Research Workers Tackle Heating and Ventilation

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 89, 1 May 1937, Page 16

Research Workers Tackle Heating and Ventilation

LONDON.— Householders here ,who ilnd theinselves tricked by the capricious English weather into making their houses too cold one day and tpo hot the next are at last promised relief by the forces of natural science. A new laboratory has been construeted at the Building Eesearch Station of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Besearch "for the purpose of studying problems of heating and ventilation. Work is now in progress, and will go on ali the year round despite the vagaries of the climate, on research showing how to heat an English house cheaply and well. The new laboratory, it is claimed, provides unique facilities for research.. (Jntil now research worlters themselves have suffered at the willful hands of the weather and have fdund their experiments in heating research wreclcecl by the climate. For some years heating has been studied at the Building ltcseareh Station and the natural scientists have tried their hands at "house warming" in a speoially built experimental house. Continuous Study Provided Their work sufferecl, however, from the fact that it could only contmuo dpring tho winter, that nobody couta cvcr tcll how long Ihe winter would last, and that, anyuay, it was difficuit to ilnd' tiro days alikb so that resultsi could bo compared. These faets are diselosed m the re« port of the Department of Scientific and ladustrial Eesearch for 1936, where it is claimed that the new laboratory will enable research to continue apace. The building of the laboratory has been made possible, the report states, by the cffer of the Institution of Heating and Ventilating Engineers to provide funds to enable studies of ""heating problems to be speeded up and extended. This generous oifer is, it is pointed out, but one- indication of the increasing readiness of industry to make use of natural scientific knowledge and research. Industry now supports research associations backed by the department to tho tuno of £233,000, an inerease of 40 per cent in tliree years. The xeport stresses the way in whieh natural scientists, teehnical men in industries and heads of commerce are working together side by side to attain their ends. It is showa that the work of the Department for Industrial Eesearch last year, largely aided by industry, included sueh varied subjects as Tesearch on Toads, fuel, chemical3, radio, dentistry.

illumination, slecl, geology, food, building, and water poliulioin ■'i'he probiem df deaiing with pbEuling. wasle waters from Lhe sugarbeefc industry' resulted in the" discovery that the major part,- and often the whol6 oi the 'waste waters, after simple and inexpensive treatment, can be used again in - manufacturing processess and that costly purifieation plants are conse- ' quently unnecessary. Developmcnt of tho investigation on the treatment and disposai of effluents from dairies and from the manui'acture of milk ^products has, it is said, gone forward rapidly. Many factories have, it is added, alx-eady. made use of results so far,. obtained at large-scale experimeutal plants. These results show that wastes can be purified and. that losses of milk, cream, buttermilk, skim milk and whey, earried away in the waste waters, can bereduced. It is calculttted that the average quantity of milk lost in handliixg the liquid milk is probably 0,75 of the milK. handled, and that this loss caq, by the use of equipment evolved by the department, be redueed to 0.5 per cent. This would constitute a saving of about £50,000,' representing tho price for 3,000,000 gallonsy to the milk industry each year.