atmospheric air. About 4 ½ cubic feet of air must be mixed, by the gas consumer at his burning appliances, with each cubic foot of manufactured gas in order to insure perfect combustion. If not enough air is mixed with the gas, the combustion will be imperfect and wasteful.

When manufactured gas is burned by complete combustion, each cubic foot of the gas will form one-half cubic foot of carbon dioxide and 1 cubic foot of steam. This carbon dioxide is the same substance that is exhaled from the lungs.

The combustion of 1,000 cubic feet of manufactured gas will form 1,000 cubic feet of water vapor or steam, which when condensed, will make approximately 4 ½ gallons of water. It is this water vapor that causes bakers and broilers of stoves to rust, and, when gas is used in open fires without flues,  may make the walls and windows “sweat.”



If the combustion of manufactured gas is not complete, carbon monoxide will be formed instead of carbon dioxide. This carbon monoxide is a deadly poison and, therefore, dangerous, and for this reason a room in which gas is burned should be ventilated. Although carbon monoxide itself is odorless, and offensive odor is usually produced by the improper combustion conditions that produce carbon monoxide. Therefore, and offensive odor from burning gas is an almost infallible indication of carbon monoxide generation. The poisonous action of carbon monoxide gas is so marked that one-tenth of 1 per cent is enough to in time produce fatal results. This poisonous gas is especially likely to be formed:

a. During first few minutes' operation of any automatic water heater.

b. When the inner cone of any blue flame impinges on a metal surface.

c. When a luminous flame is deflected and impinges on a cool surface.

d. When any flame is not supplies with sufficient air.

e. When a radiant fire heater is operated so that the radiants glow more than three-quarters of the distance from the bottom to the top.



The inevitable products, carbon dioxide and water vapor, can not be destroyed, although the water vapor when it is cooled will condense to a liquid. There have been many claims by manufacturers of heating devices that their devices absorb the combustion products, but all such claims are untruthful.


 



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