How to Warm a Room in Winter and Cool It in Summer, Communicated by Franklin to Jonathan Williams, Jr., [1 November 1784]
How to Warm a Room in Winter and Cool It in Summer, Communicated by Franklin to Jonathan
Williams, Jr.3
D:4 The Lilly Library
[November 1, 1784]
Note the Back of the Kitchen Chimney being of Iron will warm the Room behind it, the folding doors being open allows the heat to pass into the Room & the air Pipe being shut prevents its going away: this is for Winter.— In summer the Doors being shut the heat cannot get into the Room & the slides being drawn out the heat will escape throw the air pipe. The hole at the bottom of the Doors feeds the pipe with air which rarifies & passes off. The Wooden Pipe supplies the Room with as much cool air fresh from the bottom of the Cellar.—
This Idea was given me by Dr. B. F. at Passy 1. Novemb 1784. Jw
[captions, middle left:] the Kitchen / Fire place & Chimney
[captions, middle right:] Room to be warm in winter and cool in summer. / an Iron back throu which the heat comes into this Room / an Air Pipe shut at the Bottom by an Iron slider in Winter but open in Summer. / Wooden Doors to be kept open in Winter & shut in summer, a round hole at the bottom of the door.
[captions, lower right.] Cellar. / a Wooden Pipe open at each end from the bottom of the Cellar to the Top of the Room.
3. When JW made this drawing, illustrated on the facing page, he was living with BF at Passy. BF would develop these ideas more fully in his essay on the causes and cures of smoky chimneys, written at sea in August, 1785, and addressed to Ingenhousz: Smyth, Writings, IX, 413–43.
4. In JW’s hand.