtedly gives rise to slightly unpleasant smells This may be prevented by placing cotton wool to purify the incoming draught, or the latter may be deflected on to a shallow dish of water to purify it.
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It is often said that the open grate is an institution distinctly English, and we are apt to sneer somewhat at the means of warming adopted by our neighbours. To go into a French or German dining-room on a cold day and see nothing but a chilly-looking tile stove is certainly net comforting, and there is a suggestion of homeliness about open fires distinctly welcome. As I hope to show, however, in my next chapter, from a purely scientific and non-sentimental point of view, the stove has much to recommend it, as it undoubtedly warms the room more evenly and with less waste of fuel than our own old-fashioned if hearty and English methods.
Hygeia
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