Miss Beecher's Housekeeper and Healthkeeper / Containing Five Hundred Receipes for Economical and Healthful Cooking; also, Many Directions for Securing Health and Happiness

by Catharine Esther Beecher

The preceding remarks illustrate the advantages of the cottage plan in respect to healthful ventilation. The economy of the mode of warming next demands attention. In the first place, it should be noted that the chimney being at the centre of the house, no heat is lost by its radiation through outside walls into open air, as is the case with all fire-places and grates that have their backs and flues joined to an outside wall.

In this plan all the radiated heat from the stove serves to warm the walls of adjacent rooms in cold weather; while in the warm season the non-conducting summer casings of the stove described in the next chapter send all the heat either into the exhausting warm-air shaft or into the central cast-iron pipe. In addition, the sliding doors of the stove-room (which should be only six feet high, meeting the partition coming from the ceiling), can be opened in cool days, and then the heat from the stove would temper the rooms each side of the kitchen. In hot weather they could be kept closed, except when the stove is used, and then opened only for a short time. The Franklin stoves in the large room would give the radiating warmth and cheerful blaze of an open fire, while radiating heat also from all their surfaces. In cold weather the air of the larger chambers could be tempered by registers admitting warm air from the stove-room, which would always be sufficiently moistened by evaporation from the stationary boiler. The conservatories in winter, protected from frost by double sashes, would contribute agreeable moisture to the larger rooms. In case the size of a family required more rooms, another story could be ventilated and warmed by the same mode, with little additional expense.

We will next notice the economy of time, labor, and expense secured by this cottage plan. The laundry work being done in the basement, all the cooking, dish-washing, etc., can be done in the kitchen and stove-room on the ground-floor. But in case a larger kitchen is needed, the lounges can be put in the front part of the large room, and the movable screen placed so as to give a work-room adjacent to the kitchen, and the front side of the same be used for the eating-room. Where the movable screen is used, the floor should be oiled wood. A square piece of carpet can be put in the centre of the front part of the room, to keep the feet warm when sitting around the table, and small rugs can be placed before the lounges or other sitting-places, for the same purpose.

Most cottages are so divided by entries, stairs, closets, etc., that there can be no large rooms. But in this plan, by the use of the movable screen, two fine large rooms can be secured whenever the family work is over, while the conveniences for work will very much lessen the time required.

In certain cases, where the closest economy is needful, two small families can occupy the cottage, by having a movable screen in both rooms, and using the kitchen in common, or divide it and have two smaller stoves. Each kitchen will then have a window, and as much room as is given to the kitchen in great steamers that provide for several hundred.

Whoever plans a house with a view to economy must arrange rooms around a central chimney, and avoid all projecting appendages. Dormer-windows are far more expensive than common ones, and are less pleasant. Every addition projecting from a main building greatly increases expense of building, and still more of warming and ventilating.

It should be introduced, as one school exercise in every female seminary, to plan houses with reference to economy of time, labor, and expense, and also with reference to good architectural taste; and the teacher should be qualified to point out faults and give the instruction needed to prevent such mistakes in practical life. Every girl should be trained to be “a wise woman” that “buildeth her house” aright.

There is but one mode of ventilation yet tried that will, at all seasons of the year and all hours of the day and night, secure pure air without dangerous draughts, and that is by an exhausting warm-air flue. This is always secured by an open fire-place, so long as its chimney is kept warm by any fire. And in many cases, a fire-place with a flue of a certain dimension and height will secure good ventilation, except when the air without and within is at the same temperature.

When no exhausting warm-air flue can be used, the opening of doors and windows is the only resort. Every sleeping-room without a fire-place that draws smoke well should have a window raised at the bottom or sunk at the top at least an inch, with an inclined shelf outside or in, to keep out rain, and then it is properly ventilated, provided the air outside is colder than the inside air—but not otherwise. Or a door should be kept opened into a hall with an open window. Let the bed-clothing be increased, so as to keep warm in bed, and protect the head also, and then the more air comes into a sleeping-room the better for health.

In reference to the warming of rooms and houses already built, there is no doubt that stoves are the most economical mode, as they radiate heat and also warm by convection. The grand objection to their use is the difficulty of securing proper ventilation. If a room is well warmed by a stove, and then several small openings made for the entrance of a good supply of outdoor air, and by a mode that will prevent dangerous draughts, all is right as to pure air. But in this case the feet are always on cold floors, surrounded by the coldest air, while the head is in air of much higher temperature.