A NEW danger appears to threaten the consumers of natural gas. A few days ago, the automatic regulator at the main distributing-station in Detroit got out of order, and shut off the supply from the street pipes. Although the accident occurred at two o’clock in the morning, lights were burning in many houses, and gas-fires in many more, and, of course, the light was extinguished when the supply stopped, and when it was restored, the unlighted gas poured out of the burners into the rooms. A large part of the meters are furnished with safety-valves, which close on a failure of the supply, and remain closed until reset by the inspectors, but the gas escaped in many houses, while the occupants were asleep. The manager of the gas-works showed admirable energy in the emergency. The fire department was called up, ready for instant service, while all the men that could be spared were sent in different directions through the city, to warn householders, and look for signs of danger; and notice was sent to the police officials, who set the patrol-men at work waking the citizens, which they did so successfully that they are said to have aroused half the town. Thanks to these precautions, only two serious accidents took place, both of them from explosions, caused by striking matches in places filled with an accumulation of gas.
THE New York Committee on the revision of the buildinglaws is holding frequent sessions, and it seems likely that
a model ordinance will, through its efforts, be passed this year. At a recent meeting, Mr. John McGlensey, the Chairman of the Employing Plasterers’ Association, urged the adoption of a provision in the new law, under which wire-lath should be extensively used in the construction of dwellinghouses, particularly on the underside of stairs, and on hall partitions. He believed, moreover, that plastering should, in all cases, be carried to the floor, and not stopped at the grounds for the bases, as is now the practice in cheap houses. Mr. McGlensey is a plasterer of very great experience, and his suggestions excited so much interest that he was requested by the Committee to present them again in writing. Although the proposed new law, in its present draft, says nothing about the use of wire-lath for the purposes to which Mr. McGlensey thinks it should be applied, most architects have long been impressed with its value as a fireproofing material of modest pretension, but great efficiency, and will be glad to have the support of a builder of such skill and intelligence in their opinion. In our own house, the underside of the stairs was plastered on wire-lath twelve years ago, and we imagine that this is not an unusual practice; so that architects will be quite ready to second Mr. McGlensey’s wish that the law should make compulsory what they can only advise. As to plastering partitions and furrings below the ground, to the floor, we need not say that all architects specify this method in everything but the lightest structures for summer use, and usually these also, if the owner is willing to go to the expense. To say nothing of the immensely increased resistance to the spread of fire which plastering in this way affords, the carrying of the mortar to the floor keeps the rooms much warmer, by preventing the circulation of air between the rooms, and checks to a considerable degree the ravages of rats and mice, who do not like to gnaw plastering, and cannot get into their favorite habitation, the space between partition studs, without doing so.
A NEW set of building regulations is proposed for Glasgow,
Scotland, which is, in some respects, the most radical yet described. In regard to thickness of walls, the regulations are no more strict than ours, but it is provided that no warehouse shall contain more than three hundred thousand cubic feet of space, not divided by walls. This space is large enough — too large, we think, but as it amounts to the prohibition of the huge retail stores, covering an acre or so of ground, and open to the roof, which are so popular, it will probably meet with great opposition. A much more radical provision is, however, one which limits the height of all buildings to the width of the street on which they face. This regulation is given under the head of sanitation, so that its purpose is probably to prevent the streets from being deprived of sun and air. Factories and warehouses must have provision nearly similar to that required by our building-laws for the escape of operatives in case of fire, but an improvement is made on ours, by ordering that fire-escapes shall consist of fire-proof stairs, which must
be placed at least five feet clear from the wall of the building, and be reached by fire-proof platforms in each story, with doors, opening outward, and kept unlocked during working-hours. Some of the minor regulations are evidently copied from those of our cities. For example, all iron columns are required to be of wrought-iron, or, if of cast-iron, must be surrounded with plaster or cement. Openings in party-walls must have double iron doors, in iron frames, bolted through the walls; and all elevators or hoists of more than six square feet in area must be enclosed by incombustible walls, carried three feet above the roof; while all elevator and hoistway doors must be of iron. Public buildings must have one foot in width of exit for every seventy persons who can be accommodated in the building. The roofs of all new buildings are to be constructed of incombustible material, and it is directed that wooden mantelpieces must not project beyond the face of the fireplace more than one inch for every two inches of vertical distance between the shelf and the fireplace opening. A novel, and rather startling provision, which is, however, the most useful