NEW INVENTION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3755, 16 February 1928, Page 1

NEW INVENTION.

AN ARTIFICIAL SUN

SPRAYING HEAT FROM A CEILING.

Imitation of the sun 'as means for. heating churches or other rooms with high ceilings has been originally and successfully applied in Amsterdam, states the Hague correspondent of the “Christian Science Monitor.” Dr. Willem LuJofs, director of the municipal electricity works in that city, has invented such a system, which is now in use in the new Jewish synagogue in Gerard Dou Street.

Two electrical heat reflectors have been placed on the lower part of the ceiling of the building, enabling the heat rays to reach everybody in the auditorium with its seating capacity of 250 people. The contents of the room amount to 1000 cubic meters. The results are surprising. As soon as the installation is turned on, one feels an agreeable sun-beam-like heat as on a fresh spring day, warming one through and through without giving any sense of suffocation or humidity so often apparent in rooms heated with water or steam pipes. It occurred to Dr. Dulofs that the rays of the sun, coming from an almost incomprehensible distance, impart very little of their heat to the surrounding air. He also recognised the agreeable sensation, especially in coldish, early spring days, the. direct sunbeam produces on the body. The combination of these two things resulted in his new device, costing half of the electric foot-stool heating. Old systems of heating churches have often been very unsatisfactory. Advance heating is necessary in most cases, and the hot air, mounting, to the top of the building, causes cold drafts. The best system for very high and spacious buildings is considered here to be the electrical footstool heating, whereby the heat remains near the ground’ the fresh air above giving suffijcient ventilation, without creating a draft. The huge Protestant Cathedral in Utrecht is provided with this device. This kind of installation is considered rathei' expensive, about 2 dollars per head, and the amount of electricity consumed is also greatly increased. As far as the inventor knows, his device is original and has not been applied elsewhere.