GAS INDUSTRY IS RAPIDLY CHANGING.”

Due to crude fuel and operating conditions, manufactured gas must rapidly go to a lower heating value standard. Only as the standards are lowered will it be possible to conserve the large amount of gas that is wasted in beehive coking operations and also curtail the large amount of oil that is now needlessly used in maintaining the candlepower or artificially high heating value standards.

Gas for lighting should be used only in incandescent mantle burners where the illumination comes from the heated mantle and not from any illumination properties of the gas. This is much more efficient and requires less gas than the old open-flame burner. A candlepower standard is, therefore, obsolete, of no value to the public, and should be abandoned.

TOTAL MANUFACTURED GAS SOLD = 100% ·

18

57

LIGHTING

UNCLASSIFIED

DOMESTIC

VOLUME OF GAS USED NOT ALWAYS INCREASED BY LOWER
HEATING VALUE.

22

INDUSTRIAL

The inevitable lowering of the heating value content of manufactured gas, made necessary by the changed operating conditions that must be faced, will not always increase domestic consumers' gas consumption. Generally much more. gas is used than is needed for various cooking operations; that is, unless the food will actually burn, the gas cock is usually wide open. This explains why the lowering of the heating value of manufactured gas has frequently enabled the consumer to get the same satisfactory service without any increase in the monthly bill. With a 600 British thermal units gas the gas cock was kept wide open, and, for instance, when lowering to 500 British thermal units, the gas cock was still kept wide open and the consumer got all of the heat needed in the cooking operation, and was, therefore, satisfied because the ordinary measure of gas performance is the finished food in the usual time and not a specific number of heat units for a given operation.

FIG.

7.

TION

CLASSIFICAOF MANUFACTURED-GAS CONSUMERS.

For further discussion see Technologic Paper No. 222, entitled Relative Usefulness of Gases of Different Heating Value and Adjustments of Burners for Changes in Heating Value and Specific Gravity, U. S. Bureau of Standards, Washington, D. C.

CLASSIFICATION OF MANUFACTURED-GAS CONSUMERS.

This is shown in graphical form in Figure 7, which shows that 75 per cent of the total gas sold is used for domestic purposes and only a small percentage of the total—namely, 18 per cent for lighting, so that 57 per cent is used for cooking, hot-water heating, and other heating purposes.

HOW GAS INDUSTRY IS RELATED TO SMOKE NUISANCE.

The verdict of hygiene in condemnation of coal smoke is: Of all enemies of national, racial, and social health I know of none which receives or ever has received so little attention in proportion to its importance.1o

Smoke comes primarily from improper burning of bituminous coal. In most residential communities the trouble is largely from house chimneys. Smoke-prevention appliances easily adapted to industrial plants—are not generally feasible in the home. Therefore smokeless fuels should be used.

The first step in the solution of the smoke problem is to educate the public to use gas correctly for cooking, hot-water heating, and incidental house-heating purposes and eliminate all soft coal use for cooking and hot-water heating purposes.

The second step is to educate the public to use coke 11 when anthracite is not available. Coke is merely the solid residue of bituminous coal after the volatile matter, which produces the smoke, has been removed; that is, it is a man-made anthracite. Saving this volatile matter in the form of by-product coke-oven gas and increasing the use of coke for house heating is necessary in order to eliminate the smoke nuisance. The proper use of gas and coke in the home will bring about the necessary public sentiment that must be crystallized in order to effectively control the industrial smoke problem.

10 For excellent discussion of hygienic aspects of the smoke nuisance see The Eugenic Prospect by Dr. C. W. Saleeby.

11 Technical Paper 242, entitled Why and How Coke Should Be Used for Domestic Heating, U. S. Bureau of Mines, Washington, D. C., 17 pages of data giving operating details on how to use coke successfully for domestic heating.

PART II.

CORRECT USE" OF MANUFACTURED GAS.

METHODS OF UTILIZATION DETERMINE QUALITY OF SERVICE PRODUCED.

Gas service is radically different from every other kind of publicutility service in that the gas can not be used by the consumer as received, but

First, must be mixed in proper proportion with another substance, atmospheric air.

Second, this mixture must then be completely burned.

Third, the flame must be so directed that the heat generated will effectively get into the food, air, water, or mantle that is being heated, with a minimum loss.

The results obtained will depend primarily on the gas-utilization appliance and the consumers' skill and care in operating. All these operating features are beyond the gas company's control, but are vital in determining the quality of the service produced by one consumer and the effect on the service of other consumers. Women, as a class, do not take easily to manual matters involving mechanical adjustments; so these facts, therefore, make obvious the need of education in the correct use of gas in the home. To meet this service situation, gas companies should give demonstrations and teach consumers correct and safe use of gas.

ABSENCE OF GAS-APPLIANCE REGULATIONS.

Much money and effort have been spent in developing and enforcing standards of gas quality. However, it has not been appreciated that the type of appliance and method of use are of much more consequence in determining the kind of service the consumer can get than the specific quality of gas delivered to the appliance.

