The early days of Electricity in Hove (4)

The reason for messing with this stuff is to try and get an understanding of the technologies and decisions which have formed our energy economy.  Technology is the driving force, but its implementation in the UK is influenced by legislation.  This itself is significant, suggesting a desire for an ordered society.  Legislation and parliamentary debates  can be both inspiring and depressing.   For example, gas was originally sold by volume, this is intuitive and was not unreasonable in the early days of the industry.  However, it gave no indication of the amount of energy with which the consumer was paying for.  Parliament legislated that gas should be priced according to its calorific value.  During the debate, someone suggested th this would confuse consumers, in reply, it was pointed out that with pricing by volume it was perfectly legal for gas companies to supply air.

The Act which applies to the early days of electricity in England is the Electric Lighting Act, 1882.  This show some foresight on the part of legislators as incandescent light bulbs were just emerging as a viable technology.  The incandescent bulbs required little maintenance and did not foul the atmosphere like gas and oil lamps which they would eventually displace.   Whilst high voltage AC systems were evolving and would  achie dominance within a decade, low voltage DC (often referred to as low pressure) systems were the most common technology used for public supplies at the time.  These  systems were only practical when the distance between the generator and the consumer was short.  Thus many early power stations were located in town centres close to the consumer and ideally near a railway or navigable river from which coal could be supplied.  In it's early days electricity was both a local and an urban business.

The Act covers four aspects of electricity supply, democratic approval, practical problems of providing a supply (e.g. no overhead cables and don't mess with the canals), abuse of markets and ownership.

The act places the administration of the electricity supply with the local authority, which itself could also become a supplier.  Before an electricity supply could be established, meetings had to be held and elected representatives had to approve.  If a potential supplier could not get approval from the local authority there was a provision to seek parliamentary approval.  In practice the local authority had to be involved because they were responsible for the management of the streets which had to be broken up to install cables.  Local authorities had considerable freedom in the way they organised the supply.  They could, subject to controls, allow a private company to provide a supply, but they were also allowed to borrow money and build power stations and create supply networks themselves.  In Brighton, they first electricity company was a commercial enterprise, then the council set up in competition.  In neighbouring Hove, the council opted to pass the undertaking to a private company.  Where a private company had established a supply, local authorities had an option to buy it back for a fair price after 21 years.  This must have been a disincentive for private investors as the Act of 1888 increased this to 42 years.  Random reading of parliamentary debates suggests that there has been a distrust of commercial energy companies for at least a couple of centuries.  Based on very limited research, it seems that municipal gas and electric companies were the preferred option and this is reflected in the 1882 Act.  However, in giving local authorities the power to borrow, it recognised the need for private finance.

Fear of market abuse is reflected in the clauses which prevent the supplier specifying special lamps, the right of anyone living in specified area to a supply and no special deals.  It also gives some protection to the supplier by defining by-passing the meter as theft of electricity and making it an offence to damage equipment.  Meters and similar equipment belonged to the electricity supplier, not the consumer and could not be taken away by bailiffs.

At the same time it protects the Post Office's telegraph monopoly, power networks could not be used to transmit information.  It was realised that electric lighting would eventually displace lamps.  In places where it would become uneconomic for a gas company to maintain a statutory supply, there was provision for the electric company to pay compensation.

The Act is a practical document and it built on the experience of administering the gas industry by incorporating the legislation drawn up in 1847 for gas works.  Even in 1882, there was a lot happening under the streets, there might be pipes for sewerage, water, gas and telegraphs and by adding some more, it was necessary to provide the freedom to move things where necessary, at the expense of the of electricity company and to provide compensation for disturbance.  It was realised that overhead power lines in urban areas were a potential danger, so it was specified that local distribution must use underground cables.

The 1882 Act contributed to an energy economy which is different from that of today.  In 1882 electricity was a luxury product (1 kwh cost approx. £1 in today's money)  with a few well-off consumers which were supplied from generating sets which were small and inefficient, with a name plate rating of a few hundred horsepower, machinery which would not be out of place in the workshop area of a big town.  As demand grew, the size of plant increased and it moved from the town centre towards the coal mines and ports.  By 1948, the industry would be nationalised, this was part of a wider trend.  Many institutions established in second half of the 19th century, such as schools, hospitals, electricity works etc. were administered by some form of local body, a hundred years later, central or remote control was becoming the norm (e.g. the Central Electricity Generating Board).  There merits of central or local control vary according to situation.  Most councils would have had something like an "electric light committee", some more able than others.  This would have provided a larger pool of knowledge and experience than maybe exists today. 

A link to the document is provided at the bottom of the page.  Some parts are clear to the lay reader, others less so  thus my comments should be treated with caution.

Link to legislation:

• Electrict Lighting Act 1882

Thinking about an electric car

Electric vehicles have been around for more than a century, battery trams were tried out in Brighton and other towns around 1890, although in Brighton's case the job was eventually given to a horse. Recently, increasingly larger bits started falling from our aging hatchback and it started sinking into the tarmac outside the house.  It had served us well, it had recovered at least one child from university, carried the detritus of many amateur operatic productions and done my wife's daily commute.  My wife is the main driver, so I opted out of the decision process.  But I did secretly look at electric vehicles.  The attraction of electric vehicles is their low tail pipe emissions, low energy costs and the potential to be integrated into sustainable energy systems.

Left to me, we would have had a Renault Twizy, but I don't spend my weekends trundling hefty opera singers around the country.  My wife chose a small red box which weighs 950 kg and emits 103 gm of CO2 per km.  Electric cars have zero tail pipe emissions, but they rely on smoke stacks, nuclear reactors and wind farms which combine to produce very roughly 0.45 kg/ of CO2 per kwh.  Equally roughly, an electric vehicle might average 0.2 kwh/km which works out at 90 gm of CO2 per km.  It's an improvement, but not a big one.

However, the energy costs are much lower.  The fuel consumption of the red box is quoted as 4.7 l/100 km which at current petrol prices means £5.30/100 km.  For an electric vehicle doing 0.2 kwh/km 100 km and charged off-peak, the cost would be roughly £1.40.

We bought second hand, my perception of new vehicle costs is £10k for a petrol vehicle and £20k for an electric one.  I'm hazy on the costs associated with batteries, but I'm guessing they are the equivalent of petrol vehicle servicing, but I need to know more.  However, you do the sums, it would take a few years to recover the higher front end costs of an electric vehicle from the lower running costs.

So despite my interest in sustainable energy, we ended up with an update on what had before.  This is a personal example, but for sustainable energy systems to win over hearts and minds they must offer similar benefits for similar costs to conventional systems.

Reference:

Brighton Tramways, Robert J. Harley, Middleton Press

The price of house coal

The starting point for this post was some old family accounts which extended, with gaps from the 1920s to the 1940s.  This was augmented by some figures found in the online version of Hansard.  Some local history material provided a human dimension to the numbers.

The graphs should be treated with caution as they are random in both time and location.  House coal can be priced in several ways, my family always discussed it in terms of cost per hundredweight (112 pounds or very roughly 50 kg).  In 1835 it became compulsory to sell coal by weight rather than volume, before that there are references to "chaldrons", this was a volumetric measure which might account for 0.5 - to 1.5 tons.

