dependently operate a separate division of the large damper, i. e., a small damper, but also that the "mixed air ducts" leading from each sub-division or small damper shall lead independent of all other air ducts to the air inlets, supplying that portion of the auditorium governed by the thermostat operating such small damper; thus, when by reason of change of direction of outside winds, or other cause, one portion of the auditorium is colder or warmer than others, the thermostat in such portion and its respective mixing damper will operate, and warmer or colder air be introduced directly into such part. It is impossible to show all these details in the small scale illustrative diagrams accompanying this paper. It is to prevent any misinterpretation that this statement is added.

DISCUSSION.

Mr. Hugh J. Barron:-Mr. President, there are a number of things in this paper that I think are open to criticism. Mr Prather's idea, of course, is a very valuable one. I should judge that the purport of the paper is to lay out the very best method of heating churches; that is, to approach a standard-an approximate standard for the best method, of heating the average American church. There are a number of statements in his paper and a number of things in his drawings that I can hardly agree with. The first thing that you meet with in dealing with a church committee is the commercial aspect of the case. They have not the money to pay for an elaborate apparatus usually; and then there is the question of room. I have a plan here of a plant put in about the year 1888 where all the pipe is underground sewer pipe laid in concrete. That saves the room in the basement. Mr. Prather prefers to get his pipe overhead. In large cities room is so valuable that you cannot get the pipe overhead. It very often does away with a valuable system of ventilating, because the room is too valuable to be appropriated to that purpose. I can see no objection at all to a drain pipe laid in concrete and circling the side of the building with flues communicating from that to the Sunday school (which is usually in the basement) and to the church above. Then there are the eduction fan and eduction flues. I think in ordinary cases they have to be abandoned. Most churches. cannot afford to pay for anything of that kind, and I think that is very often why a simpler system is preferred and why there is not more hot blast heating done in church work. The church of which I show these plans, while not a perfect sample of work at all, is a sample of work of which a great deal has been done. It is cheap work. The cubical contents are about 300,000 to

350,000 cubic feet. The cost is $3,500. That includes everything. I do not believe with Mr. Prather that we should put coils under the windows, because from the commercial side that is not admissible. Eduction flues and eduction fans are not admissible. It must be cheap, and that is the problem that the engineer has to meet.

Mr. B. Harold Carpenter:-Mr. President, there is one point about which I would like to ask if members have had any experience. Mr. Prather speaks of reducing the vent flue. He does not give any reason why the vent flues should be smaller than the inlet flues. It seems to me that unless he uses eduction fans it would be quite as necessary to have the vent flues as large as the inlet. The pressure on the fan gives a pressure in the room at all times. If it is for the purpose of preventing a vacuum and thus preventing the cold air from coming in through window openings or doors, that would not happen unless they had an eduction fan, because if these flues were of the same size, the air would not go out of the vent flues any faster than it came in through the inlet. I see no other reason for his making them any smaller.

Mr. Dean:-That might possibly be because there would be no objection to the air passing faster out of the eduction flues than it came in from the induction flues, his object being to not cause any draft in the house by having the air come in rapidly, allowing it to pass out more rapidly, as it naturally would by having smaller flues.

Mr. Cary: Mr. Barron spoke of one of the worst things you meet in taking hold of church work or any other work and that is to get your price down, use cheap apparatus, and put it in as cheaply as possible. I think that is rather against the objects of this society. I believe that we are here to educate the publicthe steam users-and I think that we should show up the poor plants all we can, bring that before the public, show where there are failures. I do not mean to go where there are personalities at all and criticise people for trade purposes, but I think that if this is the state of affairs-I have not had very much experience in the line of heating and ventilating churches-but if it is, as Mr. Barron says, I think it is something that we want to avoid. We want to educate people to put in good plants and show them that it pays. I do not think we want to throw up our hands and put in cheap heating and ventilating systems which give trouble. I think that is against the objects of the society.

