KATURAL GAS. 
4i 
more susceptible to changed pressure conditions than heating oper- 
ations. 
It may not be amiss to emphasize that the time element in many 
cooking operations is of much more importance than intensity. 
WHAT IS USABLE NATURAL GAS PRESSURE. 
The pressures carried by most natural gas companies have been too 
high for efficient service. This has had the further undesirable fea- 
ture of teaching the consumer to believe that he was not receiving 
service unless the gas could be heard hissing through the orifice in 
the gas mixer. It has been demonstrated that 1 — 
1. Satisfactory cooking operations in frying potatoes, boiling pota- 
toes, frying beefsteak, and pan-broiling beefsteak can be carried on 
with 0.2 ounce natural gas pressure. This merely requires that the 
short flame and cooking vessel be brought together. The changes in 
vessel position necessary to permit satisfactory operation at pres- 
sures as low as 0.2 ounce are easy to make, require no special changes 
in existing stoves, and consist merely, with drilled burners, in placing 
three nails in three of the drilled holes, and, with slotted burners, of 
placing three small pieces of tin in three of the slots, in order to 
support the cooking vessel at the proper distance from the burner, 
and close enough so that the short flame can do effective work. 
2. Better results are obtained with pressures in the neighborhood 
of 2 ounces than at 4 ounces. 
3. Less ga,s is used at pressures in the neighborhood of 2 ounces 
than at 4 or 5 ounces. 
4. Manufactured gas range gives better results than natural gas 
range because the former is designed for low pressures. 
5. There is very little difference in the time required to carry on 
cooking operations with pressures of from 1 to 5 ounces. 
Therefore, if the consumer will use proper appliances, satisfactory 
cooking operations can be carried on with pressures as low as 0.2 
ounce and the gas passing through the meter will perform a usable 
service. 
With heating appliances, if the mixer is properly adjusted the com- 
bustion at low pressures can be made substantially as thorough as at 
high pressures, and the consumer can have the benefit of all the heat 
generated by the burning gas, although if the pressure is low he will 
invariably not have nearly as much as he would like to have or as he 
needs. However, all of the gas measured by the meter and burned in 
the heating appliance is used for a useful service, so far as it goes, 
although under extreme low pressure conditions there is not enough 
to give all consumers all they want. 
1 Ohio State University Bulletin, vol. 22, No. 28, May, 1918 : Effect of Gas Pressure 
on Natural Gas Cooking Operations in the Home. 
