Now and then something may go wrong outside the cook's control, and then the Gas Company must send some one to put it right.
But when cookers are intelligently used they seldom need attention, and if it should become necessary to change them, they are moved without much trouble or any structural work or dirt-making.
The Destruction of Rubbish.
In a household where coal and coke are not used, and in places where the unsanitary habit of collecting refuse but once a week prevails, the careful housewife will ask, what am I to do with the rubbish? I could burn some of it in a coal range, and most of it in a coke furnace, but if I employ gas only, what is to become of it?
The only thing then is to add a gas refuse destructor to your apparatus. In one household known to me (a London flat) there is a gas cooker, water circulator, stove for warming the kitchen when the cooker is not in use, and the neatest little rubbish destructor—all fitted into a surprisingly small space.
Warming the Kitchen.
The mere word "kitchen" suggests warmth, but the mistress who uses gas must not forget that when the cooker is not in use (which may often be from 1.30 to 6 or 6.30 in the evening, except for the boiling of a kettle), and if the circulator is also turned out, the kitchen would probably be too cold for the maids to sit in. When there is a servants' hall this does not matter; but if the kitchen is also the sitting-room, a small gas fire should be supplied.
Slot Meters.
In order to cater for people of small income whom it suits to pay for the gas they consume in small sums, and also in some cases to check the consumption of gas, slot meters have been introduced. No charge is made for the meter, for the piping of the house or for the stove, but in order to cover this more is charged for the gas. It may still be sold at a nominal 3s. per 1000 feet (the price of gas varies in various localities), but the person using a penny-slot meter obtains less gas for a penny than he would do did he not require a meter. The same applies to the "shilling-in-the-slot" meter. Small users, however, often find it convenient to use slot meters, which entails no first cost for installation and no quarterly rentals, and certainly when the housekeeping allowance is small it is better to pay so much a day or a week instead of having to face a quarterly bill; also the constant production of pennies or shillings does bring home to the person using the gas that it is not just gas but hard cash which is being used. In some residential hotels and chambers each room is fitted with a slot fire and the bathrooms with slot geysers, so that the guest knows the exact cost of fire and bath, and pays it there and then.
Finally, all gas users should learn to read the meter, a simple task which the lady demonstrator will teach or which can be learned from a card of instructions. Then the meter should be watched. If an increased expenditure of gas is noticed the matter should be inquired into, as there may be an escape, or some one may be forgetting to turn out the fire or lights when they are not needed.