Evening star., 1951-12-17
, North American Newspaper Alliones

just when Christmas shopping
sets in. you're slugged with the
years biggest fuel bills.
You ought to look around for
ways to cut down. according to
Changing Times. the Kiplinger
magazine. You can cut down just
by checking UP on your house,
your heating plant and your
habits.
Check the house first. It's q
box to hold heat. Without insu-
lation, it leaks.
Money spend for insulation may
come back to you mighty fast
In a test home at the University
OF Illinois. insulation and storm
windows made a IS per cent saw
ing in fuel burned. Another test
showed "a cents of every fuel
dollar was wasted in an uninsu-
lated home. On an annual fuel
bill of 5000. that means $68 a
year. for waste.
Windows Waste More.
It's best TO insulate when you
build, but you can insulate q fin
lShed home. For instance, min
eraI wool can be blown into the
space between studs. Insulation
that comes in bats or blankets
can be laid between joists.
Don't forget those built-in heat
waSterS, the doors and windows.
A window loses about four times
as much heat as an uninsulated
wall space of the same size.
Double-glazed windows, made of
two sheets of glass, with a dead
air space between, are one an
swer. Storm windows are another.
If you don't buy either, be sure
to calk or putty all the crevices
and put in weather stripping.
Where you should insulate. and
how much you should spend to
get the most for your money. is a
highly individual problem. Better
get heating engineer to do the
computing.
Check Heating Plant, Too.
Then talk to your banker. He'll
see that insulation will make your
house more salable. or easier to
rent. help you meet the monthly
mortgage payments and reduce
fire hazard. Perhaps you can get
an FHA-insured home-improve-
ment loan to do the job. Your
lender can give details.
Check your heating plant.
Ideally. your heating system
should give steady flow of
warmth. just balancing the heat
loss. and keeping all the rooms at
q comfortable, even temperature.
Few home-heating plants attain
that ideal Many overhead the
house, then let it get too cool,
toasting you and chilling you by
turns.
To smooth out the heating cycle,
you must understand your system
and its controls. Suppose you have
an automatic forced-air furnace ;,
fired by gas or oil. 1t has three
controls: The room thermostat, a
switch to turn the blower on and
off and safety switch that shuts
off the burner when the air.
heating chamber reaches a Ger
tain limit.
Heating is Uneven.
OF the three. the therInostat Isl
easiest to use. You just set the
dad TO- the temperature you want. |
It's, the other two controls that
can even out the too-hot, toe cold
cycle. When the thermostat calls
for heat they determine how long
the furnace burns before the fan
starts, how hot the air gets l.efore |
the burner shuts off, how long the
fan keeps going afterward to
empty the air chamber.
You get uneven heating because
the house keeps cooling off N the
interval between the thermostat's
can for heat and the moment the
fan starts blowing warm air
through the ducts. If the interval
is too long, you get cool SPELL
There is another lag after the
burner shuts off, and before the
fan stops. If this period is too
long, you get more heat than
you want.
You pay extra for both in-be-
tween periods. It's expensive to
heat a house that gets too cold.
and wasteful to put out more
heat than you need.
Other Adjustments Available.
To correct the unevenness. you
can adjust the fan pulley to make
it turn slower. thus taking more
time to blow out the hot air, and
you can reset the fan and safety
switches so that the fan comes
on before the air chamber gets
too hot, and shuts off before it
gets too cool. The burner will
be on oftener for shorter periods,
but you save, in the end, because
you overhead and underheat less.
Similar adjustments can be
made In other types of heating