A manual of home-making

It is desirable for the housetiolder to read the aieter at the time it is read l)y the meter man, and to keep a record of the readings and the dates, in order to have the means of checking the bill rendered l>y the company. When the bill for electric current seems unduly high, the meter is often first suspected; in reality" it is usuall^^ the/last thing to blame. Some of the reasons for higher bills are as follows: 1. Cloudy or rainy weather, requiring use of light in daylight hours. 2* Additional lamps may have been installed, or small lamps may have been replaced by larger ones. 3, Old dim lamps may be in use; in order to secure sufficient iMiunination more of them must be lighted than would be nee- 150 A MANUAL OF HOME-MAKING L essary if lamps in good rontlition were iisetl. A dim lamp takes practically as much current as a new one, and m very wasteful to use. Willi lamps in gtx^d condition, the light will not be efhciently produced if the electric company allows the vol- tage to he low. Ill thi.s connect ion if may Ijc well to state that the tungsten lamp has been improved in quality and reduced in price to such an extent that no customer can afford to use carbon lamps. Many hous(4ioIdei*s cling to the use of carbon lami>3 because they are usually supplied frc^. The folly of this course may be realized from the following statement: The cost of a lamp is reckoned in cents, but the cost of the energy t^ operate it during its life is a matter of dollars. The energy cost for a tungsten lamp is only about one-third tliat of the carbon lamp, 4. Lamps are sometimes loft burning for days in attics, closets, and other out-of-the-way places. 5. Electric laundry irons, toasters, or other heating devica*? may have been placed in service or us<h1 more than in former months. Motor-tlriven devices may have been installed. Many devices which are operated through Hexilile corti from a lamp socket take very much more power than any lamp which would be used in the household. If is often erroneously believed that because sucli devices can t>e operateii from a socket they require no more power tlian a lamp. The extent of this error may lie realized from the statement that a six-pound laundry iron takes as much i>ower as twenty tungsten lamps of about 20 candle* power each. 6. Defective wiring may allow current to flow when no lights or other devices are in use, ?• When electric elevators or electrically driven machinery 13 used and not properly oiled and cared for» excessive friction may result, with a correspondiog waste of power and increase in the bill for electric current, 8. An error may be made by the conipany's meter reader, so that the bill rendered is too high or too low\ If it is too high, the bill for the following month will be low by the same amount, if the meter is then read correctly, so that the consumer will not usually lose anything in the end. When a minimum monthly I I I I I HOUSEHOLD MEASUREMENTS AND THEIR USE 15 1 charge h matle by the company, the consumer may losf\ Hence, if an error has apparently been matie by the meter reader, the company should be reiiucstcd to investigate the matter aod to render a corrected bill if an error is found* MEIABURING WATER Hou^ to read a water jnekr. Meters for measuring water for domestic use are usually