When the interior of the stove is thus sufficiently heated, the fire-door and the communication with the chimney are closed, and the fire is at once extinguished, having now done its day’s work; the interior of the stove has bottled up its calorific force, and holds it ready for emission into the apartment. This is effected by the natural properties of the walls of the earthenware reservoir. They are bad conductors and good radiators. The heat slowly passes through to the outside of the stove, is radiated into the apartment from a large and moderately-heated surface, which affords a genial and well-diffused temperature throughout.
There is no scorching in one little red-hot hole, or corner, or box, and freezing in the other parts of the room. There are no draughts, as the chimney is quite closed as soon as the heat reservoir is supplied. If one of these heat reservoirs is placed in the hall, where it may form a noble ornament and can easily communicate with an underground flue, it warms every part of the house, and enables the Russian to enjoy a luxurious temperate climate indoors in spite of arctic winter outside.
In a house thus warmed and free from draughts or blasts of cold air, ventilation becomes the simplest of problems. Nothing more is required than to provide an inlet and outlet in suitable places, and of suitable dimensions, when the difference between the specific gravity of the cold air without and warm air within does all the rest. Nothing is easier to arrange than to cause all the entering air to be warmed on its way by the hall stove, and to regulate the supply which each apartment shall receive from this general or main stream by adjusting its own upper outlet. In our English houses, with open chimneys, all such systematic, scientific ventilation is impossible, on account of the dominating, interfering, useless, and comfort-destroying currents produced by these wasteful air-shafts.
I should add that the Russian porcelain reservoirs may be constructed for a heat supply of a few hours or for a whole day, and I need say nothing further in refutation of the common British prejudice which confounds so admirable and truly scientific a contrivance with the iron fire-pot above referred to.
There is another kind of stove, which, for the sake of distinction, I may call Scandinavian, as it is commonly used in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, besides some parts of North Germany. This is a tall, hollow iron pillar, of rectangular section, varying from three to six feet in width, and rising half-way to the ceiling of the room, and sometimes higher. A fire is lighted at the lower part, and the products of combustion, in their way upwards, meet with horizontal iron plates, which deflect them first to the right, then to the left, and thus compel them to make a long serpentine journey before they reach the chimney. By this means they give off their heat to the large surface of iron plate, and enter the chimney at a comparatively low temperature. The heat is radiated into the apartment from the large metal surface, no part of which approaches a red-heat. A further economy is commonly effected by placing this iron pillar in the wall separating two rooms, so that one of its faces is in each room. Thus two rooms are heated by one fire. One of these may be the kitchen, and the same fire that prepares the food may be used to warm the dining-room. The fire-worshiper is of course deprived of his “cheerful” occupation of staring at the coals, and he also loses his playthings, as neither poker, tongs, nor coal-scuttle are included in the furniture of an apartment thus heated. People differently constituted consider that an escape from the dust, dirt, and clatter of these is a decided advantage.
Of course these stoves of our northern neighbors are costly—may be very costly when highly ornamental. The stove of a Norwegian “bonder,” or peasant proprietor, costs nearly half as much as the two-roomed wooden house in which it is erected, but the saving it effects renders it a good investment. It would cost 100l. or 200l. to fit up an English mansion with suitable porcelain stoves of the Russian pattern, but a saving of 20l. a year in fuel would yield a good return as regards mere cost, while the gain in comfort and healthfulness would be so great that, once enjoyed and understood, such outlay would be willingly made by all who could afford it, even if no money saving were effected.
Only last week I was discussing this question in a railway carriage, where one of my fellow-passengers was an intelligent Holsteiner. He confirmed the heresy by which I had shocked the others, in exulting in the high price of coal, and wishing it to continue. He told us that when wood was abundant in his country, fuel was used as barbarously, as wastefully, and as inefficiently as it now is here, but that the deforesting of the land, and the great cost of fuel, forced upon them a radical reform, the result of which is that they now have their houses better warmed, and at a less cost than when fuel was obtainable at one fourth of its present cost.
Such will be the case with us also if we can but maintain the present coal famine during one or two more winters, especially if we should have the further advantage of some very severe weather in the meantime. Hence the cruel wishes above expressed. The coal famine would scarcely be necessary if we had Russian winters, for in such case our houses, instead of being as they are, merely the most uncomfortable in North Europe, would be quite uninhabitable. With our mild winters we require the utmost severity of fuel prices to civilize our warming and ventilating devices.