and necessary of them all, is that at the end of seven years after the passage of the Act establishing the regulations, all buildings then existing, which do not conform to the regulations, shall be altered forthwith to conform to them, under a penalty for delay or refusal. Every architect and insurance-man knows that, in all our cities, the existence of the whole town is constantly menaced by the miserable wooden fire-traps, which have been preserved from the village days of the place, and which no one has authority to suppress. Few persons, outside the fire-engineers and the members of these two professions, we suppose, would believe that at least half the area of the most closely-built part of Boston, for example, is occupied by wooden buildings; yet the insurance-maps show that groups of the most costly banks and office-buildings in the city, covering land which would be cheap at from fifty to a hundred dollars a square foot, often enclose old timber structures of the most dangerous description. New York is not so bad, but an examination of the region just behind the Broadway stores, from Canal Street to Fourteenth, would not give much pleasure to the underwriters. So long as this state of affairs is allowed to continue, there is not much use in spending money on fireproof construction. All our great fires have shown that a conflagration, beginning in a nest of these masses of combustible material, and fanned by a strong wind, soon gains power enough to destroy iron, stone and brick, in the form of buildings, with ease; and the only safety is to suppress the structures in which such conflagrations can originate. Whether Parliament will approve the Glasgow plan is doubtful, as the English are slow to interfere with vested interests, but it is much to be hoped that this part of the scheme may be carried through, and may serve as an example for future cases.
THE new cruisers, in which the people of the country are greatly interested, are said to be very imperfectly venti
lated, and the men’s quarters, particularly, are excessively close and unwholesome, in comparison with the clean, airy, light accommodations provided in the old-fashioned ships-ofwar. The consequence is that the sailors, who can manage to exist with only tolerable comfort while the vessel is in port, desert in large numbers as soon as it is ordered on a long cruise, and it has been questionable whether some of them would not have to go to sea without a proper crew. Moreover, as the Navy Regulations expressly require that the crew shall be provided with proper accommodations, there appears to be some doubt whether men could be punished as deserters for trying to escape from improper ones. The editor of the Scientific American proposes that the designer of the vessels should be compelled to take a long voyage in them, as a lesson for his future guidance. It is, however, understood that the cruisers are built from English plans, which were furnished, as an act of courtesy to the United States, by the British Admiralty. The plans had already served for building some of the best ships in the Queen’s navy, and it is probable that no important changes were made in them; and, that the ventilation of the originals resembled that of the copies, is indicated by the fact, reported in the daily papers, that when the British fleet was recently ordered from Halifax to winter quarters at Bermuda, the sailors deserted in great numbers, so that crews could be obtained only with difficulty. Probably the trouble will soon be remedied, as Americans do not long endure deficiencies of this sort.
THE New York Committee on the revision of the buildinglaws is holding frequent sessions, and it seems likely that
a model ordinance will, through its efforts, be passed this year. At a recent meeting, Mr. John McGlensey, the Chairman of the Employing Plasterers’ Association, urged the adoption of a provision in the new law, under which wire-lath should be extensively used in the construction of dwellinghouses, particularly on the underside of stairs, and on hall partitions. He believed, moreover, that plastering should, in all cases, be carried to the floor, and not stopped at the grounds for the bases, as is now the practice in cheap houses. Mr. McGlensey is a plasterer of very great experience, and his suggestions excited so much interest that he was requested by the Committee to present them again in writing. Although the proposed new law, in its present draft, says nothing about the use of wire-lath for the purposes to which Mr. McGlensey thinks it should be applied, most architects have long been impressed with its value as a fireproofing material of modest pretension, but great efficiency, and will be glad to have the support of a builder of such skill and intelligence in their opinion. In our own house, the underside of the stairs was plastered on wire-lath twelve years ago, and we imagine that this is not an unusual practice; so that architects will be quite ready to second Mr. McGlensey’s wish that the law should make compulsory what they can only advise. As to plastering partitions and furrings below the ground, to the floor, we need not say that all architects specify this method in everything but the lightest structures for summer use, and usually these also, if the owner is willing to go to the expense. To say nothing of the immensely increased resistance to the spread of fire which plastering in this way affords, the carrying of the mortar to the floor keeps the rooms much warmer, by preventing the circulation of air between the rooms, and checks to a considerable degree the ravages of rats and mice, who do not like to gnaw plastering, and cannot get into their favorite habitation, the space between partition studs, without doing so.