The economics of coal consumption are complex, at £10/cwt, the energy cost is around 2p/kwh which is lower than for gas or electricity.  However, the "benefit" derived from a kg of coal depends on the efficiency of the device in which it is burnt.  When used in a cooking range, a lot of energy is used just warming up a large lump of iron before the thing is warm enough to boil a kettle for tea.  Early ranges were not insulated, which made them inefficient cooking devices, but a desirable source of warmth in the kitchen, modern solid fuel range cookers are well insulated which minimizes heat loss.  In England, houses were heated with open fires which have a very low efficiency (10 - 20%?) with most of the heat going up the chimney.  From limited research, it seems that the French prefer stoves which use coal more efficiently.

During the 20th century, the overall trend in the "real" price of coal was upwards.  At the end of the 1960s coal began to compete with "North Sea Gas" in the domestic fuel market.  Gas was both cheaper and more convenient than coal and coal's share of the market started to decline.  By the end of the century, coal had become a "niche" product and costs rose as the economies of scale that had been possible faded away.

The retail price of coal has always been subject to wide variations and fluctuations.  In 1795 it was feared that France would invade England and for a time the price of coal was around 55 shillings per chaldron, this would be more than £50/cwt in today's money.  Households purchase coal for the heat it produces when burnt, premium grade Welsh Steam Coal might have a calorific value of more than 30 MJ/kg whilst that of lower grade fuel might be half that. Some of the variation in the price shown on the graphs is due to variation in the grade of coal.

Apart from events in the wider economy, the price of coal was determined by who you were and where you were.  A well-off, well managed household would buy several tons for delivery in large loads during the summer when they would benefit from lower prices.  At the other end of the scale, those on low incomes might have had to buy coal by the stone (14 lb) or lesser quantity and paid a high unit price (there is an analogy here with today's pre-payment meters).   Some coal merchants operated "coal clubs" which allowed fuel costs  to be evenly spread over the year.

Transport was a significant part of the cost of distributing coal from the mines to the consumer, by the late 19th century coal merchants were often clustered around railway goods yards.  The coal merchant was responsible for unloading the trucks, if this was not done within an agreed period, say, three days, the buyer was charged demurrage until the wagon was empty.  In the early part of the century it was not unknown for captains of collier brigs from the Tyne to run their vessels on to the beaches of seaside towns if they thought they could get a better price for their cargo than they would get at a port a few miles down the coast.  If the cargo was discharged at a port, then the buyer would have the cost of transport to the point of use.  There was always a risk that they could be stranded for several days until favourable weather and tide allowed them to re-float.

A wide variety of enterprises were active in the local coal markets, some companies operated across regions, some were local businesses, maybe just a father and son working together with a horse and cart and below them were the barrow boys.  Our family favoured the Co-Op, probably to get the "divi".

A coalman's job was hard and dirty, often it was delivered to the consumer in sacks containing one and a quarter hundredweight (roughly 60 kg).  Large houses would have purpose built coal stores and some town houses had coal cellars which extended under the pavement which could be filled through a hole normally covered by an iron cover.  The difficult ones were small terraces where the coal had to be carried through the house to the scullery, a task which had to completed without upsetting the housewife.

The early days of electricity in Hove (3)

As with previous posts in this series, this one is work in progress and subject to corrections and revisions.

As I mess with this, I realise I am working backwards.  The story starts with an Act of Parliament of 1890 whose objective was to provide electric lighting in Hove, this was to implemented by the Hove Commissioners (what we now call the council), who formed an "electric light committee".  This first met on Saturday, 26-Apr-1890.

At the meeting on Thursday, 11-Dec-1890 a plan was beginning to form.  It was resolved that the best course of action would be to negotiate with a responsible company to erect buildings and plant and to lay mains in order to supply electricity as required.  It seems that they had considered three options, a) the council would take on the construction and operation of the facility which would be financed by a mortgage on the rates, b) the council would provide the plant and get a contractor to operate it and c) get a private company to finance, build and operate, this being the preferred option.  It was felt that this project was not appropriate for a town council.  The first step was to find a suitably qualified electrical engineer to prepare specifications and advise on terms and conditions of a contract with a company as proposed.

Mr. R.E. Crompton was selected for the task at a meeting on 2-Jan-1891.  This was a logical choice, Mr. Crompton had a proven ability with both arc and incandescent lighting and his company Crompton and Co. was a major manufacturer and contractor.

These deliberations were going on against a backdrop of international and local evolutions in the electricity supply industry.  This was the time of the "battle of the currants".  On one side was low voltage DC generation and distribution, in very crude terms there was direct connection between the consumer's appliances and the dynamos at the power station.  These systems worked well for small communities clustered around the power station.  It was opposed by promoters of high voltage AC systems.  In these the AC generated at the power station is stepped up to a high voltage for transmission and stepped down again for distribution to the consumer, the key component is the transformer.  Ultimately, the high voltage AC systems were to triumph.  At the local level the neighbouring Brighton and Hove Electric Light company was seeking to expand.  At this time Brighton had established an electricity supply four years earlier and had experience with both AC and DC systems.

Mr. Crompton drew up his report and this was considered and this was considered on several occasions and on 8-Jun-1891 a decision was made to adopt the low voltage DC option.  It is clear from the minutes that they had discussed the AC alternative, but Mr. Compton recommended the DC route because Hove was a compact borough and there would be no problems with transmission.  It was pointed out that several London boroughs had adopted this solution as had parts of New York and Berlin.  Mr. Compton's report  effectively became basis of the specification which against which bids would be invited and a prospectus for potential shareholders.

The suggested site was bounded on the west by Holland Road with 135 feet of frontage on what is now Davigdor Road.  To the north was a railway goods yard which was home to several coal merchants.  The plan was to have a siding laid so that coal could be delivered by rail.

The plant in the power station was intended to be implemented in phases.  When complete, the main elements were to be:

• 5 Lancashire boilers rated at 160 p.s.i
• 3 250 HP Willans dynamo sets
• 3 100 HP Willans dynamo sets
• 1 120 cell lead acid accumulator capable of supplying 600 amps for a short period.

Dividing the generating capacity between 100 and 250 HP units suggests that demand was expected to vary during the day.

The plant may have been arranged like this:

The site may have been long and thin making it necessary to use the space efficiently.

The costs for the initial phase with two boilers, three dynamo sets and an accumulator were estimated to be:

• Plant: £8,297
• Buildings: £3,000
• Mains: £12.844
• Total: £24,141

The cost of the complete scheme was around £50,000.

The public street lighting commitment was for 14 ornamental lampstands along the sea front, each with a 10 amp arc lamp mounted 26 feet above the street which was rated at 2,000 candlepower, the total running costs for 2186 hours were estimated to be £280/year.  Even in 1890, Hove was a sizeable town, so this was not a serious attempt to displace gas lighting.  It seems that the principal objective was to sell electricity to commercial and domestic consumers.  The electricity for these lights was to be supplied at half price, or 4d/unit, the retail price being 8d/unit (more than £1 in today's money).

The report reads like it has been written to promote a scheme, it suggests that after seven years, 400 houses would be supplied with electricity and profits could be £5,000/year.  It is not unknown for prospectuses to over estimate demand, however, in this case, it was an underestimate, after two years of operation, 200 households were connected.

The minutes of the Electric Light committee meeting on 3-Sep-1891 stated that the text of an invitation to bid for the project had been drafted and an agreement to purchase the Holland Road site had been produced together with an application to borrow £1,400.

On 27-Oct-1891, proposals were received from:

• The Electric Power and Storage Company
• The Brush Electrical Engineering Company
• Crompton and Company
• The Brighton and Hove Electrical Lighting Company

A few days later, a bid from the Planet Electrical Engineering Company was received, as this had been submitted on time, but delivered late, it was considered.

