The consumption of watts in the electric stove is a very vital question. Watts are the unit of electric power, just as you speak of 50 cubic feet of gas in measuring gas consumption. The unit of figuring the cost is not on the watt--because a watt is too small a figure but of the unit of one thousand watts, which is the kilowatt. So you call the unit of fuel consumption the kilowatt hour and you say the average stove consumes about one kilowatt hour per person per day. If a burner consumes 800 watts it means you will be charged ⁸⁰⁰⁄₁₀₀₀ of a kilowatt per hour. According to the size of heating elements, the wattage of stoves runs from 10,000 watts or 10 kilowatts (which is the same thing) to about 2500 watts, or 2¹⁄₂ kilowatts on a small three-heating-unit range. This gives its total capacity if everything goes at once. It is a little more intelligent for the housewife to read her meter than not to. So here is how it is done: There are four little dials, which you read from right to left, the opposite manner of reading this page. The first dial measures the tens, the second the hundreds, the third the thousands, the fourth the ten thousands. Therefore, the total is found by adding all the figures at which the dials point and always reading the lowest number which the dial approximates. But you must always substract your last month’s record from this, of course, to get this month’s average; and this amount multiplied by your electricity rate would give you what your bill should be. After all, the cost is the paramount thing in your purchasing and calculations as to purchasing. The electric stove is, on the whole, more expensive than the ordinary cook stove. The fuel cost varies, as has been said before, with the locality in which you happen to live. In many places the electric companies have made a cooking rate much lower than the lighting rate. In such localities where the electricity is but from 1¹⁄₂ to 2 cents, the electricity as fuel is almost equal in cost to gas at one dollar. It has been generally admitted that, with care as to fuel consumption, a kilowatt hour per day is consumed by each individual in the house. If you have to pay three cents per kilowatt hour and you have six persons in the house, your electricity will cost you about eighteen cents per day. In the large, weighty and “watty” stoves the consumption of electricity is about 2 kilowatt-hours per day per person, but on the stock ranges not weighing over 300 pounds with a comparative low wattage (compared with the 1200-pound made-to-order range) the average is, as was said before, but one kilowatt-hour per person per day. One firm, computing 4.2 persons to average a family, states that in the use of 26,180 ranges the cost was $4.06¹⁄₄ per month per family. The value of electric cooking is not in the low cost of fuel but in the saving of labor, food conservation, cleanliness, comfort and mental or psychological delight in the shipshape and orderly method.