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Show I How You Pay For MORE Gas 1 and-Electricity. Than You Use r By Prof. A. L. HODGES, j . frflKB amount of one's bills for gas and electricity bm i 5 always a favorite subject for complaint. I! :'. J. Most of us suspect tbat our meters have been j ' adjusted so tbat they cheat us and favor the light and J power companies. The fact of the matter Is that, al- j though meters do sometimes get out of order, they are just as likely to err to our advantage as to the advantage advan-tage of the light and power companies. 1 The consumer suspects the meter because he knows ' little or nofolng about its construction and method of ! operation. Although his suspicion of the meter Is ' usually unjustified, there are many other things per-j per-j taining to the distribution of gas and electricity of which he is in equal Ignorance and which it would be greatly to his advantage to know .more about, i For Instance, how many consumers know that they pay -more for gas in the Summer than in the Winter? Do" you know that when the voltage falls at the electric power-house you get less light than you pay for? Do you know that the tungsten filament light will give you throe times the light of the ordinary carbon incandescent incan-descent for the same money? Do you know that an ordinary asbestos lining in your gas stove will enable you to cook things more quickly and with much less gas? Do vou know that- convoluted bottoms on your utensils uten-sils will save you money? Do you know that an electric elec-tric Iron will cost less than a sadiron boated over a gas Only a Half Cent's Worth of Electric Light for Every Dollar the Meter Charges, and a lat stove? Do you know that water gas', which Is odorless and very dangerous to human life. Ib a good heat gas? Do you know that ordinary coal gas is not poisonous and can only kill you by suffocation, while water gas actually poisons tho body and changes the color of the blood? Lot us consider some of the matters connected with gas and electricity which it will pay every consumer to know. Your gas bill has on it so many cubic feet at so much per thousand.' Now what Is a cubic foot of gas? There aro many. Tho actual amount of gas filling; a cubic foot of space depends entirely on tho pressure under which it Is piped, on its temperature, and, of course, on the quality of the gas. A cubic foot of gas in Winter contains more gas than a cubic "foot Jn Summer, Sum-mer, provided the pressure remains tho same and all gas companies maintain practically the same pressure throughout the year. Not to do so Is dangerous. Let us see about bow much this difference would amount to. Take a bill of five dollars in January when tho thermometer Is at zero. The same amount of gas in August, when the thermometer hovers about the hundred mark, is close to six dollars. Of course, if the gas is cooled just before entering the meter there will bo no increase in-crease over the January bill. Now, the thing that Is bought from tho company, whether gas or electricity, is energy. Heat energy is the tblng that wo pay for. So If we lose a great, part of that onergy we need more to accomplish our object. If we could take some -water and heat it to the boiling point and keep It from losing" any of Its heat it would stay at the boiling point forever without our having to supply it with more heat. There are only three ways by means of which a body may lose its beat conduction, convection and radiation. The vacuum bottle is a fine example of a device in which all three of these .methods of loss arc brought to a minimum. mini-mum. To lose heat by conduction actual contact must take place the hot body touchlns a colder one. In the vacuum bottle the Inner bottle touches the outer one only at the neck; around the body three asbestos wool pads keep the bottles separate. Asbestos is almost a non-conductor of heat. To lose heat by convection some fluid must be in contact con-tact with the hot body. Therefore, the air is pumped out from between the two bottles. "The ordinary electric lamp gives only one-half cent's worth of light for every dollar's worth of elec tricity." To lose beat by radiation the hot body must have a rough and dark surface. The vacuum bottle has a smooth and polished surface on both bottles. Iron is a fine conductor of heat, Therefore, when nn oven warms up the hot iron conducts a great deal of tho heat to other parts of the stove and radiates it Into space. As us-bestoB us-bestoB is a poor conductor of heat, a lining of that material will save an immense amount of heat. It will actually ac-tually keep tho hidden iron part of the oven from becoming hot. As less heat is lost, an oven so lined becomes hoi more quickly or else