Only the bid from Crompton and Company was considered to meet the requirements of the commissioners and on 11-Feb-1892, a deed of transfer of the undertaking to Compton and Company was approved.

Energy Alternatives

The electricity industry took shape in the 1880s.  Initially, it was a "luxury" product consumed by high income households.  Large establishments might have had their own generating plant, but rapid growth in the demand for electricity started when companies were formed to supply consumers from a local power station.  Either by choice or circumstance, many of these companies became owned by local councils, with a little stretch of the imagination, they could be described as being owned and controlled by the community they served.  By the start of the 20th century demand for electricity had grown and the original small power stations with reciprocating steam engines located in residential areas were too small and inefficient to meet the demand, these were displaced by large steam turbine plants located close to a coal supply such as a port, railway depot or even the mine itself.  This became the model used by the industry for a century and it worked well, energy will never be cheap, but its rare to flick a light switch and have nothing happen.  Big nuclear power stations fit into this model.

There are big differences between the late 19th and early 21 centuries, for political and environmental reasons it is desirable to reduce dependency on fossil fuels and many people are uncomfortable with nuclear power.  However, the technologies available make it possible to consider alternatives to the big generator model, for the foreseeable future big power stations will have a role, but it may be possible to stem their growth and possibly even displace some of them.

These comments are based on personal observations, but they may have some wider relevance:

• Energy consumption can be reduced without a drop in living standards.  In our case, we have steadily migrating to LED lighting, 20 watt compact fluorescent lights have are being replaced by 10 watt or smaller LEDs.  As appliances have died of old age, energy consumption has a factor in deciding on the replacement.  The old washing machine consumed 1.5 to 2.0 kwh/wash, the new one typically uses 0.25 to 0.70 kwh.  There maybe environmental benefits, but our electricity bill is £23/month and falling.
• Storage is a potential game changer in the way the industry works.  Demand for electricity peaks in the early evening when families are home cooking, staring at a screen or doing homework, at present supply and distribution is set up to meet the peaks and troughs of daily life, if every house had even a small amount of storage, maybe as little as 2kwh, it could be possible to run the generators under constant load with each household having a time slot for charging its batteries.  Grocery deliveries have made us familiar with delivery time slots, doing the same thing for electricity is not such a big step.  Back to economics, there is the potential for buying electricity at off-peak rates (7p instead of 15p/kwh), so there is some potential upside for the consumer.  Storage also helps integrate energy from wind farms in to the energy economy.
• Back in 1900, if you wanted to generate your own electricity the main options were steam or gas engines, water wheels were an option for those living near a river and wind generation was still being explored.  Even under an cloudy English sky, solar panels can make a contribution.  At present, the economics of home generation are geared towards getting a return-on-investment, however, in conjunction with storage, there is the potential to displace some gas fuelled generating capacity.  Peak demand is in the evening when the sun does not shine bright, if energy generated during the day can be stored for use in the evening, then the load on the grid can be smoothed.  This requires some creative economics.  Some rough calculations suggest that our house's grid dependency would be decreased by two solar panel mounted somewhere other than on the roof.
• Cars and vans contain reliable combined heat and power systems, a 2kw alternator provides electricity some of which is stored in the battery and waste heat from the cooling system is used to keep the cabin warm.  Extracting the appropriate components and packaging them as a consumer product might produce something costing less than £1,000, such an installation could produce heat and power during the winter months. These could be gas fuelled.  In the context of a car, this is established technology.  One of the incentives for the development of petrol and diesel engines was the limitation on consumption of town gas.  Any loss in efficiency in electrical generation could be compensated for by the use of waste heat.

Some of this stuff is fanciful and no doubt others could expand the list but the point is there are alternatives to big power station model.

Energy and Adverts

I would like to say that I have a research plan for theses posts on the history of domestic energy, but it is just random reading and looking for holes in the pavement.  One source material is advertising.  Until the end of the 1960s, domestic energy was about shovelling, either you did it yourself or you paid someone else to do it.  For some, the 1960's might have been the Stones, the Beatles and the summer of love but for my mother it was gas central heating and the removal of the coal bunker.  As a family, we did our own shovelling but for some this was a problem to which this advert from the May 1931 edition of "The Sussex County Magazine" attempted to address.

The reference to "boilers" rather than "boiler" suggests that it was aimed at larger properties which probably included up-market blocks of flats with communal heating systems.  Often, these were not a source of happiness either being too cold or too hot or broken down and always too expensive.  Even in the depression, looking after one of these would not have been an attractive job.

The serious heavy lifting was done by the coal men, coal was delivered in bags weighing one and quarter hundredweight or 10 stones (roughly 60kg) which is the weight of a small adult.

Despite appliances being graded according to there energy efficiency, energy consumption in the kitchen is rarely the subject of today's polite conversation around the marble worktops. However, some old "domestic science" textbooks take it seriously  and pre-war housekeepers were expected to be aware of the amount fuel they were using.  This is reflected in this advert from the June 1936 edition of "The Sussex Country Magazine":

I'm guessing, but at the time this advert was published, coal fired stoves were competing with gas and electric cookers in the suburbs where a supply was available and coal/coke was cheaper per kwh than gas or electricity.  The claim that the fuel cost was £1.00/quarter suggests that consumption was around one and half tons per year (assuming coke to cost £2.50/ton at the time).  A ton of coal and it's residual ash requires a lot of shovelling.  The advert also features deferred payments, the gas and electricity companies also offered appliance hire and credit facilities.

The theme of shovelling is continued in the small ads.  You imagine the look of surprise and delight on the face of someone receiving one of these:

However, a modest sized house with coal fires could get through several tons of coal in a year, if the task of shifting the stuff from the coal store to the kitchen, living room and  bedrooms was eased, the bearer of the gift might be rewarded with a smile, unless the recipient had hoped for silk lingerie.

In the 1930s the use of mains electricity in the home was expanding with the acquisition of irons and vacuum cleaners, but there were a lot of battery powered radios in use.  Typically these used lead acid accumulators to heat the cathodes in the valves whilst the high voltage they needed was supplied by multi-celled zinc-carbon batteries.  Few homes had the facility to charge the accumulators, so shops selling electric appliances offered a charging service, adverts for this can be found in the small ads of the magazines.

In general, the classified ads in the county magazines are not much different from those found online today, they offer "facial rejuvenation", building services, garment alteration etc..  Private tutors still advertise in newsagent's windows, but they don't seek out "backward" children.

Having gone through my small collection of country magazines, for the sake of completeness I thumbed through a 1949 copy of "Men Only".  The is some surprising overlap in the content, the same cars and lawn mowers are advertised, the men are dressed in similar style, some of the women are wearing slightly less, but both are part of the same world.

The early days of electricity in Hove (2)

This post is really my notes from researching the early days of electricity in Hove, it is probable that there will be corrections and revisions.  As with the previous post, the source is the log books of the power station of the Hove Electric Light Company from 24-Nov-1892 to 27-Sep-1894.  I have yet to find a floor plan of this site or an inventory of the equipment, but the log books give an insight into the nature of operation and it's economics.

One thing that stands out when the weekly generation data is plotted on a graph is the seasonal variation in the demand for electricity.  Whilst the log books make a couple references to small electric motors on customer's sites, most of the output is used in incandescent lamps (typically 33 watts) and arc lights which might draw 10 amps (roughly 1 unit per hour with a 110 volt supply).  In the winter of 93/94 generation amounted to roughly 2,500 units/week and then dropped off as summer approached.  So in the summer of 1894, output was falling even though more customers were being signed up.

