" HOW TO HEAT THE HOME "
SIR,—Mr. Bossom has done scant justice in his article on "How to Heat the Home " to the. excellent report on " Domestic Fuel Policy." He selects a very few figures which are liable to be most misleading. In stating the domestic fire's efficiency of 20 per cent. or less he is taking the lowest figure found in pre-war appliances, and fails to point out that neither gas nor electricity can claim a very much higher efficiency expressed in terms of coal as the raw material for those fuels. Recently developed domestic fires show a markedly higher percentage efficiency, and can burn raw coal with a very noticeable reduction in smoke emission. Mr. Bossom claims for district heating -plants a working efficiency of 85 per cent.. on bituminous coal, but he omits to explain—that even pre-war types of independent domestic boilers had an average efficiencyl of 6o per cent. on smokeless fuels ; neither does Mr. Bossom reveal how' much of his district heating plant efficiency is 'ultimately available after adequate allowance has been made for transmission losses.
Mr. Bossom confines his advocacy of district heating plants to the supply of heat and hot water for the home, but he says nothing at all about cooking. Surely he must be aware of the very high efficiency of new types of multiple-duty units which provide in one appliance the means of space-heating, hot water and cooking—not forgetting the important amenity of the open fire. It is well known that, even if a case could be made out for district heating plants, it would be impossible for all the domestic cooking to be done on gas or electric cookers. The relative capital costs per dwelling have been ignored. Nothing whatever has been said about the Very important recommendation in the "Domestic Fuel Policy" report regarding increased production of smokeless fuels with the object of eliminating bituminous coal entirely from our homes in the next twenty years. Even where district heating schemes are prac- ticable, desirable and economical, the major problem is to bring about improved conditions in existing urban area where we are already too far committed to independent arrangements to contemplate—at any rate at this stage—such a radical upheaval ; in blitzed areas where rebuilding will frequently involve small housing schemes and to a great extent in rural areas where district services are, of course, quite out of the question.
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