WHAT MUST HAPPEN WHEN GAS IS BURNED.

13

The combustion-that is, the burning of manufactured gas-can take place only by first mixing the gas with the proper proportion of

12 This discussion in part is similar to the original presentation in Technical Paper 257, U. S. Bureau of Mines, entitled Waste and Correct Use of Natural Gas in the Home. 13 For further discussion see Technologic Paper No. 193, entitled Design of Atmospheric Gas Burners, U. S. Bureau of Standards, Washington, D. C.

atmospheric air. About 4 cubic feet of air must be mixed, by the gas consumer at his burning appliances, with each cubic foot of manufactured gas in order to insure perfect combustion. If not enough air is mixed with the gas, the combustion will be imperfect and wasteful.

When manufactured gas is burned by complete combustion, each cubic foot of the gas will form one-half cubic foot of carbon dioxide and 1 cubic foot of steam. This carbon dioxide is the same substance that is exhaled from the lungs.

The combustion of 1,000 cubic feet of manufactured gas will form 1,000 cubic feet of water vapor or steam, which when condensed, will make approximately 4 gallons of water. It is this water vapor that causes the bakers and broilers of stoves to rust, and, when gas is used in open fires without flues, may make the walls and windows "sweat."

WHAT MAY HAPPEN WHEN GAS IS BURNED.

If the combustion of manufactured gas is not complete, carbon monoxide will be formed instead of carbon dioxide. This carbon monoxide is a deadly poison and, therefore, dangerous, and for this reason a room in which gas is burned should be ventilated. Although carbon monoxide itself is odorless, an offensive odor is usually produced by the improper combustion conditions that produce carbon monoxide. Therefore, an offensive odor from burning gas is an almost infallible indication of carbon monoxide generation. The poisonous action of carbon monoxide gas is so marked that one-tenth of 1 per cent is enough to in time produce fatal results. This poisonous gas is especially likely to be formed:

a. During first few minutes' operation of any automatic water heater.

b. When the inner cone of any blue flame impinges on a metal surface.

c. When a luminous flame is deflected and impinges on a cool surface.

d. When any flame is not supplied with sufficient air.

e. When a radiant fire heater is operated so that the radiants glow more than three-quarters of the distance from the bottom to the top.

COMBUSTION PRODUCTS OF GAS CAN NOT BE DESTROYED.

The inevitable products, carbon dioxide and water vapor, can not be destroyed, although the water vapor when it is cooled will condense to a liquid. There have been many claims made by manufacturers of heating devices that their devices absorb the combustion products, but all such claims are untruthful.

FLUELESS HEATING STOVES ALWAYS DANGEROUS."

There are many so-called "odorless," "smoke-consuming," and "chimneyless" gas-heating appliances in use. These are always dangerous and a positive menace to health, and ought never to be used.

The gas industry should grow and meet the increasing future demands of incidental house heating. This desirable growth, however, may be retarded by untruthful claims that flues for room and water heating devices are not needed. Much depression and lassitude of spirit, lower vitality, and hence less resisting power to the everpresent disease germs may be traced to gas fumes from flueless gasheating stoves. These vitiated room air conditions must be prevented if there is to be an increasing use of manufactured gas for heating service.

FLUELESS HEATING STOVES MORE DANGEROUS THAN FLUELESS COOK STOVES.

In the kitchen the cook stove is seldom used for more than one hour at a time. The volume of steam from the cooking food will be much greater than the volume of the combustion products from the gas, and the steam alone will make ventilation necessary.

The person in the room will be constantly moving about, with head 4 to 5 feet above the floor level, and in all probability the kitchen door will be opened several times during the cooking, thus increasing the ventilation.

In contrast with this condition, when a heating stove is used in a bedroom or bathroom, the period of use is much longer, the ventilation is less, the person in the room will be quiet with head closer to the floor, and the doors will probably, at least in the bedroom, not be opened or closed. Furthermore, a flueless stove properly adjusted at 9 o'clock in the evening, when the person goes to bed, may become a carbon-monoxide generator several hours later, due to deflection of the flame or small change in pressure, when the person is asleep. Hoods over open-top kitchen stoves, of course, are always desirable.

BLUE-FLAME BURNERS.

Manufactured gas, to be burned in large volume, must have some of the air mixed with the gas before the gas reaches the flame. This is the fundamental principle of the Bunsen or blue-flame type of burner. The air taken in to form the mixture is called the primary air, and will usually be only a small part of the total air required. The rest of the air necessary for complete combustion, called the sec

14 During the first 10 weeks of the winter in 1922 and 1923 there were 81 asphyxiations from flueless gas stoves in Ohio, of which 34 were fatal. All of these accidents would have been prevented by the use of proper flues. On Dec. 8, 1922, the Ohio State Department of Health issued a radio broadcast warning on this subject.