It is not clear if this seasonality was factored into the economics of operation, but it is possible that a stoker was laid off during the summer.  In Sep-1894, wages accounted for just less than one third of the operating expenses.  It is not clear in the remarks if the boilers had mechanical stoking or relied on a man with a shovel.

The largest expense was coal and coke.  There is an inference in the log books that the preferred type was Welsh  Coal (20 - 27 shillings/ton), this has a high calorific value (marine engineers also liked it), but at times, possibly as an economy measure, alternative fuel was used such Northern Steam Coal (19 shillings/ton).  In the first few months of operation some coke was used, maybe this came from the local gas works. 

The logs don't say much about the type of machinery, but there is a reference to Davey-Paxman sets.  I'm guessing but these steam engines were probably similar to those used in mills and factories, these were relatively slow speed.  Often power was distributed around the factory with a system of shafts and each machine was connected to this by a belt drive.  There is also a mention of Willans engine, this was probably a high speed engine specially developed for the growing electricity industry, typically the dynamo was directly coupled to the steam engine's crank shaft.  Hopefully, I can find out more.

By modern standards, the boiler pressure was low, initially they operated at 140 p.s.i.  and later this was increased 160 p.s.i.. after inspection by the insurance company.  Steam locomotives in the 1950's were often working in the range 200 - 250 p.s.i. and modern steam power stations run at very high temperatures and pressures to maximise efficiency.  The steam would have been saturated and there is no reference to condensers.  Thus the efficiency was very low, a crude sum suggests that it was in the range 2 - 3%, that of modern coal power stations might be around 40%.  The log book states coal consumption as 10 pounds/unit of electricity generated.  Leaving the town hall arc-lamps burning all night would create extra work for the stoker and a noticeable increase in operating costs.  Maybe, because of the lack of condensers, they were not able to recover water from the exhausted steam as water consumption was several thousand gallons per week.

The station was equipped with storage in the form of some large lead acid batteries, the capacity of these was about 30 units (110 amp hours).  These appear to require regular maintenance as sometimes their consumables (plates, soda etc.) show up as a spke in the expenses.  The function of these is not given, but it is probable that the storage acted as a buffer for fluctuations in load and also to meet some or all of the overnight demand, this would allow the boiler fires to be banked up to save fuel.  During the summer months the average daily demand might be 100 - 200 units which peaked in the evening, thus the 30 units of storage could simplify operations.

The early days of electricity in Hove (1)

I learnt about the Hove Electric Lighting Co. Ltd. from a description of what seemed to be a small power station whilst reading Queenspark Book No. 36: "A Working Man".  After looking up the buildings in Cromwell Road in Hove in a Kelly's directory, I found the business name.  Not being able to find anything more, I decided to research it myself.  The East Sussex Records office has the first three log books of the power station and it is these that this and the next post are based on.

Ideally, I should hunt down all the available material and the write it up in a single post, so these posts are really my notes which at sometime in the future may get consolidated.  If anyone has already done something similar and better, I apologise.

In the last decade of the 19th century, many small electricity companies were established by entrepreneurs or by town councils.  I find them interesting because with some stretch of the imagination the municipal ones might be described as micro-grids under local democratic control with all their assets located in the community they serve.  This is in contrast to the situation today where power stations are often located on remote headlands and are managed in distant boardrooms.  There are technical, commercial and political reasons why this transition took place, but something might be learnt from the early history of the industry.

It seems that the power station started operation in the week ending 24-Nov-1892.  During that week it produced just 95.79 units (kwh?) but by the end of the second week this had risen to 435.3 units, after which the demand was determined by the seasons and the number of houses connected, during the first two years the peak generation was about 2,500 units/week in the December 93/January 94 period, it is probable that it would be much higher during the next winter.

At the start of operations there were just four houses connected to the grid, this suggests the bulk of the load was coming from street lighting and council premises.  There are several references in the logbooks to arc lights at the town hall either being left on or going out.  There were two forms of lighting in use, arc lamps which were capable of illuminating a large area and incandescent lamps, typically rated at 33 watts.  The downside of arc lamps was their high current drain, maybe 10 amps and the need for constant maintenance, in 1894 this required a full time person.  The supply was 110 volts DC, thus a 10 amp arc lamp was consuming a unit of electricity each hour, the generating efficiency was low with 10 lb of coal being required to generate a unit of electricity, thus leaving several arc lamps burning when they were not needed could significantly increase coal consumption.  Arc lamps are sometimes described as "carbons".

In just less than two years, the number of private houses connected to the grid rose from 4 to over 200.  Connecting a property to the electricity supply required investment both on the part of the electricity company who had to make cabling, distribution and metering points available and the householder who needed to install wiring and light fittings.  In the early 1920s, it cost about £30 to wire up a three bed room semi in the north of England for electric lighting.  Some of the first houses in Hove to be connected had more than 100 lamps, so the outlay would have been great, not only was there the cost of the electrical work but cost of redecorating after wires had been run through walls, floors and ceilings.  My own house was initially piped up for gas lighting, when electric cabling was installed, channels were cut into brickwork and wooden pads used to secure sockets and switches and there was a lot of "notching" of joists to run conduits under the floor.  The company inspected each property before connection, there is one reference to minor non-compliance that was accepted on the condition that remedial work was carried out "after the season".

The graph below shows the increase in the number of connection over a two year period.

What is more interesting is the nature of the connections.  I walked around most of the streets mentioned in the log books and it appears that connections can be split into two groups.  The first was retailers, I guess that installing electric lighting was seen as getting a competitive edge over one's rivals, much the same as air conditioning is today.  Electric lighting would create a better retail environment than gas lights could which were dirty and could fill an unventilated space with foul air (e.g. increase the level of carbon monoxide).  the operation of electric lighting is just flicking a switch and occasionally changing a burnt out bulb.  Gas mantles have to be individually lit and regularly cleaned.  The second group might be described as posh residences.  Posh is probably the correct word, the people who owned these houses would most likely have been on the port side outward and on the starboard side homewards when travelling to and from India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia or New Zealand.  The houses are big and would have required several servants to function.  In modern marketing language, these people were "early adopters" who were prepared to pay a high price, the cost of electricity might have been around 8d/unit (more than £1.00 in today's money).  None of the houses I walked past were the sort of place where craftsmen, teachers, clerks or shop assistants might have lived, it might be thirty or forty years before such cane home to an electric light switch.

The map below shows the streets mentioned in the log books, those marked red are predominantly residential whilst the blue ones are mainly retail.  Except in the shopping areas along Church Road and Western Road, there are only a few customers in each street, however, the mains for distribution would have been available for additional customers.

There appears to have been a ready market for electricity, as mains became available in a street, houses were soon connected to it.  There were a small number of disconnections for reasons not specified, but one reference suggested that electricity was becoming indispensable, a house was disconnected one day, but reconnected on the following one.

The data available does not show levels of household consumption, but it suggests that the average during the winter months was around 10 kwh/week and less than 5 kwh during the summer, this might put average household consumption in the range 200 - 500 kwh/year.  The current average in the UK is about 3,500 kwh/household/year.  The principal use of electricity was for lighting, but there are two references to electric motors, one is for a half horsepower one in a dairy 

Electricity was creating new types of job.  The dynamos in the power station were driven by reciprocating steam engines which at that time was a mature technology, but establishing safe and reliable distribution systems was a new challenge.  by the middle of 1894, there were four distinct groups of works in the company, about half a dozen people worked in the power station, two were involved in connecting properties to the mains, two more maintaining those mains and two going round testing and reading meters.

Laundry and Negawatts (one more time!)

