SENSITIVE PLANT

Evening Post, Volume 55, Issue 55, 3 September 1923, Page 8

SENSITIVE PLANT

AUTOMATIC TELEPHONE'S HOME

NEW BUILDING AND SPECIAL

ATMOSPHERE.

In Featherston-street,, nearly'"opposite the Railway Department's Head Office, is gradually arising the new Telephone Exchange, building,. hi which wili.. be housed the main automatic /exchange" of Wellington... Hitherto the c Featherston street side of the Government Buildings block has possessed .no architectural asset. Now, this, willbe;altered. "..■" The building' will, have three ; stories and a basement. The main, entrance will ,be on the corner :of .Featherston street and Stoui.-: street ''continuation. .1. Sieel [ stanchions and. beams will support a structure'of brick and concrete": The external walls will he of brick with cement rendering. The stairs, and floors and roof will be of reinforced, "concrete. The building is based architecturally on Eng-! hsh Renaissance Models. The'jnain entrance will face the hew railway station. The basement will contain batteryroom, power-room, heating chamber, and storage space. Ground floor:, Public office, testing-room^ examination;room, draughting-room. First floor: Accommodation for lepartmental heads and toll-room (long distance calls). Second (and top) flooy: Switch-room. A DRY-NURSING PROCESS. It is on the top floor that the automatic plant will be housed, in special fireproof conditions, with 'concrete floor and roof, and with a carefully-regulated atmosphere: This atmosphere will be secured by the use of a special air-con-ditioning plant, which: (1) will filter the air and wash it, incidentally removing the dust; (2) will also reduce the temperature of the air (by a process akin to refrigeration) to below dew point, causing'it to deposit its moisture; and finally (3) will warm, the drier air so as to increase its capacity for absorbing moisture. In this condition, the dry warm, air will be drawn, through the switch-room in a steady (possibly imperceptible) current^ drying the automatic machinery and its wires and paraphernalia. Humid air would, conversely, deposit moisture on, the fine wires," etc., leading to those wrongl contacts and other accidents to which certain delicate electrical systems are sometimes liable if not dry-nursed. Filtration, cooling, and warming are the several stages; of treatment.! Possibly in summer the 'warming -may not be needed. Th c ' requisite is an air that will take up moisture, not deposit it.: MAN AND THE MACHINE. The fact ■ that "these' sensitive instruments of the automatic exchange require a a atmosphere of their own—constant in temperature and with a fixed, mois-ture-limit—indicates what a hot-house affair civilisation is'becoming, in its mechanical expressions as well as in' its human factor, r But. it pays rto "coddle 1? telephone instruments that are both; deaf ,and dumb, and also (so it is promised) entirely efficient. Particular atmospheric conditions form part of the price -of automatic efficiency....: Men and women must adapt themselves, to-the moisture and temperature changes of the. Wellington atmosphere 'or' get out. Highly specialised machinery can-insist on its own terms. . .

The contract for the building was let to Messrs. Fletcher Bros, for £31,331.