The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-02-06
Crates and Furnaces in
Residences Make More
Smoke Than Factories
NO PROGRESS MADE
IN NORTHERN CITIES
Mr.. Allen Has Had Years of Expert
ence in Cincinnati, .Pittsburg and
Cleveland-More Smoke and
Less Dust, Says Jacobs

Thoroughly experienced, by long and
active service in manufacturing and In
'dustrial circles, with the production,
handling. abatement and all other feat
ures Of smoke c. S. Allen. manager of the
new machinery department of the Charles
7 Lehman comnany 1923 Powell avenue
yesterday agreed to give Birmingham
some of the benefit of his experience
Mr.. Allen since 1881 and up until three
OF four months ago made his home i'm
Cincinnati. generally agreed to be one of
the smokiest cities in the entire country
hot excepting Pittsburg or anywhere else
During that time he travelled through
Alabama and adjacent territory in the
interest of the J. A. jay & Egan CO., of
Cincinnati, woodwork and machinery
manufacturers. This company is one of
the largest manufacturing plants in the
Queen City on the Ohio and Mr.. Allen
Is thoroughly conversant with alleged
smoke abatement not only in Cincinnati
but in Pittsburg, Cleveland and many
ether cities.
Soft Coal Means Smoke
you never will get rid of smoke in
a soft coal district and do it practically.
III begin that way right off the reel. {"
stated Mr. Allen yesterday. THE smoke
made by the manufacturing plants of
Birmingham or any city is in time going
to come to a natural solution. This will
be either through the means of gas con-
yerter or else by electric power generated
at water falls. In the larger number of
cases the gas converter is going to become
the most common means of doing away
with the smoke, not only because 1t will
dc SO absolutely, but because II is going
to be proven to be far more economical
and satisfactory. However. this is not
going TO solve the smoke problem of any
city which. as | say, is I'm a soft coal dis
trict.
For every one factory of industry in
birmingham, how many residences do
you suppose there are? Each one Of the
factories makes considerable smoke, more
than is made in any one residence, and
1t is noticeable. But any one knows
there are hundreds of residences for every
factory or industrial plant. Imagine the
smoke produced by the furnaces and
CRATE fires of these hundreds of residences
coming from one smokestack, as in the
factory with which they are proper
toned. 1t is simple fact that during
the winter time the residences make many
times as much smoke as the factories. Is
the city going to put smoke consumers in
the residences? They can't and don't
think OF doing It. Yet the residences dur
ing the winter, and the winter is when
the smoke is noticed most, make many,
many times as much smoke al all the in
dustrial plants. That's the reason that
as long as soft coal is burned in these
residence CRATES and fires there will al
ways be smoke.
No Progress i'm North
They have been fighting smoke in Gin
oinnati and Pittsburg and these other
cities for years They have made no
progress. Cincinnati is Just as smoky as
ever, and she has been abatng smoke for
. years. In the last 10 years every In
ventor that thought he knew anything
at all has come forward with some kind
fcf "smolke consumer" There is no such
thing as smoke consumer. The COM
pany for which ! worked in Cincinnati
Las spent hundreds of dollars on these
machines. None of them worked. Some
lew years ago an expert examined the
plant and told them he had the exact ap-
paratus they were looking for He put
il in and they paid for it, Like the rest.
Il didn't work; they had merely been
s;ung again.
"Of course. coal can be thrown into a
frcbox. all drafts shut off. the coal coked
and the smoke burned. But you can't run
a boiler that way. You've got to have
draft to generate steam in boiler, and
any fire with draft TO II with soft coal
as fuel Is going to smoke. and smoke
KITS. The automatic stoker Is the most
practical apparatus outside of the gas
converter But the stoker doesn't work;
the smoke rolls out just the same. To
burn the smoke as it IS made the hrebox
must be held at certain degree of tenn
perature, which is very high. Then If the
green fuel can be fed right in at the
front so that the newly made smoke must
PASS over the Goals before reaching the
flues it Will be burned. The only way ever
devised ON this theory is the chain CRATE
v hich slowly moves forward. But the
chain CRATE is impractical I'm not guess
ing, but I know from experience; I've
seen the chain CRATE and the automatic
stolSer and the various smoke CONSUME
cis' and so on In actual operation and
watched what they did. They don't work.
or they are impractical.
In the hills of the Birmingham dis
trict is bituminous coal. We've got 10
use il for fuel because it's what we've
got. We build houses out OF pine and
in Cuba they build 'em out of mahog-
any; We've got pine here and in Cuba
they've got mahogany. It's case of
using what you've got. Besides | don't
see what all this kick on stopping the
smoke is about anyhow. Smoke doesn't
hurt anybody. IL helps the laundries
and the soap factories. More good
could be done By the city commission
ers by cleaning up the street Smoke