At Schenectady, New York, Mr. H. W. Hillman, apart from heating in winter, has adopted electricity for many household tasks, with results described and illustrated in the Technical World, Chicago, July, 1906. His kitchen outfit for a family of five persons comprises an electric table, oven, griddle-cake cooker, meat broiler, cereal cooker, water heater, egg boiler, potato steamer, frying pan, coffee percolator, and a stove for ordinary cooking utensils. A three pound nickel plated electric iron is provided for the laundry. In the dining-room is an electric chafing dish and a percolator. On the verandah and in the den are electric cigar lighters. In the sewing-room the machine is driven by an electric motor. The bathroom has an electric mug which heats water for shaving in less than a minute; in chilly weather the luminous radiator yields just the slight heat which ensures comfort instead of discomfort. Of course, throughout the house electric lamps furnish light with the maximum of convenience and wholesomeness, the minimum of risk.
How does this service compare in cost with the employment of coal and gas? With coal at $6.50 a ton, and gas at $1.30 per thousand cubic feet, the average monthly expense was formerly $6.00; with electricity the bills are but 69 cents more per month, a mere trifle in comparison with the gain in comfort, the saving of drudgery, the promotion of cleanliness. The rate for electricity used for lighting is 10 cents per kilowatt hour, for heating only half that rate.
Mr. Hillman does not use electric heat for ordinary warming: it would cost him too much. A good many people are puzzled by the fact that an electric current, which yields a perfect light at a reasonable price, should in the sister task of heating fail in rivalry with a common stove or furnace. To solve this puzzle let us place our hands above a cluster of 15 Edison incandescent lamps, each of 16 candle power, representing one horse power, yet emitting no more heat than if three ounces of coal were slowly burning away in the course of an hour. This electricity may cost us ten cents an hour, the coal costs but the fifteenth part of one cent. In producing mechanical motion at a power-house, the engines waste at least ninety per cent. of the applied heat. To this heavy tax must be added the expenses of distribution, administration and maintenance. Until, therefore, the electrician reaches a mode of creating his current from heat without the enormous losses of present practice, we cannot look to him for a system of general heating. A word has already been said in this book about methods of district heating by steam. Another plan is worthy of mention. In Brooklyn the Morris Building Company supplies from a central plant fifty-two dwellings with hot water which serves not only for heating, but for cooking and washing also. The water is heated in part by live steam, in part by exhausts from steam engines.
Suggested Exhibits.
Such an experiment as this, the appliances at work for Mr. Hillman, suggest exhibits which might form part of the premises of agricultural colleges and technical schools. These establishments usually require for their officers such dwellings as are not too large and costly for ordinary householders. These dwellings, carefully designed and equipped, might serve as examples of the best practice in building, planning and appointment; in sound methods of heating from a central plant. At suitable times they might be open to public inspection. They might range in cost from $1,000 to $5,000, the cheapest to be built of wood, others to be built in brick, stone, or concrete. All the furniture and fittings to be chosen with an eye to wholesomeness, durability, and maintenance with the least labor possible. Each house should contain in its main room a card telling the cost of the building, with estimates of cost if executed in other materials. On occasion this plan might be extended to the contents of houses, each item on show days to be duly labeled. A series of such houses would tend to bring ordinary house-planning and housekeeping to the level of the best. Many books and journals offer architectural diagrams which few can understand, but everybody can see how attractive a good plan is when realized in a house to which he pays a leisurely visit. At Expositions, such as those of Chicago and St. Louis, the appeal of the architect and the exhibitor is rather to wonder than to utility. He shows us schlosses from Germany, palaces from Italy, châteaux from France, all appointed with costly magnificence. But while the average American wage is eleven dollars a week these displays can do little good as models for imitation.
NOTE ON THE LITERATURE OF INVENTION AND DISCOVERY
Books on invention and discovery are mentioned here and there throughout this volume. The reader may wish further references, in which case he may find them at the public library nearest home. Within the past few years the public libraries of America have been laying stress on their educational departments, are becoming more and more a worthy complement to the public schools.
At the Carnegie Library, Pittsburg, the department of technology is directed by Mr. Harrison W. Craver, a graduate of a polytechnical institute, who has had experience as a practicing chemist. The collection keeps mainly to lines of local interest, and includes an ample array of trade journals. Indexes to articles in technical journals are maintained. On the shelves are files of patents of the leading nations of the world. Short lists of books on subjects of current interest are from time to time compiled and issued. Workers receive advice and personal assistance from scientifically trained men. Questions are answered by mail and telephone. Notes on books are appended to their titles on the catalogue cards, and in the monthly bulletin.
Mr. Craver’s aid extends to other public libraries, among them to that at Providence. Here the industrial department contains about 7600 volumes, chiefly devoted to the principal industries of the city,—textiles, electrical arts, machinery, and the arts of design, especially in jewelry. A room is at the service of draughtsmen: a dark closet is available for copyists who bring cameras. When a new book comes in the reader or the artist likely to want it is notified.
The Pratt Institute Free Library, Brooklyn, has an applied science reference room which receives 115 scientific, technical and trade journals. It has brought together a large collection of trade catalogues, duly classified, and a collection of cuts of machines and mechanical devices. The custodian makes it his business to visit the neighboring factories and workshops, so as to provide every publication likely to be of help. The use of this department increases steadily, with a marked effect on the proportion of scientific books taken from the general library for home reading.