on a less amount of gas. Amount of Gas Wasted toy inefficient Methods!, To ec this we will imagine a tlamo (which is constantly con-stantly produdug heat) to be lu nn enclosed space with plenty of oxygon and no loss of heat. The enclosed air will have to gel; hotter and hotter till It -becomes as hot na the llame itself. So it Is at once seen that if we lose less heat the desired temperature will be acquired sooner. The place whero the most heat la lost is, of course, on tho top of the stove. How can this be overcome? The air has certainly got to reach the flamu m order for tho gas to do 'business, but wo can catch a larger proportion of the heat thau at first sight appears. The more surface sur-face covered 'by the gas the more heat we make use of. So a fluted bottom to a vessel will save something. The vessel should also be a good absorber of beat on the bottom bot-tom and a bad one on the sides and the top. Any rough, dark surface is a good absorber; any smooth polished one Is a bad nbsorber, but a good reflector. So light, bright sides and dark, rough bottoms should be the rule-I rule-I have seen a coffee percolator fulfiling these requirements require-ments very well. It was made of a bright metal except thehottom, which was of copper. It is not well known, but a mirror will reflect heat as' well as light. Almost any bright surface will. So if a bright piece of tin were placed under all the burners of a gas range more heat would be saved. As regards tho physiological effects of gas nothing need be said of the ordinary coal gns. It generally gives warning warn-ing by Its odor when it is leakiug, and, besides, it can be breathed along with air for some time without deleterious deleteri-ous effects. As the modern tendency seems to be to use water gas, and as this is very dangerous, the consumer should certainly be put on his guard concerning it. Water gas gets its bad name from Its constituent of carlon monoxide. This carbon monoxide Is without odor that is, a person cannot tell when he is breathing it It will kill in a few minutes. Now the water gas as sold does have nn odor, for certain things have to be put into the gas to make 11 a lighting gas. This gives it nn odor but you must remember that you musn't breathe It for ever so short a while. The odor does not take away Its fatal effects. The greatest waste of energy to-day is In the electric light. We do not care for it to be hot, yet we have to pay for the heat in order to get the light. In actual light we get very little. Thus an ordinary incandescent light transforms one-half part of the electricity it receives Into light while transforming 99 Mi parts -to heat. So when we pay a dollar for electricity we receive only a half-cent's worth of light. The tungsten gives us about one and a half cent's worth of light for every dollar's worth of electricitv, so it is by far the best to use the cheapest and most economical. econo-mical. If one has been paying thirty dollars a month for a light bill the tungsten will cut it to ten that is, if one wants only the same amount of light as he got before. be-fore. As a general rule people add to their candle power jpt maul ypol ISHC0 rsJl yk' it ilmr 'iOT PAD'T iHTOTHrATWSPfitrt ! Ways of Making the Gas You Buy Mora SffMjjK, and still cut the bill a good amount. n'lef f1uM' fairly well known, yet there are many consume who cling to the expensive old incandescent. ' lB As has been said, most of the electrical cnerfrlBp-verted cnerfrlBp-verted Into heat. So If we have something to b Jh. we ought to utilize all the energy that Is Uws lose some of it by one or more of the thrct sS mentioned above. Take the electric iron. The taX coils are inside tho iron and the iron Itself Is smooJ polished. The heat is conserved and the Iron uM economical. !w Are the electric llghl aud power companies UnBi' cheating us? Wo cannot go quite so far aa to unS but we can say that sometimes wc pay for someliiniB" don't get light. Electric lights are made foractiM voltage. At that voltage they give only their rattitM power. If the voltage drops it is true that tbcV registers less, but it must be remembered that Uie aB registers the energy that is being consumed and Jl light. In fact, it is possible to send a current, and 3m one. too, through our lights, without our being itriK-it. itriK-it. The light will glow only at a certain voltage, tY any voltage the current flows and the metir cmi Jr registers. ;B It the lights are turned off, of course uocurrettifc pass. Take, though, the usual thing the yoIUr ujK for a few minutes, just enough to dim the Wshu. v-Mf. It is surprising how little light Is received. AditS candle power light may fall to one-third its valo$ bj tBi voltage dropping ever so slightly. i |