The placing of the lights and the careful use of them would do much to
lessen the bill for current--a fact proved to me when we let our house
one winter to a family of the same size, who used the same number of
rooms as we had used. The bill for light was sent in to us, and thus
we discovered that it was just double what ours had been for the same
quarter the year before.
I put this down to the fact that basement and passage lights must have
been burned when not needed, and that instead of using one or two table
lamps when reading and writing in the evening all the wall lights were
lighted.
To Avoid Waste of Current.
The staircase lights should be on two-way switches, so that they can
be controlled from each floor--that is to say, from the hall you can
switch on the hall and first-floor lights. From the first floor you
can switch off the hall and light the second floor, and so on up the
house, the reverse process taking place in descending. If the lights
are installed in this way it is not necessary to keep all the staircase
lights burning, as is done in so many houses; the extra cost of
installing is trifling.
In bedrooms where there are two or three lights in addition to a
table-lamp at the side of the bed it is advisable and convenient to
have at least one of the lights in a two-way switch.
As regards the candle-power of the various lamps, so much depends on
the size and decoration of the room and the individual tastes of the
occupiers as regards the standard of illumination that it is impossible
to give any useful guide on this subject. Naturally the lowest
available candle-power lamps will be fitted in passages, bathrooms,
bedroom table-lamps, etc., but the smallest wire-drawn filament lamps
will in many cases be found to be more than is necessary. Owing to the
construction of these lamps, they have so far not been made lower than
16 candle-power for 200 volts, which is a common pressure in towns,
but to compensate for this it must be borne in mind that a 25 c.p.
metal filament lamp consumes about the same current as an 8 c.p. carbon
filament lamp, and it is undoubtedly only a question of time before
lamps of smaller candle-power and taking less current are put on the
market.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XLII_
A BREAKFAST COOKER FOR TOASTING, GRILLING AND BOILING
(The British Electric Transformer Co.)]
[Illustration:
_PLATE XLIIa_
A TOASTER FOR THE BREAKFAST TABLE
You do not need to ring for more toast but make it yourself and eat it
while hot and crisp.
(The British Electric Transformer Co.)]
[Illustration:
_PLATE XLIIb_
A PRETTY LITTLE ELECTRIC HOT PLATE FOR TABLE USE
(The British Electric Transformer Co.)]
Makes of Lamp.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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