Technology has its role to play in sustainable energy systems but so too does behaviour.  I've learnt that conversations about consumption are difficult and that some of the things that facilitate the reduction of energy consumption are just not sexy.  I've made a couple of visits to "eco" fairs where there are blokes huddled up discussing panel orientation and the nature of inverters just like I and other teenagers once discussed motorbikes.  Try and bring LED lighting into the discussion and you might be like the kid with the rusty, back-firing and moped (those mopeds that have survived are now collectable and change hands for serious money).  I did mention to someone that I was measuring the energy consumption of our washing machine and from the reaction I sensed that the words "geek" and "nerd" were not far away.

Due to some dubious career advice, I left school at 15 and spent a couple of years as merchant seaman followed by some time in a factory.  The fact that I have spent much of my career writing computer software, suggests that I was not cut out for a life on the ocean wave.  Whilst I was close to incompetent, as this experience drifts further into the past, I am attempting to mine it for anything relevant.  Remuneration was not generous but included two bars of soap per week, both were brick like, one was a dark red carbolic variety which repelled both women and infestations, but as only one of which was present on the ship, this was not a problem.  The other was yellow "Port Sunlight" which was used for laundry.  Both types could be used as currency in some ports.

The laundry process (known as dhobying) consisted of placing soiled clothing in a bucket of water, rubbing it with a lump of soap and agitating it until one was either bored or the clothes were clean.  A couple of rinses in clean water and the process was almost complete.  Ships have lots of warm spaces, so getting stuff dry was not a problem.  As this was hand washing, I doubt if the temperature of the water was very high.  The standard of personal hygiene in a all male community frequently engaged in dirty work was reasonably high (with the odd exception), so who needs more than a bucket and a bar of yellow soap?

Fast forward some decades and home is a suburban semi populated by two adults and three would-be adults and a washing machine.  The latter consumed 1.0 to 2.0 kwh/wash, maybe 3 to 8 kwh per week.  Eventually, the children leave and the washing machine unable to cope with an empty nest, starts to leak, vibrate and die.  It is removed by two men who swear a lot. The replacement provided by the insurance company is in my opinion dynamically unstable and can't be left unattended.  I have agreed to perform a certain number of washes to see if the machine "settles down".  Rather than just staring at a vibrating cube, I weigh the washing before and after and measure the energy consumption.

Initially, my wife selected a programme with a 40 deg. C temperature and I duly filled and emptied the machine and drew a graph.  A typical wash requires about 0.7 kwh of electricity, which is a significant improvement on the old one.  The energy consumption is proportional to dry weight, so this maybe due to the amount of energy needed to warm the contents of the drum.  When I eventually got to study engineering at university, we were taught about experimental design, so when my wife was not looking, I dropped the temperature down to 20 deg. C, so far she has not noticed any difference but the energy consumption is now 0.3 kwh/wash.  It's emulating me and a bucket or was I emulating the washing machine but that's philosophy not engineering and I'm not qualified.  Low temperature washing will not work for greasy overalls or skid marked underpants, but not every wash contains those things.

Modern washing machines are highly energy efficient, but there is no obvious way to interact with their energy consumption.  Smart meters might help, or even a stupid meter mounted in the kitchen so that a home's energy consumption is visible.  The energy meter I use cost less than £20 and has paid for itself, so it would not be significant cost increase to incorporate energy monitoring into a washing machine or similar device.   My opinion is that most homes could drop their energy consumption by 10 - 20% without any lowering of the standard of living, if only they knew what it is.  Once we were using 5kwh/week to keep clean, now it is less than 1 kwh.

 

A consumer's relationship with coal and gas

I recently read "the world did not run out of coal, it just stopped using it", with the implication that a similar process might take place with other fuels such as oil and gas.  A back-burner project has been to collect household energy costs from old utility bills and related sources (an unexpectedly fruitful source has been Hansard - the record of proceedings in the UK parliament).  This type of material shows how energy costs are perceived by the consumer.  Householders are generally rational in their decisions, seeking to minimize both cost and effort.

It is difficult to make prices comparable over time.  The purchasing power of money changes over time and there are different things to buy, so estimates of price change over a long period of time are an approximation.

This post is based on comparisons, but the data should be treated with caution because of the difficulty of making like-for-like samples.  In the days when coal was purchased by almost every household there were significant variations in price due to the quality of the fuel with nutty slack at the cheap end and anthracite at the other, the sources do not always quote the type.  Distance from the goods yard could be significant.  People on low incomes might purchase a stone (14 lb, roughly 6 kg) for cooking at a much higher unit cost than a household taking half a ton in a single delivery.

The price of coal in 2015 money remained more-or-less constant within broad limits for the period  1900 to 1970.

Gas is slightly simpler, but there were and are regional variations and in the post war period there was a transition from "town gas" made from coal and "natural gas" from the southern North Sea gas fields.  The nature of the gas industry is such that it is easier regulate, whilst there were a large number of coal merchants, there were relatively few gas companies, many of which where owned by town councils.  Most companies served a single area and there was limited competition.  Within the home, electricity displaced gas as the energy source for lighting by the 1930s.  The main uses for as were for cooking and until the advent of central heating in the post ware period, gas fires were a common way of heating a room. 

The availability of gas from the North Sea started a 40 year period of low energy prices which lasted form approximately 1965 to 2005.

A cursory reading of Hansard suggested three things.  First that energy prices are a constant source of public, and therefore parliamentary concern and that this is accentuated in difficult economic times.  Secondly, that there is a general distrust of energy suppliers, coal merchants in the 1920s were attracting much the same criticisms as today's gas and electricity suppliers.  What politicians of all persuasions seem to want is a regulated energy market which is isolated from global economic turbulence.  Sustainable technologies go some way to meeting this requirement.

The householder does not purchase a hundredweight of coal or a therm of gas, he/she buys warmth and the facility to cook.  Open fires accounted a for a large proportion of the coal burnt in England, whilst a coal fire is cheerful and comforting, it's thermal efficiency is low, possibly less than 20%, stoves equipped with a back boiler were more efficient, but a large amount of heat still went up the chimney.  Modern stove designs seem to be a big improvement on those of the 1950s and 60s.  As a gross oversimplification, someone wanting 1 kwh of warmth might have to purchase enough coal to produce 4 kwh if the fireplace was 25% efficient.  Gas central heating boilers might offer 90% efficiency.  Making assumptions about thermal efficiency produces this graph which shows the effective energy cost of  coal and gas assuming thermal efficiencies of 25% and 90% respectively.

The crossover point is sometime in the 1960s, this is when our parent's generation blocked up the fireplaces and installed gas central heating.  Gas was not only cheaper than coal, it was cleaner and easier to live with.  Another benefit of gas was improved air quality, well into the 1970s thick fogs were a frequent occurrence due to the high proportion of soot particles in the air.  This in turn provided a decrease in respiratory disease.

The sustainable energy technologies sit uncomfortably with economics, the transition from coal to gas was largely driven by the cost advantages, my source for this comment is my parents and their friends.  If a similar transition is to take place from gas to sustainable sources, the energy consumers, who are now our children, must perceive some economic benefits.