Mr. Fish: I do not quite agree with Mr. Barron in regard

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to doing cheap work. This paper of Mr. Prather's is certainly a commendable one. His object seems to be to lay before the members the necessity of erecting a better class of apparatus for the successful heating and ventilating of large buildings and churches. The engineer has much to do with the commanding of a fair price for the apparatus he has to design. Some years ago I was in competition for the heating of a very large church. My price was $6,000; another bidder offered to do it for $3,200, but upon comparing the plans and specification, why there was no equality whatever. I furnished a detail plan and specification, while my competitor simply wrote a letter offering to heat the church for so much money, viz. $3,200. I am not an advocate of doing cheap work, and I think that Mr. Prather's paper gives good advice and makes practical suggestions to the engineer to design a good apparatus and one that will be successful in operation, embodying all the best principles of heating and ventilation, and there are many churches which can afford to pay for a good apparatus. I will instance Trinity Church in Boston. Some years ago they paid $15,000 for the heating and ventilating of their church by a hot water apparatus and it was a success. therefore think the engineer can do much towards getting his contract price when he goes before a committee or board of management by explaining his plans and specifications-to pay him for the installation of a good plant and not try to set up a standard of cheap work. It is true that there are many churches that cannot afford to pay for an elaborate heating and ventilating apparatus, and it is necessary for the engineer to design an inexpensive plant, but I think many churches having wellto-do congregations are looking for the best methods of warming and not the cheapest, and if the engineer will look to that end and advise the committee of the desirability of their having an efficient apparatus, economical and durable, he will in nine cases out of ten succeed in getting a fair price for his plan above that of a cheap competitor. In other words, if he is a skilled engineer and master of his profession and makes a good layout, he will have very little difficulty in having his plan and apparatus adopted. I think this society ought not to set up a standard of cheap work. Let all plans and specifications they recommend be of a high standard, efficient in every particular; in so doing success will surely follow. I think Mr. Prather's paper is a very valuable one and is worthy of commendation by this society.

Mr. B. H. Carpenter:-I am very glad to hear Mr. Barron criticised, as he differed with me in connection with the same question last year.

Mr. Fish:-I forgot to say that this paper speaks of overhead ducts being preferable as to accessibility and less friction and the underground ducts as to least absorption of head room. Mr. Barron in his remarks did not agree with Mr. Prather in regard to overhead ducts. Perhaps he overlooked the fact that Mr. Prather qualified his statement. There are buildings in which it is perhaps preferable to place ducts overhead, as he suggests, to resemble beams. In some buildings, from lack of head room, you are obliged to place them underneath the ground.

Mr. Newell P. Andrus:-I never had anything to do with church heating, but I would like to hear from some of those made failures of it. I think if we were to hear from those parties we would probably receive some benefit from them.

Mr. Barron:-I would like to meet Mr. Andrus privately some time and tell him all about it. (Laughter).

Mr. Andrus:-That would not benefit the rest.

Mr. Cary:-I will only add a word to what I said before. I think it would be well for some of our members to look up heating and ventilating plants that have been failures and let us have papers on the subject. That is about the only way we will get up to the standard that we are working for. I think, besides showing good work in our papers, we should show bad work as well.

Mr. Connolly:-I think the location of the boiler under the pulpit is a very improper place. I think too much heat centers there. I simply state that to help along the criticisms of this particular paper.

Mr. Fish: I do not think that criticism a fair one. Probably this church was built before the apparatus was designed and the flue was built in that particular part of the building and the engineer was necessarily compelled to locate his boilers accordingly. That is perhaps a matter that he could not very well help. We have all experienced some difficulty of that sort, i. e., of finding the chimney improperly located, whereas if we had designed the building from the start or built it ourselves, we would have located the chimney in a different part of the building convenient to the boilers. I do not think that this is a point to criticise. The engineer has to deal with the chimney as he finds it and plan accordingly.

Mr. Harvey:-I have had a great deal of experience in heating churches and have had occasion also to look at many that were heated by other firms; and the specifications that Mr. Prather has here I think are very good in every sense of the

word. The only suggestion that I would mention in reference to the subject is that a great many partial failures have been caused by registers being placed in the vestibules and depending on them for heating, but many of these plants have given good results by putting in a large amount of direct radiation in these vestibules, so that when the doors were opened it warmed the air that came from the outside and prevented the loss of a quantity of warm air, and a much less proportion of cold air was admitted. I think that Mr. Prather is right also about having coils under windows, because I care not how hot the air may be coming into a room through registers, when it strikes a glass surface it immediately cools and produces cold air currents. With the coil under the windows it otherwise heats that glass surface and instead of cooling the air it has the opposite tendency.

Mr. Fish:-I agree with Mr. Harvey and I can now recall a church that I heated many years ago in which I made it my practice to heat the vestibule and passages thoroughly by direct radiation, and I think at these points direct radiation is very essential, especially where doors are constantly opening and closing, admitting large quantities of cold air.

Mr. Connolly:-Mr. Fish stated that heating engineers as a rule, and the engineer in particular who laid out the plan described in Mr. Prather's paper, found the smoke flue located in a certain place and was obliged to locate the boilers accordingly. I should think, judging from the layout, etc., that it was a plan where the heating engineer was consulted before the building of the church, it being a plenum system. I have criticized the plan, as the boiler is directly under the pulpit; I still hold to that criticism, because in connection with it there is a fan and an engine, and of course the congregation would want air on an April or May night, and windows might be closed on account of rain. I claim that if you get up steam on that boiler so located to run engine and fan it would make the minister very uncomfortable. I would like to hear some other members express their views on it.