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Show We'll Have to Stretch Fuel If We Want to Keep Warm Serious Shortages of Coal, 'Wood and Oil Make Ileat-Conserving Ileat-Conserving Practices Necessary for All. Coal, coke, oil, gas or wood whatever you burn for fuel will be short in supply this winter, as they all have been for the last three years. They i may be even scarcer. The : reason is familiar enough it's the war. There are fewer ! men mining coal, or making : coke, or cutting wood. On the ! other hand, industrial uses I of all fuels, and particularly soft coal, have doubled and trebled. Transportation facilities fa-cilities further complicate a bad situation. Overburdened railroads cannot haul the us-I us-I ual volume of fuel, and war , plants get the first chance at what does come to market. I It is estimated that we will be short 38 million tons of coal this winter. Wood will be extremely scarce. So will coke, charcoal and gas all by-products of these primary pri-mary fuels. While the production of crude oil will be 15 per cent higher high-er than last year, very little of it can be spared for heating. Most of it will have to go to the gasoline refineries. Nevertheless, nobody needs to be cold. There will be enough fuel to keep everyone warm, if it is intelligently intelli-gently used. This means that all leaks that cause loss of heat will have to be closed. The best possible possi-ble combustion methods must be used to get every possible heat unit out of the fuel. One way to spread the available coal and wood on an equitable basis among the 45 million families of the i nation would be to ration these fuels. This has already been done with oil. 1 But the government believes it I can avoid this step. As an alternative, alterna-tive, a fuel conservation campaign is being launched by the War Production Pro-duction board, the Solid Fuel administrator, ad-ministrator, the Office of War Information, Infor-mation, and other agencies. Booklets, Book-lets, advertisements, feature articles and radio programs will be employed em-ployed to instruct householders in ways to get the most out of their coal, wood or oil. Expert Advice. The heating industry, which includes in-cludes 35,000 dealers and jobbers and many thousands of manufacturers, manufac-turers, is volunteering its help. Drawing on their years of experience experi-ence with heating problems, many manufacturers have prepared booklets book-lets on fuel saving. The War Production board recently recent-ly announced that raw materials are being made available for the production-" of automatic temperature tempera-ture controls thermostats and similar sim-ilar devices on the basis that the fuel saved will more than compensate compen-sate for the small amounts of steel and other materials necessary to make the instruments. The automatic auto-matic controls will make possible fuel savings of 15 per cent on the average, the government agency said. Enough materials to make 950,000 residential, commercial, institutional in-stitutional and industrial heating plants have been released for the third and fourth quarters of 1944. One company, the Minneapolis-Honeywell Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Co., has made 70,628 electric thermostats in the first three quarters of this year, compared with an average production produc-tion of about 25,000 over the same period in average peace-time years. The "electric janitors," for use on hand-fired coal heating plants, save up to 20 per cent on fuel consumption consump-tion by accurately and automatical-i automatical-i ly maintaining temperatures at the level selected by the householder. How to Save Fuel. . Some of the ways to save fuel are the following recommendations of heating engineers: Have your heating plant thorough ly cleaned. Remove aU scale from heating surfaces in furnace or boiler. boil-er. Clean the stack and chimney. Every two or three weeks be sure all soot and ash is removed from boiler flue surfaces. Soot deposit of one-sixteenth inch thickness results in 34 per cent waste. All air leaks in heating plants should be sealed or caulked after cleaning. Seal smoke-stack connection connec-tion with chimney. Repair insulation insula-tion on hot water and steam pipes as well as boilers. Be sure chimney is in good repair. Periodically throughout the heating heat-ing season remove all air from radiators radi-ators in hot water systems. You can do this by opening the air valves. In a steam heating system make sure the automatic bleed valves are in working order. Use your fireplace but see that fireplace dampers are closed when not in use. If the temperature at the bottom of the casing in the vicinity of the cold air return on gravity warm air furnaces gets above 75 degrees, a baffle should be installed in the furnace fur-nace to eliminate heating of the cold air return. This will promote better bet-ter air circulation through the furnace fur-nace and thus make your home easier eas-ier to heat. Keep Air Filters Clean. Air niters on forced air heating systems must be kept clean. A good rule is to change the filter every ev-ery year. The dirt that accumulates accumu-lates on the filter even in comparatively com-paratively clean neighborhoods interferes in-terferes with circulation of the warm air. In any warm air system, keep rugs and furniture away from warm air delivery ducts and cold air returns, re-turns, so that free circulation of air can take place. This may seem elementary, but it is disregarded in many homes. Insulate the heating plant if the basement of your home is warmer than the upstairs rooms. You will thus save heat which otherwise is being be-ing wasted. Cut off heat in unused rooms. If rooms are subject to temperatures below freezing, have a plumber drain the radiators. Shutting off registers in a warm air system may disturb the distribution of heat to other rooms, particularly in a forced air system. In this case, have your dealer re-balance the system. sys-tem. All glass in both regular and storm window sashes should be tight and should not rattle. Keep the storm sash closed as much as possible. pos-sible. Experiments of government fuel conservation agencies prove that storm windows are an important aid to fuel saving. Seal all chimney openings not in use. The women of .the household may object, but remind them that considerable heat loss can be saved by closing the kitchen ventilator for the winter. Sleep With Windows Closed. Many people prefer to keep the bedroom windows closed at ' night and close off the heat supply. This really conserves fuel and after all, il the windows are opened for a few mihutes before retiring there will be a sufficient fresh air supply with normal infiltration to last thrcugh-out thrcugh-out the night. If bedroom windows are left open all night, doors should be closed and the space under the doors sealed. The cold air passing under doors will cool the rest of the house and require the use of more fuel. A felt strip which can be attached to bottom and sides of doors can be purchased in most hardware stores. Turn off all radiators and close warm air registers. Keep shades, Venetian blinds and drapes drawn at night and as much as possible during the day. Warm room air chills quickly when it comes in contact with colder window win-dow surfaces. Maintain as low a temperature as consistent with health. Uncle Sam figures that you will have to keep your house at 65 degrees, under un-der average conditions, if you are going to have enough fuel to last all winter. Tests show that each degree the temperature is raised above 65 degrees results in a 3 per cent increase in fuel consumption. If you heat your home with stoves you can still apply most of this advice ad-vice with benefit. A well-insulated house will save a great deal of heat. And by keeping the house a little less warm than you are accustomed to, you can stretch out your fuel considerably. If we all follow the program of fuel conservation, we will get through the winter in comfort. |
