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Show HOW PIPES CAN BE THAWED. Thaw your pipes with electricity This is the advice William Altman, the florist, of 1605 North Hudson avenue, gave a day last week Mr Altman. before moving to Ogden. lived in Manitowoc. Wis , where in the dead of winter the cold wind of last week in Ogden would be welcomed as a spring zephyr, so much colder is the lake region When the pipes froze In his home city there was no making of fires to thaw the ground, no excavating, no uncertainties. Instead In-stead of sending for the plumber, they called an electrician, who with a small sctehei might be mistaken for a doctor. doc-tor. An electric current from the big feed wires was connected up with the faucet at one end and the street valve at the other, to complete the circuit, and within a few minutes the visitor brought happiness to the distressed dis-tressed No one had a chance to loae hla temper or et grimy- with Boot The task was a pleasant one and the cost but slight. Since the talk with Mr Altman we Lave been informed that the same method has been employed within the last two days in Salt Lake City, an account of which follows: "By attaching wires to tho primary service wires of the Utah Light & Railway company and connecting up with the water pipes both inside and outside the houses, thereby causin the frozen pipe to form a part of the circuit, electric currents were sent over the frozen portions, effectively reducing the float within 15 minutes without so much as a shovel being raised for excavation work Tho device was tried with great success. Four homes were relieved of water famine in little more than an hour after the apparatus was put Into In-to operation. "Twenty kilowatt transformers were used for the apparatus ana the 2000 voltage from the light company's primary pri-mary Hues was reduced to 115 volts, which was found to be beat adapted to the purpose. It was possible to generate gen-erate sufficient heat along the pipe to dispel the frost. The heat was produced after the same manner In which an electric Iron becomes hot or an electric light globe warms up. "No resistance coll is used. The necessary electrical opposition is offered of-fered by the plpe6. A water rehostat, ccnelstlug of a barrel of salt water containing two plates with wires attached at-tached is used as a controlling apparatus. appa-ratus. The closer the plates tho stronger the current and vice versa. By keeping the plates sufficiently separated sep-arated and allowing the current to pass through the water the reduc tion trom 2000 to 115 volts is accomplished. accom-plished. Men were digging through the frosted frost-ed ground in all parts of Ogden yesterday yes-terday and they still are at work in the slow process of uncovering the pipes lo locate the seat of trouble. Holes were opeod which disclosed no frost near the plpe6 and then new openings had to be made Many fcund, after trenchlLj many feet, that the " freeze up" was within the house or at the lead connection with the mains What a relief they all would have felt If the man with the electric "juice" had been "on to his job" and had given them a demonstration of heating frozen water pipe by the simple process of shooting a streak of electric fire through the trouble zone! We ate informed that this process of thawing doet not cause nreaks In the pipe. Why not try the electric beater? fW - |