CENTRAL HEATING

Evening Star, Issue 19802, 28 February 1928, Page 2

CENTRAL HEATING

FOR AND AGAINST It is the easiest thing in the world to see red on questions of temperature and of atmosphere. Some people who are really susceptible become more so at the slightest provocation. Those who do not mind very much make a duty of showing emotion on a subject which is nearly as controversial as religion or education. The question of central heating has its die-harde and its passive resisters (says the 1 Manchester Guardian ’). Tho arguments on both sides have really very little to do with the matter, except to keep it in a state of uncertainty. Central heating dries one’s skin and one’s hair, and everybody has to submit _to tho same temperature who occupies the same room. There is no huddling round tho fire by those who like warmth: no sitting at tho window by those wtio prefer chill. Delicate questions of respiration also complicate the problem.

The open lire on the other hand is poetic, cheerful, and is alleged—in England at least—to be healthy. It is better to freeze one moment and roast the next because that gives elasticity to the pores. It is better to enjoy the drawing room and suffer discipline in the bedroom, though the latter is a good deal undermined in these days by the mitigating gas fires. Perhaps the best commentary on the lack of central heating in England is that there one puts on warm things in order to endure the house rather than the outside air. One wraps up in sweaters and woollen coats in order to cope with the damp chill which English heating fails to deal. One is, in short, always conscious of the temperature, and, far from being hardened by such exposure, the English nation might be said to take colds as a normal condition of winter weather.

Central heating is at least warm. One can sit and be warm. One need not wear one’s whole wardrobe in order to bo warm. One can be warm while undressing. One can enjoy breakfast or a book ,in bed without feeling the cold stealing down to one’s feet. Above all, one goes out warm, and therefore needs far Jess clothes in order to start one's circulation. Central boating may be painfully democratic, hut it is warm in the passages, in the attics, in the sitting room, ns well as the kitchen. There is no need even to think whether one is warm, which is perhaps one more argument on the side of this much'Sdebated form of heating,.