The Norfolk weekly news-journal., 1910-01-07
formed to 40 and 22o for entrance to

formed to 10 and 900 for entrance to
the consumers premises"
Mr.. Bullock said further. "The ma.
chinery was at that time much too
large for the load we had, and though
our conditions were such that we were
not operating at any kind of profit,
the service which we soon extended
to twenty-four hours was the most sat
isfactory in the state at that time, and
we were gaining customers, not rap
idly, but at a healthy rate, in two or
three years after the installation of
this unit Still, we did not have suf-
ticient load to operate economically.
Soon after this we changed our
selling policy-turned the supply and
wiring departments over to a local
contractor and started an advertising
campaign in The News "a policy
which at that time was comparatively
new and untried. It's success was al
most instantaneous, and we soon saw
that we were not only taxing ourselves
financially Git costs about 500 to con-
meet up a customer) but that it would
You may appreciate the results of this
policy when we state that in sixty
days we connected up seventy.five
houses. The education of the people
to the many modern uses of electricity
through our ad in The News resulted
in so much new business at once that
we were swamped-that was all. A
tl,at IL, b.
carry the December peak load of this
year it would be necessary to have a
complete new plant. We decided to
install the very best apparatus pro-
curable and, owing to developments
in the industry, a plant which would
manufacture current economically and
enable us to maintain the low rates
we had established after the policy Of
larger successful companies.
1--WE purchased a large DeLaval
steam turbine directly connected to
two General Electric alternators, the
only unit of the kind in the state out.
side of Omaha and Lincoln. This ma
chine operates condensing - that is,
the exhaust steam is condensed and
fed back to the boilers. In order to
do this it was necessary to have a
water supply of 500 gallons per min
ute. Engineers told us that we could
procure this from wells near our power
house and had this been true we would
have had our plant successfully in
stalled and in proper working order
last June, but after much costly eX.
perimenting we found that we could
not get sufficient water from a well
near our power station, and 1t was
necessary for us to run pipe line to
the river. This line Is part of the
way more than eighteen feet deep, and
even by paying exorbitant wages it
was not possible to get a sufficient
number Of men to work in the freez-
ing water to finish the work before our
December load was on us. This we
have just recently completed and our
next work was to learn the proper on.
Grafton of the turbine under our condi-
tions. Though our engineers are the
best obtainable, this was no simple
task, as may be easily understood from
the fact that man sent out to us
from the manufacturer fell down. We
finally mastered this, however but not
until we had several Interruptions of
the service, which no doubt lost us
several friends who could not be ex-
pected to understand the circum-
stances"
Mr.. Bullock then stated something
of the future plans of the company.
AT the present time two large water
tube boilers are being made for us at
Oil City, Pa, which have an overload
capacity of 1O00-horsepower at 200
pounds pressure. These will be ship,
ped this month. They will stand TWEEN
ty feet high and will necessitate the
complete rebuilding of our power
house, which will at that time be made
completely tireproof and will present
very pleasing appearance to the
passer-by. With this new plant we
will be able to operate more econom.
ically, and give the people of Norfolk
service which will be unrivalled by