Heating, cooking, and hot water supplies for the post-war house : a summary of the views of the Women's Advisory Committee on Solid Fuel.

Date:
1944
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Heating, cooking, and hot water supplies for the post-war house : a summary of the views of the Women's Advisory Committee on Solid Fuel. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    a? very welcome. There is a far greater incentive to spend evenings and to cook meals at home if the living room is found warm and well aired on returning from work. Immediate availability for use in the early morning is another important advantage of the continuously burning unit. (iv) Flats Collective central heating and hot water supply can most easily be provided in flats from a central, automatically stoked boiler in each biock. Where the use of solid fuels is desired in individual flats the question of delivery and storage calls for special care on the part of planners. 38 Be 40 41 Only general recommendations on the subject of appliances can be put forward in this Report. Builders of new houses can make their own choice from the types mentioned in Appendix XI. We consider it a fundamental necessity that all appliances offered for installation in new or reconditioned houses should first be tested by an independent body, and certified to reach the standards of performance laid down by an appropriate authority. We attach great importance to the elimination from the market of faulty and badly designed appliances. This is possible only if the makers are prepared to submit voluntarily to a general system of testing and certification, or if the Government— or the coal industry—insists upon their doing so. While, of course, individual appliances cannot be tested separately owing to the heavy cost, any type sanctioned by housing authorities, for purchase and installation in either new or reconditioned houses, should be subjected to stringent tests for performance, workmanship and general suitability. We understand that a Committee is preparing standards of per- formance of solid-fuel appliances, and we hope that these will be set as high as is feasible in the light of present-day technical knowledge and experience, and will be adopted as British Standards for general use. One of the reasons for the presence of out-of-date solid-fuel appliances in present-day houses is the fact that they are usually built in. Not only are they difficult to renew, but they are Jandlord’s fixtures. We strongly recommend that the self-setting type of solid-fuel appliance (see para. 29), especially for cooking, should in future be used in all houses. In the case of houses for sale, such appliances could be exchanged to suit the owner’s preference. This does not, however, meet the case of the subsidy house, with which this Report is chiefly concerned. Nevertheless, we believe that a self-setting appliance would be more readily renewed when it became obsolete than are present-day built-in ranges and fires.
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