The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
First Aid For The Ailing Houses
A very general loss of heat is through window glass. Glass is a good conductor of heat; when warm air is in contact with it inside and cold air out, heat will be lost to outdoors by what is called "conduction," which is the ability of a substance to transmit heat. An example of conduction is a poker, which will become hot all over when one end is put into a fire.
Another heat loss is by leakage of outside air into a house through joints around the windows, doors, and their frames, as well as through any other joints and openings that then may be. When the wind is blowing, air is forced against the exposed sides of the house and driven through any such open cracks and joints. On the opposite sides of the house, the same wind will create a suction which will extract inside air. A 20-mile-an-hour wind will force enough air through the joints of a well-fitted window to change the air within an ordinary room once an hour. The room can then be kept warm only when it is supplied with enough heat to bring this outdoor air to a comfortable temperature.
Heated air will be so free to escape from a lightly built house that there must be a continual production of fresh heat or, in other words, a continuous and hot fire in the heater. On the other hand, in a house that is tightly built and protected as well as possible against the escape of heated air, heating will last for many hours, and the fuel consumption will be greatly reduced.
When heated air is free to escape, as, for example, through a leaky roof, its place in the house will be taken by air entering from outdoors at other places, such as leaks around windows and window frames. Such a house will be drafty.
Cold air is heavier than warm air and will settle to the floor; heated air will rise to the ceiling. It is not at all uncommon to find a difference of 20 degrees between the temperature of the air at the ceiling and on the floor. We usually judge the temperature of a room by the sensation at our heads as we sit or stand, that is, at a height of about 5 feet from the floor. Parents do not always realize that, while they may be comfortable, the floor may be many degrees colder and that a draft may be sweeping across it, the effect being to give colds and other illnesses to infants and small children playing on the floor.
