LABOR SAVERS

Evening Star, Issue 19615, 22 July 1927, Page 2

LABOR SAVERS

ideal electric house NO UNNECESSARY WORK Tho sort of labor-saving homo which sensible people have in view is not tho fantastic all-mechanical affair that some would have us believe. It is quite impossible to reduce domestic labor to a mere matter of pushing buttons. For example, an electric kettle affords the simplest and easiest means of boiling water, hut even an electric kettle must ho filled, connected up, and switched on.

The real purpose of electricity in the homo is to abolish unnecessary labor. Electricity simplifies. It enables the housewife to do in one minute and with little effort what would otherwise require ten minutes and a good deal of effort. This is the ideal of the ideal home—the ideal home that people see at exhibitions and so seldom see elsewhere (says sn English writer). No one can visit such exhibitions without being struck by the contrast between the convenience of ideal homes and tho inconvenience of tho ordinary homes that one lives in or visits. One reason is that many of the gadgets in an “ ideal homo ” are very pretty to look at, but may nat he of much real good in day-by-day use. Another —and the main reason —is that most of us are obliged to live in such homes as we can find — homes designed and built, in more or less conventional fashion, possibly many years ago, without much thought of ideal this and ideal that. What the housewife really wants, consequently, is something to ease the work of the ordinary home. It is of no uso talking to her of parquet flooring, rounded corners,, central heating, and other affairs which really mean a new house to begin with. It is one thing to he able to build a home according to one’s heart’s desire; it is quite another to live according to one’s heart’s desire in an ordinary homo. In suggesting electricity as an aid to the housewife, we need not tease her with an impracticable vision of a pushbutton home. All we do here is to point out how electricity saves labor day by day. Take lighting, for example. Electric light involves no labor beyond the perfectly simple action of switching _ the lamps on or off as desired. Periodically the lamps and fittings should he cleaned—tho metal fittings hy_ being dusted, and the glassware of fittings or lamps by being wiped with a damp cloth, and then. with a dry one. There is no form of light which involves less labor. Then, again, take tho heating of the home. There is a very deeply set feeling in this country in favor of the open stove. Tho chimney piece has been an architectural feature in all houses since the open fire in tho middle of tho hall, with the smoke floating up to the rafters, was abolished and the chimney was introduced. In many of tho smaller modern houses it is the custom to provide one open grate for a coal or wood fire, and to furnish other rooms with onn electric fire.

Tho majority of people, therefore, are inclined to hasten slowly. Even if they have tho inclination to use electricity for purposes other than lighting, they may not see their way to spend “in one go” the money needed to equip an all-electric home, they like to sample one or two items before calling for the whole electrical programme. tho following notes are intended for people who have electric light installed and who would like to try whether electricity can help to make housework easier and more pleasant. For the uses of electricity suggested no additions to tho wiring are necessary. Many small electric appliances can he run with complete safety from the ordinary wall plug. All that tho user has to do is to connect them up and switch on. In this respect tho small electrical appliances differ from electric fires and electric cookers. Most fires and cookers take an amount of electricity that calls for larger wires than suffice to carry the current for lamps and other small appliances. When these larger wires are installed, the current useef is supplied at a lower rate than for lighting, thus making electric cooking and heating economical. The smaller electric appliances, such as irons, toasters, boiling rings, and so on, take, at the most, little more than half a unit her hour. This is, of course, more than the lamps used in a house take, but the difference is more than made up by tho fact that, while lamps are needed for hours every day, the small appliances are at work only lor a few minutes at a time. They are, in short, things for occasional use during the day. So used, they do. not swell the bills for electricity to any serious degree. And their convenience, cleanliness, and labor-saving qualities are so great that the trifling cost they entail is lost in the sense of the benefits they ccfnfer. Many housewives who are now in the happy position of possessing an allelectric home started, like many of the great business houses of to-day, in a very small way. They timidlv bought an electric iron and used it from the lamp-holder, and, quickly realising the boon'of such an appliance, went in for other similar devices, until thev became the proud owners of a real labor-saving homo

An electric fire can be switched on in an instant, and it will give its full heat before the housewife could remember where that bundle of sticks or box of matches was put. There is really no need to dilate on the labor-making qualities of the dear old coal fire—the grate denning, the raking out, the removal of the cinders, the fetchings of tho coal and wood, tho laying of the fire, tho nursing it, stoking it—the general dustiness of the whole business. The moral is that the coal fire should be used as little as possible. Perhaps tho best way in an ordinary house is to hqve a coal fire in the room which is most occupied, and to use electric fires as required in the other rooms—bedrooms, drawing rooms, and so on.

Take the case, thirdly, of cooking. Electric cookers need no preparation. They do not need even a hunt for a bos of matches. _ All one has to do for baking, roasting, grilling, stewing, or boiling is te turn on a switch. No cooker is easier to keep clean than an electric cooker. If the oven is wiped out while warm with a damp rag it will remain free from grease. During the process of cooking the electric cooker needs less attention than any other kind. Stews can be left to simmer in safety, and joints do not need to be watched. Electric cooking is cooking reduced to its simplest terms. There is. of course, a certain amount of necessary preparation in all cooking. Potatoes have to be cleaned and peeled; vegetables have to be washed; ingredients of puddings have to bo mixed, and so on. ■ In the ordinary small Idtclien each of these processes takes so little time—although, tho total time my h©

considerable—that it seems hardly Worth while using power to carry them through. ’ , For example, an electrically driven potato peeler does in half a minute what a scqllery maid would tako half an hour to accomplish; It washes the potatoes and removes tho outside skin (but not the layer with the invaluable vitamines), simply by rolling tho potatoes round in a vessel of a certain roughness. Nothing could be more admirable in its action. Where largo quantities of potatoes have to be dealt with, as in a big house, or an hotel, or a restaurant, ,q machine of this kind would repay its cost very quickly. But in an ordinary small household it might bo accounted rather a luxury.

Tho same might he said of bacon slicers, bread and butter machines, and other appliances for doing quickly what can he done only slowly by hand. Tho time to introduce a machine is when the magnitude of tho work justifies it. There are, however, small universal el.ectric ‘‘kitchen aids.” devised specially to relieve labor in tho preparation of food in the ordinary kitchen. The kitchen aid has one motor and a series of attachments, so that a number of processes can bo completed by the one machine. Dough-kneading and mixing can be carried out, and the ingredients of cakes can he rapidly raised. Eggs can be beaten; cream can he whipped. Vegetables can he chopped. Soup can bo strained. All these and other operations are done by the electric motor, the only labor involved being that of filling the container and fitting tho appropriate accessory. Akin to the kitchen aid, hut on a much smaller scalo, and with a more limited purpose, is' a tiny electric motor arranged to beat eggs, f whip cream, or mix drinks. It does perfectly in a few seconds what usually requires several minutes of quite hard work. There aro two ways of approaching a cold bath. There is the heroic way of plunging in, thus achieving the sudden immersion which gives the after-glow described by ihc doctors as the “hydrotherapeutic reaction.” _ And there is the cautious method, which proceeds by tentative toe-testing and gentle local spongings and splashings until the bather feels that he has hardened himself sufficiently to complete the process. Similarly, there are two ways of approaching the attractive ideal of an allelectric: house. One is to “go the whole hog ”at once—to put in electric light (as a matter of course, in any case), electric fires, electric cooking, electric labor-saving devices, and electric waterheating. This method yields the full benefits of “electric service” right away. But few people who do not know by experience all that electric service means in tho igme are likely to take tho plunge. And the majority of people are, familiar with onlv one aspect of electric service —that of lighting.