A NEW set of building regulations is proposed for Glasgow,
Scotland, which is, in some respects, the most radical yet described. In regard to thickness of walls, the regulations are no more strict than ours, but it is provided that no warehouse shall contain more than three hundred thousand cubic feet of space, not divided by walls. This space is large enough — too large, we think, but as it amounts to the prohibition of the huge retail stores, covering an acre or so of ground, and open to the roof, which are so popular, it will probably meet with great opposition. A much more radical provision is, however, one which limits the height of all buildings to the width of the street on which they face. This regulation is given under the head of sanitation, so that its purpose is probably to prevent the streets from being deprived of sun and air. Factories and warehouses must have provision nearly similar to that required by our building-laws for the escape of operatives in case of fire, but an improvement is made on ours, by ordering that fire-escapes shall consist of fire-proof stairs, which must
be placed at least five feet clear from the wall of the building, and be reached by fire-proof platforms in each story, with doors, opening outward, and kept unlocked during working-hours. Some of the minor regulations are evidently copied from those of our cities. For example, all iron columns are required to be of wrought-iron, or, if of cast-iron, must be surrounded with plaster or cement. Openings in party-walls must have double iron doors, in iron frames, bolted through the walls; and all elevators or hoists of more than six square feet in area must be enclosed by incombustible walls, carried three feet above the roof; while all elevator and hoistway doors must be of iron. Public buildings must have one foot in width of exit for every seventy persons who can be accommodated in the building. The roofs of all new buildings are to be constructed of incombustible material, and it is directed that wooden mantelpieces must not project beyond the face of the fireplace more than one inch for every two inches of vertical distance between the shelf and the fireplace opening. A novel, and rather startling provision, which is, however, the most useful and necessary of them all, is that at the end of seven years after the passage of the Act establishing the regulations, all buildings then existing, which do not conform to the regulations, shall be altered forthwith to conform to them, under a penalty for delay or refusal. Every architect and insurance-man knows that, in all our cities, the existence of the whole town is constantly menaced by the miserable wooden fire-traps, which have been preserved from the village days of the place, and which no one has authority to suppress. Few persons, outside the fire-engineers and the members of these two professions, we suppose, would believe that at least half the area of the most closely-built part of Boston, for example, is occupied by wooden buildings; yet the insurance-maps show that groups of the most costly banks and office-buildings in the city, covering land which would be cheap at from fifty to a hundred dollars a square foot, often enclose old timber structures of the most dangerous description. New York is not so bad, but an examination of the region just behind the Broadway stores, from Canal Street to Fourteenth, would not give much pleasure to the underwriters. So long as this state of affairs is allowed to continue, there is not much use in spending money on fireproof construction. All our great fires have shown that a conflagration, beginning in a nest of these masses of combustible material, and fanned by a strong wind, soon gains power enough to destroy iron, stone and brick, in the form of buildings, with ease; and the only safety is to suppress the structures in which such conflagrations can originate. Whether Parliament will approve the Glasgow plan is doubtful, as the English are slow to interfere with vested interests, but it is much to be hoped that this part of the scheme may be carried through, and may serve as an example for future cases.
THE new cruisers, in which the people of the country are greatly interested, are said to be very imperfectly venti
lated, and the men’s quarters, particularly, are excessively close and unwholesome, in comparison with the clean, airy, light accommodations provided in the old-fashioned ships-ofwar. The consequence is that the sailors, who can manage to exist with only tolerable comfort while the vessel is in port, desert in large numbers as soon as it is ordered on a long cruise, and it has been questionable whether some of them would not have to go to sea without a proper crew. Moreover, as the Navy Regulations expressly require that the crew shall be provided with proper accommodations, there appears to be some doubt whether men could be punished as deserters for trying to escape from improper ones. The editor of the Scientific American proposes that the designer of the vessels should be compelled to take a long voyage in them, as a lesson for his future guidance. It is, however, understood that the cruisers are built from English plans, which were furnished, as an act of courtesy to the United States, by the British Admiralty. The plans had already served for building some of the best ships in the Queen’s navy, and it is probable that no important changes were made in them; and, that the ventilation of the originals resembled that of the copies, is indicated by the fact, reported in the daily papers, that when the British fleet was recently ordered from Halifax to winter quarters at Bermuda, the sailors deserted in great numbers, so that crews could be obtained only with difficulty. Probably the trouble will soon be remedied, as Americans do not long endure deficiencies of this sort.