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Ventilation and Unventilaied Stoves.—The number of unventilated
stoves has somewhat decreased, still there were found 102 instances in
which attention had to be called to them. In two or three cases oil was
in use to heat the stoves, and caused the air of the rooms in which they
were to be distinctly offensive. The Home Office Inspectors co.operated
with the Council's staff in many instances, and had chemical examination
of the air made. In one case, in a long narrow underground workshop
of 2,637 cubic feet capacity, the ventilation was found to be defective,
especially at the back of the room. There were large windows the
whole breadth of the room part of which were kept open, the door was
near the windows, and there was a small electric fan in the rear wall.
This, however, was badly fixed, and failed to extract the air as it was
intended to do, instead of which it threw a draught down on the
workers and drew in air from an area which was not kept in as cleanly
a condition as it might. In addition there was a flueless gas stove, and
a gas ring heater which was connected with a flue. Nine persons were
employed in the room, which was fairly light, so that artificial lighting
was not usually required. On analysis it was found that the amount of
carbonic acid gas was 22.5 parts per 1,000 in the centre of the room
and 27.3 parts at the far end. Various improvements were effected, the
fan was properly fixed and more openings provided in the window,
and the result of further analysis showed the carbonic to be 12.6 and
16 parts respectively. On both occasions the gas stove was not in use.
The Home Office standard is not a high one, being 12 parts per 10,000,
so that the above results could not be regarded as satisfactory, and led
to the conclusion that regular use was not being made of the fan, which
proved to be the case, the reasons given being that the tenants in the
room above complained of the vibration, and the workers in the basement
that there was too great a current of cold air through the room