Laundry and Energy - A Personal History

Laundry is one of the more energetic domestic chores, either for the person doing the washing of the machine to which it is delegated.    During the past few weeks the renovation of the kitchen has been a large part of my life (I desperately need to get out more).  What we now use as the kitchen used to be the scullery.  A scullery is might be described as the Victorian's idea of a utility room, there was a large coal store, storage place for food marked on the plans as "larder" and usually referred to a the pantry", a sink for washing dishes and a "copper" for washing clothes.  The copper can be seen on the plans:

The copper, possibly made of cast iron, was mounted in a brick structure, the lower section of which was a small furnace.  I've looked several house plans and as far as I can see, these things were not connected to chimneys, so the weekly wash would have been done amid smoke and carbon monoxide.  In 1900 much of the laundry work was boiling clothes and bed linen.  Boiling 5 gallons of water might require 2 kwh, but allowing for the heating a mass of brickwork and other losses, the total energy consumed might be 10 - 20 kwh or in more practical terms, a shovel full of coal.  Add to this the physical effort the laundry itself.

I'm guessing, but coppers remained in use in our family into the 1920 or 1930s.  My mother carried on boiling things into the 1960s.  This might have been a fear of disease, in her youth, there were a lot of things that could become fatal like TB, scarlet fever and measles.  Boiling would have dealt a deathblow to those microscopic lifeforms known as germs.   My early memories of Monday, the day of laundry, are centred on the "Baby Burco" which was the 1950s equivalent of the old copper, which by then was gas fired.  Clothes were extracted from this cauldron of soap and boiling water with wooden tongs.  After use, the hot water was dumped into the drain one bucket at a time, this may have been good for the drain, less so for those doing the work.  The energy uses might have been 2 - 4 kwh.

It was many years after leaving home before I encountered another Baby Burco.  This was at the back of the local greengrocer (now a Thai takeaway) where the owner used one to boil beetroot.  After the success of the Harry Potter novels, it would require only a small stretch of the imagination for a young adult to see a wizard stirring a vat of blood red potion before dispersing it to the neighbourhood through the sewers.

The Baby Burco was finally replaced by a washing machines which might be described as an electrically heated tub with an agitator, the buckets were replaced by hoses and wires, the danger of scalding decreased, but the risk of flooding increased.  I'm guessing but the energy used also decreased, but the stress levels remained high.

For quite a long time, I found better things to do with my life than measure the energy consumption of washing machines, but in 2010 I bought an energy meter.  When applied to the then current washing machine, it seemed that the device consumed roughly 1.0 - 1.5 kwh/wash including the hot water it took from the hot water cylinder.  I never, investigated the inner working of this thing but I think it heated the water from the "hot" supply if it was below a certain temperature using electricity as it's electricity consumption dropped once we fixed the hot water system.

A few days ago the old washing machine collapsed under it's own weight into a heap of foul smelling rust and water, depriving a newt of a home in the process.  The new washing takes advantage of a microprocessor and advances in detergent technology and seems to consume 0.5 kwh/wash.  The trend in energy consumption is shown in the graph below.

This graph is potentially misleading as it does not take account the size of the wash.  In 1900 there would probably been one big wash on Monday, whilst a modern family might run the washing machine several times per week.  A better graph would have needed more research.
PS - To replicate Brownian motion, place an unlevelled washing machine on quarry tiles.

Off-grid in 1911

This is a letter to the editor of "The Model Engineer and Electrician" which appeared on 29-Jun-1911.  It is in two parts, the first gives a description of the use of engines in farming and the second is a discussion of the use of lead-acid accumulators to provide domestic lighting.  I've edited the text slightly and illustrated it with adverts taken from the same magazine.

The prices in the adverts are in "old money" i.e. pound, shillings and pence.  One pound in 1911 is very roughly the equivalent of £95 today.  The output of bulbs described in the adverts is given in candle power, this is not directly comparable with the lumen used today, but a very rough comparison might be that 1 candle power is equivalent to 10 lumens (this is a guess).

The business of up-to-date farming needs, in addition to much other knowledge, a good general knowledge of engineering and mechanics. Labour saving machinery is continually being introduced on the farm, and the success or failure of this machinery is largely dependent on the way it is looked after. To illustrate the usefulness of model engineering, I may say, as a practical farmer, that the number of times that serious loss of time has occurred through the breakdown of machinery would have been a very small one had I practised model engineering as a hobby in my younger days.  Such simple things may hinder a gang of men at harvest time, such as the thread worn from a pin, the breaking of a spring; and this when delay may mean the loss of a crop.

The cost of this generator set in today's money is roughly £1,250.  The text states that it will run of either petrol or gas

Years ago farmers used to do all their chaff-cutting, root-pulping, etc., by hand and used to send their corn to the local mill to be ground. Now, all up-to-date farmers have an oil engine, motor engine or steam engine to do the work and the latest idea is to have an engine which will do all the pulping, grinding, etc., threshing, and haul the implements on the land. Trials were held last year by the R. A.S.E. to test such motors, and to the surprise of many, a steam engine won. The ordinary oil engine is generally used on farms; but the petrol motor engine being largely offered the market.  In my own case, I use a motor engine, one that starts on petrol and works on paraffin, and I think this is the type that will be the greater favourite, because duty-free petrol at 11d (approx. £1.00/litre). is much dearer than paraffin at 4d (approx. £0.35/litre).   I am afraid, however, that as long as motor engines are electrically ignited, they will never be so popular with the farmer as the ordinary oil engines, which have not accumulators to run down, plugs to soot up, contact-makers to get worn, and the other little troubles with which the busy farmer would perhaps soon get out of patience.

Personally, however, I would not exchange my little motor engine of  3 to 4 bhp for the best ordinary oil engine. It is so easily started, and can be used if only a bushel of corn or a bag of chaff is wanted. It is on wheels, we keep it in the barn in the winter and in a sort of workshop close to the house in the summer time, where we saw wood for fires, also for making any rough articles which may be required. Whilst the engine is doing this work, from a second pulley a small dynamo is driven
which charges several 4-volt accumulators which are used for lighting parts of the house and buildings.

These lights are very handy indeed, in fact, I have been so impressed with this 4-volt lighting that I am thinking of putting it all over the house. In the stables it is particularly useful.  as we find a small 2 or 4 c.-p. lamp is ample for a 3-stall stable; in fact, it gives a much better light than a lantern with a smoked globe.  About the house, too, In the pantry, cellar, dairy, bathroom, back-kitchen, etc., a 2 or 4 c.-p. gives ample light for the purpose for which it is required. In small bedrooms, too, it is ample for a man; but, needless to say, a lady would require an additional light at the looking-glass.

What I like about 4-volt lighting is that I can do the wiring myself, and feel pretty safe a fire won't be caused, though I am aware a short circuit close to an accumulator would possibly cause a fire if no fuse was in circuit.  Another thing is that it is easy to get 4-volt portable accumulators.   Then, if I went in for 25-volt lighting, It would all have to be done from one stationary battery, and it would be a big business laying the wires under roadways, etc. and cost a good deal. As It I have one accumulator for bedrooms, etc. another for pantry, etc. another for stables, and another for cow houses etc. It hinders, rather, connecting up for charging and redistributing the accumulators again; but It is very little trouble when done regularly.

A Lockheed Vega in the bedroom

The space under our floorboards is a small time capsule.  There are at least four generations of electric wiring, old gas piping and the evolutionary history of plumbing lead to plastic.  All this and litter left by electricians, plumbers and carpenters over the better part of a century.  I'm currently my own builder working my way round the house after a long period of neglect, initially my intention was to leave as much stuff undisturbed as possible but it has been necessary to clear some junk to get straight pipe and cable runs.  It's a nice change from software development but it can be a little dull and dirty, however, the litter has made some of the work seem like historical research.  The first generation of electrical wiring was made by W.T. Henley who at one time made submarine cables.  Some of the older copper piping is a reminder of Yorkshire Imperial Metals.   Fag packets and bits of clay pipe have been found in several places.

