ELECTRICITY IS MAN’S WILLING SER VANT

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 404, 12 July 1928, Page 5 (Supplement)

ELECTRICITY IS MAN’S WILLING SER VANT

IN THE HOME, FACTORY. AND ON THE LAND

IT is estimated by statisticians that hydro-electric power has already saved the Dominion 1,000,000 tons of coal a year. No statistician, however, has been able to compute the saving in labour, annoyance and weariness to the housewife and busy mother, as the national outcome of the electrification of her home.

“DO IT ELECTRICALLY” DAILY BURDEN LIFTED Sweet are the uses of electricity. It is perfectly safe to say that in all the realm of science and invention no force adopted by man has done more than electricity to make sweet the daily round of the housewife’s duties by the substitution of its tireless energy for her own vitality. Indeed, so completely has this in-

estimable power taken possession of the modern home that, devices and appurtenances which five years ago were regarded in the light of luxurious novelties, are now counted the indispensable units of a well-appointed kitchen, drawing room, or other part of the residence. Naturally enough, the housewife of earlier years looked with a certain misunderstanding upon the advice continually brought before her notice in advertisements to “Do it Electrically.” She could bo pardoned if in the era of experiment she clung to her broom or hesitated to part with her smoky stove. But she has observed that the adoption of that advice by her neighbours has brought to her home the desirable attributes, greater cleanliness, convenience and comfort. Probably the best argument for the complete electrification of the home is the incomparable cleanliness of whatever utilities is installed. An electrical kitchen exudes radiant spotlessness. It makes possible a neatness and bleaming beauty not attainable in the old-fashioned type of apartment fitted with the truculent range, over which the old folks performed wondrous miracles of cooking, but at what cost! Enter the living-room, or any other

room electrically heated and lighted. You are at once conscious of a delightful sense of glowing cherriness, undisturbed by the induced draught of the troublesome open fire of other days. Again here is immaculate beauty allied with all the comfort of the old order without its disadvantages. ELOQUENT FIGURES USE OF ELECTRIC POWER Until about five years ago the electricity supplied to residences was mainly absorbed in lighting and heat-

ing by radiators of a primitive design. The possibilities of its wider application were not then fully exploited. In the United States and in Canada the use of electric-power for domestic purposes had long been encouraged both by the purveyors of power and the manufacturers of the appliances for its use in the home. Enormous numbers of ranges, cooking adjuncts of one kind and another, water heaters and so forth were turned out at a price within the reach of the worker and the family with ordinary means. And those who had electricity to sell saw that it was cheap. So it came about that all Americans and all Canadians became voracious consumers of electricity in the home. The total number of electric light and power customers in the United States at the end of last year was just over 21,500,000. Of this total no fewer than 17,500,000 were residential users. The number of families is approximately 27,850,000, so we find that about 63 per cent, of America’s families use electric-power in the home. At the end of 1927 New Zealand

boasted approximately 226,000 consumers of current among her population of 1,440,000. This figure represents a heavy increase over the returns for the previous year. Electric cooking is rapidly coming into favour and the installation ot ranges all over the country is accentuating the use of domestic power. As an indication of what the advent of power lias meant to rural districts it may be mentioned that, whereas five years ago there were 1,300 milking plants electrically operated, to-day 6,700 machines are so driven. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the farmer does not confine his use of electricity to the cowshed, but conveys it indoors for the convenience and comfort of hie family. Whereas the ratio of current used for lighting to that consumed as power was at one time heavily in favour of the former, to-day electric cooking has raised the demand for power so that the consumption of each class is much more near equality.

HOT AND COLD MODERN WIZARDRY It has been said that there is nothing in the round of household activities that cannot be better done by electricity. We have examined some of its applications and seen how immeasurably superior are electric cooking, electric cleaning and electric heating over the former-day appliances. Blowing hot and cold is supposed to be the index of instability; in the realm of electricity it is the sign of universality. To explain: At present it is cold and damp and wintry. You utilise your domestic power supply solely to give you heat and cheer. In six months’ time your radiators, your electric fires, your patent bed-warmers will be put away. Your switches and plugs have given you warmth. You will shortly require from them balmy coolness. And so you attach whirling fans to stir the humid atmosphere. Out in the kitchen, too, it is very hot, not on account of the electric range,

but of a stifling summer. But the lady of the house is not worrying about the meat, or the butter, fruit or vegetables. A thoughtful husband had installed an electric refrigerator. His wife would not on any account go back to the dreary “ice-chest.” Massive and ugly, it occupied too much space and was at best a clumsy contrivance. On the contrary, her electric refrigerator is pleasing in appearance, takes lip less room and is in every way more satisfactory. All the best homes are using the new system of summer cooling. COOKING BY ELECTRICITY CHEAP AND DEPENDABLE Old prejudices die hard and there is no doubt that numbers of conservative housewives have, until two or three years ago, regarded the introduction to Auckland, at any rate, of the electric range as something new-fangled, a rather startling advance on her oltl “fire,” and something to be well thought over. Her friends here and there, she learned, were discarding their ugly black stoves in favour of the untarnish - able new cookers. She heard also that cooking by electricity was wonderfully reasonable in cost, and moreover was entirely dependable. There was no aspect of cooking and baking that the electric oven could not perform with superior results to those achieved under the old kitchen regime. This may sound a little overenthusiastic but its explanation lies in the aptitude of electric heat to nicety of regulation. No matter howskilled a cook may be she requires to w-atch ceaselessly the coal-fired oven in the course of a delicate cooking operation. There is always the fear that something may burn when the back is turned as the consequence of a sudden rise in temperature. An electric oven may be controlled in a way that must be experienced to be understood. Guess-work is entirely eliminated. You want heat — turn a switch. You have enough or want less—turn the switch again. Past uncertainties vanish before the exactness of electric cooking methods. But the hundreds of housewives throughout the province and the Dominion's thousands converted to electricity find that the superlative wonder of the modern method is its matchless freedom from the soot and dirt, inseparable from the old arrangement.

HOT-WATER SYSTEMS

LIKE A THERMAL SPRING Of all the appliances placed on the market in recent years the electric water-heating systems, of which there are several, represent perhaps the most notable advance on anything yet conceived for the assurance of an abundant supply of boiling water “at short call.” The invention takes the form, in the majority of installations, of an “element” obtainable in various “wattages” for which you pay the Power Board a flat rate based on the power of your element. It is virtually a radiator surrounded by the water circulating through the house, and “burns” day and night, except from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., when the authorities require the power for transport peak loads. There is no need to labour the fact that adequate scalding water is required in every household. Here, then, is the way to be sure of it. The charm about these installations is that you simply forget their existence and draw your superabundance of water for all the world as though you were tapping a steaming thermal spring. You are no longer required to stoke a refractory stove to be certain of a hot bath these cold nights. Always there are your bubbling fountains in bathroom and kitchen, and at a relatively small expense.