Hot Water is ever a Necessity in Every Farm House

Taranaki Daily News, 30 September 1940, Page 30 (Supplement)

Hot Water is ever a Necessity in Every Farm House

Those were called the "good old days." When the present generation was young the hot-water tap constituted one of the major problems of the kitchen. The old range described recently as one of the most efficient dirt and work provokers ever devised, had to be poked and stoked. It absorbed bag after bag of coal or log after log of wood and the ultimate result was that the hot-tap either belched a cascade of boiling water, produced only steam and gurgles, or else ran a depressing stream of luke-warm liquid. It all depended upon the state of the furnace and the drain on the cistern. More recently improvements -had been introduced, but, until the development of electricity , there had to be some sort of blaze under the boiler in order to keep the hot-tap hot. Much of the heat generated so labouriously went straight up the chimney. The modern farmhouse now is served by electricity. The housewife, concerned in keeping her home clean and comfortable values the perfect heat-control made possible by unseen power. She needs no fires in summer, and the farmer need chop no kindling. Yet the hottap runs hot whenever it is turned on day or night from the first call for shaving water and early cups of tea to the last bath at night. The more modern homes to-day are known as "all electric." They possess thermal-storage tanks heated by ther-mostatically-controlled appliances placed in positions convenient to maintaining a constant source of hot water to every hot tap. There are no switches to operate, and the whole business is automatic. Moreover, all the power used for this purpose goes into the water. Even old homes need not be without their electric hot water service. Ingenious devices make it possible to convert the old-fashioned blaze-boiler systems with hot tanks, into electricaJ operated units.