The difference in gas bills, due to management of gas stoves, is considerable. It is very easy for one woman to use three times as much gas as another in doing the same amount of work. Some women do not realize when they are wasting gas.
Water boils in an uncovered vessel at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, and no amount of heat applied to it will make it any hotter. When a pot of food has reached the boiling point, a smaller flame will keep it boiling. Turn the gas as low as it may be safely turned and still keep the pot boiling, and the food will cook as rapidly as when the gas is turned on full.
Fig. 10. Single top burner
and valve.
Gas is a safe fuel in most hands; it saves the housekeeper much labor because it makes so little dirt. When properly managed, it is the cheapest fuel to be had at the present time.
20. Cold-Process Gasoline Gas Stoves. Cold-process gasoline stoves require a burner fitted with valves in which the gas orifice can be enlarged or diminished. The best of these for using cold-process gasoline gas can be adjusted by a turn of the finger.
Fig. 10-a. Oven burner.
The adjustment of the valve is to compensate for the neglect upon the part of users of these plants. Very frequently they will allow the supply of gasoline in the carburetor to run nearly out before they replenish it, in which case the gas comes to the burners in a thinner quality, and in order to provide the same volume of heat, it is necessary to adjust the burner valves and throw a larger stream of gas into the burner. They are sometimes fitted with burners having side-sawed caps (Figs. 10 and 10-a). These seem to expose the burning gas to the air in a way to make it burn better than in other burners built for gas forced into them by greater pressure than is this gas. The opening for air must be adjusted from time to time so as to keep the proportion of gas and air such that it will produce a blue flame.
21. Acetylene Stoves. Stoves for the burning of acetylene are similar in construction to gas stoves. The acetylene furnishes a satisfactory and economical light, it is not an economical fuel when compared with kerosene, gas, wood or coal. For this reason, it is not much used. It requires two and three-tenths units of acetylene gas to equal one unit of natural gas for heating.