THE BATHS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 19 October 1914, Page 7

THE BATHS.

QUESTION OF TEMPERATURE

Reporting to the Council on the question or the heating of the baths, the. borough Engineer said: "The tern£ Ul'l 11 10 a-m- in several Par^ ot the baths averaged 50 deg." i'ahr. bteam was then turned on andniainta ned, and the temperature was again taken at 4p.m. The average tempera--tuie was tnen 55 degrees, showing" a of* ? de Z™eS> or ' say.'2* degrees at mid-day. An average temperature .■or 2J degrees is not a sufficient improvement upon .one of 50 degrees. For comfortable bathing a temperature of /l>. degrees m spring weather is desirable Doubtless this could he improved by keeping men in attendance .on--tae boiler during the night, but the. cost would be considerable. - I do not expect any success in attempting to heat the water of the bath by means of surplus steam from the tar yard. I f ear j^ t fc e resu i ts be uncertain unless the baths were roofed over and maintained at a comfortable temperature, for the reason that the cold winds would blow on the surface of the water and rob it of the heat it gained from the pipes. Departing from the engineering aspect, it seems reasonable, to suppose that the baths should be. either guaranteed to be always of j a certain temperature or else no at- ! tempt should bo made to heat them in"' a haphazard fashion. If, for instance, I bathers find that one .day the water ' is endurable and the next day they find it too cold it is fairly certain that no satisfaction will be felt and the baths would scarcely gain in popularity. To ensure proper comfort to bathers in spring time or in cold weather the baths- would require to, be roofed over and proper heating arrangements provided, the latter being capable of- heating the water in a few j hours in order that night attendance could be avoided. The cost of proper heating arrangements would run into about £250, and the roofing of the baths would cost a few hundreds extra."-