Heating and Ventilation

Except far north, these look out for themselves fairly well. As winter approaches, they ought to look out for each other. When you begin to plan for artificial heat, you can plan for ventilation at the same time.

In the smallest libraries, in wooded regions, wide fireplaces with wood fires make cheerful if not very even heat, and excellent ventilation up the chimney. In places where wood is scarce or dear, some sort of stove, like those used in groceries, depots, or schools, is next called into play. The interior view, for instance, of the Keene Valley Public Library (in Eastman[213]) shows such a stove at the right. The floor plans show a “wood-house.” In buying a stove, one of the makes with a jacket, on the furnace principle, can combine heat and ventilation best.

Fireplaces. We do not often use coal grates, but architectural features common in our libraries are wood-fireplaces. The excuse for introducing them is cosiness, cheerfulness, and ventilation. They are certainly cosy when a fire is kept up, but tending them requires a deal of time, the heat is rather irregular, the ashes are a bit blowy. Ventilation is no better by fireplace than through any other aperture, unless some sort of flame is kept up—a tiny gas-jet under the flue sometimes serves as an irritant. As usually built they cost money; and they usually interfere with wall-shelving which is needed. In small libraries with wall space to spare, where wood is the cheapest fuel, it may be well to have a fireplace with a fire tended by the townspeople; but in larger buildings fireplaces are generally nuisances, to be banished to the trustees’ room, if the architect wants one somewhere.

Champneys[214] thinks “open fires are to be avoided in all public rooms, because of unequal distribution of heat, of dust and noise, and of labor.” This is undoubtedly true of soft-coal grate fires, such as they have in England, but has Champneys ever seen the cleanly cheer of a country fireplace, full of six-foot logs? Few of us can afford them even in forest regions, but what an invitation such a glow offers in a rural neighborhood!

The next step beyond the stove would be the ordinary dwelling-house hot-air furnace; doubled or reinforced by a small one, if the house is a little too large to provide properly-gauged heat for all varieties of weather by one furnace.

During these smallest stages of growth, reliance for ventilation can at first be placed on crevices, occasional opening of doors, and the open chimney.

Window Bar Ventilation. When these rudimentary means become inadequate, the simple device of window bars (as I have found in my own house and office for a generation past) will keep even the air of crowded rooms freshened, without drafts. There are many patented devices embodying this principle, but there is no need to waste money on them. The village carpenter can saw out for every window a plain duplicate of the lower bar, a quarter of an inch shorter, but beveled like it, to slip in easily and tight. When the lower sash is lifted, this bar inserted, and the sash shut close to it, there is a space above between the two sashes, which at the same time lets out the foul air, and lets in the fresh, without any perceptible draft. The only caution to be observed, even in cold weather, is to put the bar on the leeward windows, away from those against which the wind is blowing too strongly. This simple fresh air system is very effective. Try it on one window anywhere, and see if you do not like it.

The Next Method. Next comes steam heat, very common, very unsatisfactory, very cheap; with radiators, very ugly in a library, very much in the way; requiring some scheme of admitting sufficient fresh air regularly, and ejecting air that has been breathed.

A low-pressure indirect hot water system gives the best heat, most easily managed and properly combined with fresh air supply. The only reason that it is not universally adopted is that steam boilers and radiators are cheaper. Here, however, is one of the alternatives in library building where the money available ought to be put into health and comfort rather than into mere show.

For ventilation, in the simpler forms of steam and hot-air heating, the simplest, cheapest, and often most effective method is to take fresh air by several inlets direct from outside, up under radiators, to be heated by passage through them and let out into the room.

In large libraries, some more effective system of heating, with forced draft ventilation by blowers, fans or inducers, must be installed by the architect under advice of competent engineers. The part of the librarian in this stage of planning will be to get the building committee to take the most effective method, rather than the cheapest, diverting to this essential of health some of the funds which can be withheld from inside or outside ornament.

Temperature. One of the striking differences between England and the United States is that in the standards of temperature, Champneys[215] calls for 60° to 62° Fahrenheit for rooms, 56° for corridors. Burgoyne[215] reports 50° in the stack at Strassburg.

The A. L. A. Committee on Ventilation and Lighting takes as the standard 70° as a medium temperature for the circular inquiries it is making. It is usually assumed that a lower standard may be set for stacks, and places where attendants or readers move around rather than sit. Certainly we try to keep our houses and offices and the reading-rooms of our libraries 68° to 70°.

In General. An article in “The Librarian,”[216] specifies five heaters, thus:—

Thermometers. Perhaps the architect can plan his heating apparatus so cleverly, or your janitor can run the plant so watchfully, that an equable and agreeable temperature can be maintained everywhere. Among your fittings, however, do not fail to plan for plenty of thermometers as indicators to be watched by the staff. Underheating promotes discomfort, coughs, colds; overheating stupefies staff and readers.

Basic Advice. In 1893 Dr. John S. Billings, now of the New York Public Library, published an interesting and sensible volume on Ventilation and Heating, in which, however, no special mention is made of libraries. I quote some general remarks, which seem pertinent:[217]—

“It is important that those who form and direct opinion on this subject should look to it that the buildings which they plan, and especially those in which numbers of men, women or children are to be brought together, are so constructed and arranged that no one shall poison himself or others by the air which he expires.

“I do not mean by this that every man should aim to be an expert on plans and specifications for ventilation, nor that he should rely on his own judgment as to the best way to secure it, but that he should insist on having it provided for, and should see that skilled advice on the subject is obtained.

“Among the first questions which the architect has to solve for each building which he plans or constructs, in order to secure good ventilation are the following:—

“First—How much money shall be allowed to secure ventilation in this case?

“Second—Which of several methods should be employed to effect this, taking into consideration the character and location of the building, and the amount of funds available?

“It is also the business of the architect to see that the builders do not, in a spasm of economy or retrenchment, make a reduction in some point which will affect the ventilation, rather than cut off some of the merely ornamental and comparatively useless decorative work of the exterior.

“However much the architect may be inclined to let the owners have their own way in planning their own residences; when it comes to public buildings, it is his duty not only to advise but to insist on proper arrangements for heating, ventilation, drainage and plumbing. If it be his misfortune to deal on such matters with ignorant committee-men who with a limited appropriation persist in omitting, for, the sake of cheapness, some of those points in construction which are essential for keeping the building in proper sanitary condition, it is his duty as a skilled professional man to decline to have anything to do with the matter rather than suffer himself to be used as a tool to execute work which he knows will be dangerous to the health and life of his fellow-citizens or of their children.”

These are ringing words to be addressed to an architect. How much more do they apply to the librarian who is the expert adviser not only as to effective methods of work, but also as to the comfort and health of all his staff and for all the public who are to use the building.

A paper by Dr. Billings, on the special subject of Library Heating and Ventilation, after his experience in New York, first in old buildings and now in a new building, should be of very great value.