MANUFACTURED GAS IN THE HOME. 
9 
GAS INDUSTRY IS RAPIDLY CHANGING. 
Due to crude fuel and operating conditions, manufactured gas 
Only as the 
must rapidly go to a lower heating value standard, 
standards are lowered will it be possible to con- 
serve the large amount of gas that is wasted 
in beehive coking operations and also curtail the 
large amount of oil that is now needlessly used 
in maintaining the candlepower or artificially 
high heating value standards. 
Gas for lighting should be used only in incan- 
descent mantle burners where the illumination 
conies from the heated mantle and not from any 
illumination properties of the gas. This is much 
more efficient and requires less gas than the old 
open-flame burner. A candlepower standard is, 
therefore, obsolete, of no value to the public, and 
should be abandoned. 
VOLUME OF GAS USED NOT ALWAYS INCREASED BY LOWER 
HEATING VALUE. 
The inevitable lowering of the heating value 
content of manufactured gas, made necessary by 
the changed operating conditions that must be 
faced, will not always increase domestic con- 
sumers’ gas consumption. Generally much more 
gas is used than is needed for various cooking 
operations; that is, unless the food will actually 
burn, the gas cock is usually wide open. This 
explains why the lowering of the heating value of 
manufactured gas has frequently enabled the con- 
sumer to get the same satisfactory service without 
any increase in the monthly bill. With a 600 
British thermal units gas the gas cock was kept 
wide open, and, for instance, when lowering to 
500 British thermal units, the gas cock was still kept wide open and 
the consumer got all of the heat needed in the cooking operation, 
and was, therefore, satisfied because the ordinary measure of gas 
performance is the finished food in the usual time and not a specific 
number of heat units for a given operation. 
TURED-GAS CONSUM- 
ERS. 
B For further discussion see Technologic Paper No. 222, entitled Relative Usefulness 
of Gases of Different Heating Value and Adjustments of Burners for Changes in Heating 
Value and Specific Gravity, U. S. Bureau of Standards, Washington, D. C. 