Maybe, until the 1960s smoking was what a lot of people did and many of those who had lived through the war had taken up smoking to calm their nerves.  In my youth, I worked in a factory and the tea breaks were sometimes referred to as a "smoko".

Whilst poking around under a bedroom floor, I came across an empty packet of "Weights".  My mother smoked "Weights", I think because they were a step-up from Woodbines (a.k.a. Woodies) and did not give you yellow fingers like "Senior Service".  The fags were gone, but the card remained, I guess it was discarded sometime between 1935 and 1938.

It is No. 36 in John Player's Civil Aviation Series and describes a Lockheed Vega.  These cards were advertising and designed to encourage brand loyalty but the picture and the text on the reverse are not too far removed from what you might find in "The Observer's Book of Aircraft". 

I know little about cigarette cards other than what I have seen a car-boot sales, but it seems that if you just looked at the cards and read the paragraph on the back, you would be slightly better educated and have a knowledge of things that  are beyond normal experience.  I can't think of a current from or commercial interaction which has that effect.

The text on the reverse is:

This surface is adhesive.  Ask your tobacconist for the attractive album (price one penny) specially prepared for the complete series.

Aeroplanes (Civil)

A series of 50 selected by the editor of "The Aeroplane"

No. 36 - Lockheed Vega (USA)

The "Vega" is a successful high speed type of small commercial monoplane built in the United States
in considerable numbers.  It carries a pilot, situated in a cockpit just below the leading edge of the wing and six passengers in a small Cabin behind.  The late Cmdr. Glen Kidston 'used a" Vega" on his record-breaking flight to the Cape and the machine illustrated was flown round the world in 187 fly-
hours by Wiley Post in 1933.  Miss Amelia Earhart  also used a "Vega" on the first solo flight across the Pacific in January 1935.

John Player & Sons

Branch of the Imperial Tobacco Company of Great Britain and Ireland Ltd.

Lighting in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries

This post is in two parts, the first is Chapter XV of the 1894 edition of "The Handbook of Household Management and Cookery" by W.B. Tegetmeier which gives a description of the options for lighting the home in late 19th century England.  The second has been compiled from family experiences in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Chapter XV - Lighting: Candles, Petroleum, Benzoline, and Gas Lamps, Their Management, etc.

99. Flame, which gives the light employed in our houses during the absence of the light of the sun, is always produced by the burning or combustion of inflammable gas.

When a candle is lit, the fat, wax, or other material of which it is formed, is melted, then drawn upwards into the flame by the attraction of the wick, it is there heated so strongly that it is converted into gas, which burns as fast as it is made, thus producing the flame.  In oil lamps the same happens, and in gas burners the gas burns as it escapes.

100. The gas which is burnt to give us artificial light, whether obtained from coals and supplied through pipes, or produced in the burning of a lamp or candle, consists chiefly of two substances, namely, hydrogen, which is always a gas, and carbon, which when not united with hydrogen or any other substance is usually a black solid, like charcoal or soot.

101. Both these substances burn in the flame, uniting with the oxygen of the air. The hydrogen in burning forms water, a large quantity of which passes off from every flame in the form of vapour or steam. Many gas lights in a close room make the air very damp, and the moisture they produce may often be seen settling on the cold glass of the windows, or even running down the walls. The carbon or charcoal when burnt forms carbonic acid, an invisible gas. When there are many gas lights in a badly ventilated room, or even one in a room that is not ventilated at all, the air becomes very unwholesome from the presence of carbonic acid gas.

102. If there is not enough air to enable both the carbon and the hydrogen to burn, the hydrogen burns first, and part of the carbon passes off in the form of smoke. By putting any cold pieces of metal, glass, or earthenware into a flame, the carbon is prevented from burning and settles on the metal or glass, covering it with black soot.

103. Candles, which were formerly very generally used, give out very little light and are the dearest mode of producing light.

Much may be learned of the nature of flame by watching attentively that of a common candle; at the bottom is a pale blue light which is caused by the fresh air rising against the flame and producing the perfect burning of both the carbon and the hydrogen; in the interior of the flame is a dark centre which consists of the unburnt inflammable gas rising from the wick; this cannot burn until it reaches the air outside. The outside of the flame is very bright it is there only the gas burns.

If a smalls slip of wood be held for a moment steadily across the centre of a flame, it will be seen that the part in the middle is not burnt, only that which was at the outside of the flame.

104. The oil used in lamps is of two distinct kinds. The fat greasy oils, such as seal or whale oil from animals, and olive or colza oil from vegetables.  obtain a good light from these fat oils it is necessary to make the flame hollow, and admit air into the interior, as is done in what is termed an Argand burner.

In order to cause a strong current of air through the flame of an Argand, a tall glass chimney is requisite.

105. The mineral oils, called paraffin or petroleum oils, are the cheapest oils in use They contain a very great amount of carbon or charcoal, and if they are burned without a chimney this escapes into the air in dark clouds of black smoke. These oils, therefore, require to be burned in a properly constructed lamp, so that sufficient air shall be sent against the flame to consume all the carbon.

The best paraffin lamps are those with a single flat wick, which is able to be turned to any required height above the wick tube A, by small toothed wheels turned by a handle, B. The large quantity of air required by the flame rises up through the cone or cap c, and is directed against the sides of the flame, producing a complete combustion of the carbon, and a very brilliant light.

Paraffin or petroleum oils were formerly sold containing much volatile inflammable spirit. At the present time no mineral lamp oil must be sold which is dangerous.

Petroleum lamps are perfectly free from danger if properly used. The oil-holder should be of glass, as if made of metal, it is apt to become heated. The lamps should always be filled before dark, and never after being lighted.

Any oil spilled on the outside should be carefully wiped off, or it will produce a disagreeable smell when the lamp is used. To light a petroleum lamp the glass chimney should be removed, then the wick turned above the slit in the cone, and when lighted instantly turned down again; the chimney should then be put on and the wick turned up so as to produce a large bright flame without smoke, but so as to produce the full If the flame, when the lamp burns without smell. flame is turned down low, there is no saving of oil, as a large quantity is sent off in vapour and produces a most disagreeable smell.

106. Sponge or spirit lamps are made for using the very inflammable spirit termed benzoline. They are filled with sponge or cotton wool which is moistened with benzoline, the wick-holder is then screwed on and the wick turned up level to the top; when lighted a small flame, rather greater than that of a candle, is produced. As the benzoline is very inflammable these lamps should never be trimmed after dark, or near a fire, as the vapour may take light. If trimmed in the day-time, and only enough spirit poured in to moisten the cotton wool, they are quite safe, and are the cheapest source of a small light. When used as night lights they should always be placed under a chimney as the vapour escapes and smells when they are turned down low.

Coal gas is unquestionably the cheapest source of light, but it's economy is not so great as is generally imagined ; the flame cannot always be brought where it is wanted, consequently a much greater amount of light is necessary than when movable lamps are employed.

For small rooms, the two-hole, or fish-tail burner is best, being cheap, simple, and capable of causing a very perfect combustion of the gas. With this burner the flame is spread out into a thin, flat sheet, by the two currents of gas striking against one another. In a fish-tail burner the gas should always be turned on so as to cause a full-sized flame without flickering, as otherwise the gas is not perfectly burnt. A large-sized burner should not be used where a smaller one will answer. The flame gives a much brighter and steadier light when placed horizontally with the flat sides turned up and down, than when burned upright in a glass globe, when the flame always flickers and is injurious to the eyes. An ordinary-sized fish-tail consumes from three to four cubic feet of gas per hour, and gives the light" of from six to nine candles.

