The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1917-09-17
EASY TO SAVE
THIRD OF COAL
BILLS SAYS HYDE
Means of Cutting Fuel Ex-
pense and Preve nting
Shortage Given.
BY HENRY M. HYDE

Coal. Everybody knows it Is high
priced and hard to get. Winter ap-
proaches, when an empty coal bin
means trouble. What is to be done
about it?
Suppose you live in six-room frame
cottage---if your establishment Is larg-
er or smaller the same advice goes.
Perhaps you bought the house on
the installment plan. price with lot.
$4,000 The building measures a0x35
feet on the ground and the studding
measures IS feet.
The house is heated with hot water
Go down to the basement and look at
the heating apparatus. The chances
are that neither the hot water boiler or
the pipes running from it are covered
with asbestos or any other insulating
material. Therefore the heat produc-
ed by burning the coal has been radi-
ating freely.
Chance to Save.
II your total consumption Of coal has
been fifteen tons year. you may put
1t down as a practical certainty that
to cover the boiler and pipes with in.
sulating material would cut down the
amount OF coal necessary to twelve
tons a year. In other words to in
stall insulation on the heating apparat
tus would save three tons of coal this
year and every succeeding year. Get
an estimate and figure 1t against the
cost Of three tons Of coal, multiplied
by as many years as you think the in
sulation will last.
Look now at the smoke pipe. 1t
probably has only single damper II
that is true, to have a double damper
put in will make an appreciable saw
ing in the coal consumption. Combns-
ton will be more perfect and gases
now carried up the chimney will be
burned.
Look to the Attic.
Jump from the basement to the at
tic of your cottage. II you have never
been up there before, you will prob
ably find there is no floor to walk on.
You will have to carefully pick your
way from one loose board to another.
laid on top of the rafters when the
carpenters finished the job. The at
tic is dark, except for rays Of light that
stream in along the caves, which the
carpenters didn't take the trouble to
seal up.
Tie floor Of the attic consists of
merely a single layer of lathing and
plaster. 1t will not do much to retard
the upward radiation of heat from the
floor below, particularly when one
considers the amount of coal air which
enters the attic through the openings
along the caves.
II you will buy about $40 worth of
heavy building paper and lay or have
laid a double thickness of the paper
over the entire attic surface. batten-
ing the paper down with lath to the
tops of the exposed joists, you will
save at least two tons of coal this win
ter and each succeeding winter. If
you will spend enough money to buy
regular insulating quilt half an inch
thick and apply it in the same way, the
saving will be three tons year.
Save Six Ton Of Coal.
BY making these changes in the
equipment Of your Notwithstanding
the heating apparatus and stopping the
escape of heat through your attic
you will find that it is necessary to
buy and burn only nine tons OF coal,
instead Of fifteen each winter.
The installation Of storm windows
and of weather stripping around doors,
windows, and all outside openings IN
the house will further increase the
saving in coal consumption.
The question is not whether you can
afford to make these improvements.
With coal at it's present price, can you
afford not to make them?
Moving from six-room cottage to
an apartment house or a tall office
building, the proper stocking of a
steam plant becomes more important.
100000 Tons Wasted.
The pouring Of dense clouds of black
smoke out Of the stacks of heating and
power plants used to be considered
symbol of prosperity. 1t is now known
10 be proof Of the waste of fuel.
Each year the United States digs
some 60O,000.000 tons of coal. The
United States bureau OF mines-the
highest authority on the subject--es-
Inmates that at least % percent of that
amount Of 50,000,000 tons are annual
ly wasted, chiefly by improper stocking
and by the lack of insulating material.
Almost every consumer of coal in
the United States could cut down his
fuel bill at least one quarter--probably
nearly one half--by making the i'm
provap,epfc