All-Electric House

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 971, 14 May 1930, Page 6

All-Electric House

STARTLING INNOVATIONS Labour and Time Savers VISIONARIES many years ago used to dream of the days when houses could be electrically controlled. Advances made in the harnessing of electric power for the home, particularly in the United States, have resulted in devices surpassing the visions of the most optimistic dreamer.

The writer had experience some 30 years -ago of a house designed and built by one who is now a prominent figure in the English motor manufacturing world, wherein nearly everything was done by electricity. If you were a desirable guest, you were instructed to push a button at the side of the front door a given number of times. The door then opened, and as you got on to the very large mat just inside, you found conveniently placed near the opening edge of the door a revolving electric brush, which looked like two huge muffs turning in opposite directions, into which contraption you pushed your shoes, one at a time, the obliging machine doing the rest by removing any dust of the street. We did not see all the electric devices used in that house, but the proud housewife informed us that she baked her own bread in an electric oven, after the dough had been mixed by an electric agitator; that the dishes were washed by a machine with felt-covered paddles, and that the drying of the dishes was afterward done by an electric fan. Of course, the bath water was heated by electricity. Fans all over the house helped to keep the air in motion, and in November the sulphur in the London pea-soup fog air was removed by an air washer and cleanser similar to that which is used in the foundation schemes in great public buildings like the English Houses of Parliament. The head of the house drove an electric brougham, and had most wonderful devices attached thereto. LATER DEVELOPMENTS Today the up-to-date house may go much further than our friend could in those early days. It may have its clocks wound and controlled by a pulsometric electrical machine, the current time bing rectified daily from a local time-regulating office in the town. In addition to having a lift to transport you from storey to storey; a machine which nowadays is full of the most wonderful devices in auto-

matic control, self-levelling devices, and goodness knows what besides, you may have an electric stairway installed which will take you right upstairs when you press a button at the bottom, and pass up to your sleepingplaces. Arriving there, you will find in your bedroom all sorts of contrivances, and should you desire to make use of them, for instance, a mere pressure of a button when your clothes are put away into the clothes chest will by a vacuum cleaning arrangement remove every particle of dust, and when this has been done the pressure of another button will cause an exhaust fan and an inlet fan to thoroughly aerate your clothes for a desired period or for all night long, if you like, so that they will be clean and fresh when you resume them on the morning. Meanwhile, your bath has been automatically kept at any desired temperature by a machine which switches itself on when the water falls below that temperature, and switches itself off for a definite or indefinite period, according to your desires. Needless to say, you can have a fine reading lamp by your bedside, and if you have formed the tad habit of going to sleep leaving your light burning, an automatic time switch will see to it that you do not waste an undue amount of current, because it will switch off the light at any given time, let us say a few minutes after you have fallen asleep. Of course, the room will be cleaned by vacuumcleaning devices, electrically controlled. The laundry washed at the back of the house will be done by an electric washing machine, and if you so desire, when performing your morning toilet, your face massaged or your hair brushed by electricity, you may at a comparatively trivial cost indulge in your fancy. Wireless, of course, cannot be dealt with in such an article as this, but its part in the I scheme of things is well enough j known.