Where a great amount of light is required a circular or Argand burner is more economical than the fish-tail.  In most burners the chimney is too high ; this causes too strong a current of air, and a great loss of light ensues. An Argand with a ring having fifteen holes, should not have a chimney more than seven inches high. Such a burner will consume about five cubic feet of gas in an hour, and give an amount of light equal to that of fifteen sperm candles.

In all cases where gas is used, the room should be ventilated, or the air will become very unhealthy from the great amount of carbonic acid and vapour of water produced.

Explosions sometimes occur when gas has escaped from a leaky pipe or a burner that has been left open, The explosion is generally caused by some person taking a lighted candle to discover the leakage, when the escaped gas takes fire instantaneously, and burns with a violent explosion. Whenever there is a strong smell of escaped gas, the main cock at the meter should be immediately turned, and the doors and windows opened to allow the gas to escape. No attempt should be made to search for the leak with a light, but notice should instantly be given to a gas-fitter.

The above describes the experiences of the old ladies of the family who were grateful for light that could be turned on or off with the flick of a switch, as girls, it has been their job clean grates, lamps and deal with soot, ashes, damp and lamp black.  Electric lighting started appearing in public places in the 1880s in the form of arc lamps which with electricity costing the equivalent of £5/kwh were expensive to run.  In the 19th century, electricity was a luxury product.

In our family homes started to be wired for electricity in the 1920s.  Typically, a room had a central pendant, maybe some wall lights in the living room and some movable lamps which plugged into wall sockets.  Incandescent bulbs were the main source of light for the better part of a century.  Bulbs got brighter, lasted longer and dropped in price but the main option was 40W, 60W or 100W bulbs which had a life of 1,000 hours and produced roughly 10 lumens/watt.  They had a secondary role as room heaters.  Some homes with water tanks in the attic had light suspended over the tank in the hope of preventing freezing and burst pipes in winter.  When electricity was first installed and the principal use was lighting, consumption was generally less than 1,000 kwh/year.  Wartime austerity reduced this to well below 500 kwh/year, but when peace returned there was a steady increase in consumption as new uses were fount for electricity.

Small fluorescent lamps known as Energy Efficient bulbs (a.k.a.CFLs) started appearing around 2005, initially they had an output of 30 - 50 lumens/watt and were expensive.  but it made economic sense to replace 100 watt incandescent lamps with 20 watt CFLs.  In 2009 European countries introduced legislation to phase out incandescent lamps.

In 2012, we started replacing CFLs with LEDs.  LED lighting has developed rapidly, some early offerings did not win the hearts and minds of consumers, but some of the current products produce around 80 - 100 lumens/watt and are a simple swap with CFLs and incandescent bulbs.

Firing: Stoves, Ranges, and Economical Management of Fuel

This post is chapter XIV of 1894 edition of "The Handbook of Household Management and Cookery" by W.B. Tegetmeier.  As I have another similar work, I'm guessing that that there were quite a few variations on this theme.  The book was compiled at the request of the London School Board for the education of girls.  This places it firmly in the 19th century, a time when big cities like London were developing the infrastructure of education, public health and energy.  It is not "dumbed down", I chose it because it is a discussion of energy and economics that might not take place today.

91. The fuel used for cooking our food and warming our dwellings is usually coal or coke; in some parts wood or peat is employed, and occasionally coal gas.

92. The heat produced during the burning of fuel is given out when the carbon of the fuel unites with the oxygen of the air, and carbonic acid gas is produced, as it is by the breathing of men and animals. This poisonous gas usually passes up the chimney with some unburned carbon which forms the smoke.

 When charcoal is burnt, the carbonic acid is produced without smoke, and therefore it is often used in stoves without chimneys, and the carbonic acid escaping into rooms is frequently the cause of fatal accidents.  All stoves without flues or chimneys to carry off the carbonic acid are dangerous, and many persons have been poisoned by their having been used.

93. The heat produced by the burning of any kind of fuel makes the air in and around the fire much lighter, and it rises rapidly over the fire, usually passing up the chimney. More than nine-tenths of the heat of a common grate passes up the chimney in this manner, and is wasted. If the grate is constructed of thick solid metal, this conducts away a large quantity of the heat so that it is impossible to keep in a very small fire in an iron range, whereas a mere handful of fuel can be kept alight in a grate lined with fire brick or fire-clay which does not cool the burning fuel in the same manner metal does. Part of the heat produced is thrown out by the fire, and passes into the room. In ordinary grates the amount of heat passing off in this manner is very much lessened by the thick bars which are frequently placed in the front of the grate.

94. Ordinary fire-grates are most extravagant modes of using fuel, and are not employed by the people of any other nation. Not only is a good deal of the heat carried away up the chimney, and by the conducting power of the iron, but the shape of the grate and the bars also prevents much being thrown out into the room.

95. An ordinary grate may, however, be made more economical. If it be lined with bricks, tiles, or fire-clay, and the open bars underneath be closed, either by fire-clay or a piece of tin plate, the air will have to enter in front where the fire will be brightest, and no heat will be thrown down into the ash pit.

96. Cooking ranges with an oven on one side are very useful in a small family. If well constructed they will bake bread, meat, and pies or puddings very perfectly.

Even when there is a low fire the oven can be used for stewing, and slow cooking can be done on the top much better than over a common fire.

A boiler by the side is not so important as an oven, Boilers are liable to get filled with the deposit or rock from the water; and if they are of cast iron, they are apt to crack. As an example of a good cheap open range, the following may be taken; it has a fire-clay back to prevent the heat passing away where it is not required, a good sized oven with the door to let down in front, and a boiler. Grates of this kind are now made by many manufacturers, and are sold at a low price.

97. Cooking stoves are much more convenient and economical in use than ranges. They are used by almost all persons in America, and are now very largely employed in this country. A very good pattern is shown in the engraving.   It has an open fire which can be used for broiling and toasting. This fire is quite under control and can be raised or lowered in a few minutes by opening or closing the doors  so as to cause a strong current of air to pass through  the burning fuel or over it as required.  The size shown will bake a joint as large as a leg of mutton or two tins of bread admirably.

The cooking vessels can be put down on the fire or placed on the hot iron top and shifted to receive as much heat as required.

The stove can also be used as a hot place for preserving or stewing.  The open fire is cheerful and the stove is a good heating stove as well as cooking stove.  An large boiler placed on top will furnish an unlimited supply of hot water.  placed in front of an open fire-place these stoves require about six feet of iron pipe to be placed up the chimney. Being perfectly movable they can be carried by the owner from one house to another and placed in front of any fire-place. They are sold by Smith and Welstood, Ludgate Circus.

98. Gas-stoves. Gas when employed as ordinary fuel is exceedingly expensive, being at least five or six times as dear as coal. When the gas is burned inside the oven in which meat is to be baked the vapour arising from the burnt gas renders the meat sodden and unpleasant, and quite different from the meat cooked in an ordinary oven or before the open fire.

Gas can however be used as an occasional source of heat with great economy as it is instantly lighted and put out ; there is no waste of fuel or loss of time.  The best small gas stoves are those that can be placed on a table and burn the gas mixed with air, when it produces a pale blue flame which does not smoke any vessel placed within it.  These stoves are particularly useful in heating a kettle of water in the summer time or when there are no fires in the house.

The text was produced by photographing the pages with my phone and using OneDrive's extract text feature.  Whilst I have read it through, any errors are mine not the original author's.