November, 19 19 
35 
PLANNING FOR ELECTRIC EQUIPMENT 
A Conversation that Can Be Heard in Any Family Today that Contemplates Building 
<‘T T THEN planning a home,” said Mr. 
VV Householder, thoughtfully, “foresight 
is better than future regrets.” 
“Yes,” chimed in his wife cheerily, “and we’d 
better make out a little schedule right now.for 
our architect of what we will want in the way 
of lights and appliances, for electric service 
in the home is a 20th Century household neces¬ 
sity. I may have a good maid at present, but 
in case she marries or leaves to care for a sick 
relative, I want to be prepared.” 
“Suppose we begin with the living room, 
then,” continued Mr. Householder, who had 
provided himself with numerous helps such 
as “Houses Easily Wired for Electricity,” 
“Why Is an Outlet,” “New Light for the 
Home” and similar booklets. With pencil in 
hand and a pad in front of him he made quick 
notes as he spoke: 
“It is essential that there be several side- 
wall outlets, a ceiling outlet for lights and two 
or more baseboard or wall receptacles to pro¬ 
vide connection for piano lamps, electroliers 
or some appliance.” 
E really could dispense with the ceiling 
outlet, if we had one of those beautiful 
new portables that light an entire room,” sug¬ 
gested his wife. “Such lamps have a special 
adapter which produces the usual art lamp 
effect of a softly lighted shade, or lights the 
whole room at will.” 
Lights the whole room!” exclaimed Mr. 
Householder with an incredulous smile. 
“Oh, yes; you see, dear, they have an in¬ 
direct lighting reflector concealed inside the 
shade and it has the power of flooding the 
entire room with clear, ample light. It is 
called illumination from a concealed source,” 
she concluded with a touch of triumph in her 
voice. “I saw such a lamp today and I learned 
a good deal about lighting from the gentleman 
who showed me the lamp. It is beautiful 
and—” 
“I know that women always like some spe¬ 
cial artistic effect in living rooms,” said Mr. 
Householder, “but we’d better include a ceil¬ 
ing and some sidewall lights controlled by a 
sidewall switch placed beside the door where 
Ave enter most frequently.” 
“Well,—all right,” acceded his wife cheer¬ 
fully, “but don’t forget that I should like that 
lamp for a present in preference to that an¬ 
tique bracelet you promised me.” 
“I'll make a mental note of that,” returned 
Mr. Householder, “but meanwhile in this liv¬ 
ing room, there should be a spare baseboard 
receptacle for occasional use of a fan in sum¬ 
mer, a cigar-lighter—” 
“And don’t forget something more impor¬ 
tant to me than a cigar-lighter, and that is, an 
•electric cleaner and a floor polisher.” 
“Very well,” said the husband, very busy 
with his notes. 
“In the lower hall,” he continued, “switch¬ 
ing facilities are of the greatest importance. 
We want a switch near the front door, to turn 
on lights for us when we come in late and 
another at the stairs to turn out lights when 
we go up to the second floor.” 
“And we want to be able to throw on the 
GRACE T. HADLEY 
Society for Electrical Development 
porch light as soon as the door is opened.” 
“I have it all right here,” said Mr. House¬ 
holder, “my booklet says: ‘The lights of both 
lower and upper halls should be equipped 
with three-way switches, in order that the low¬ 
er hall may be illuminated from the head of 
the stairs, and the upper hall may be illumi¬ 
nated from the foot of the stairs.’ That’s what 
we want, so this is the note I made: 
“Hall; ceiling outlet for 2 lamps, 50-watt 
each. Lighting of fixture A controlled by 
3-way switch at head of stairs and by 3-way 
switch at E—” 
“TTTHERE is E?” demanded his wife, 
VV peering at his sketchy plan. 
“Why, right here, where you step into the 
hall from the front door. Then I indicated 
a 3-way switch for lighting fixture in living 
room from either side of entrance.” 
“That’s all right,” she said, “but let’s get 
to the dining room now. I want a pretty 
shower fixture right over the table supple¬ 
mented by sidewall fixtures and a switch be¬ 
side the pantry door, and put this down in 
large figures and letters for the architect. I 
want to be able to use my electric grill con¬ 
veniently at the table and a percolator and 
toaster. I intend to have a wheel-tray or tea- 
cart with a plug cluster screwed onto the lower 
or under side and I want to use that tea-cart 
wherever it is convenient to serve my guests, 
either in the dining room or in the living 
room or in summer on the porch.” 
“Dear me,” said Mr. Householder, “you 
have developed quite a lot of new ideas.” 
“Well,” she admitted, “I’ve been going about 
looking at things and learning quite a lot. 
There is a model cottage on the house fur¬ 
nishing floor of a certain big building and 
I’ve been through that; and there is a sys¬ 
tematic housekeeping exhibit on the house fur¬ 
nishing floor of a big store and I’ve been to 
see that, so I have pretty definite ideas about 
what I want in our new home. Have we got¬ 
ten to our kitchen yet, because—” 
“ TT^ITCHEN,” Mr. Householder was saying 
as he scribbled, “a fixture in the center 
of the ceiling to provide general illumina¬ 
tion—” 
“And if you don’t put in a couple of side- 
wall lights the maid will stand in her own 
light,” interrupted Mrs. Housewife. 
“Kitchen,” repeated her husband, still busy 
with his pencil, “special heating outlet for 
electric range or oven, broiler, hot disc stove; 
special power current outlet for small motor 
or power table with accessories (ice cream 
freezer, coffee grinder, metal polisher, bread 
mixer, egg beater, knife sharpener, meat chop¬ 
per)—” 
“Oh, I must tell you,” interrupted his wife, 
“that at the special housekeeping exhibit I 
saw what is called ‘the bull’s eye wall switch,’ 
and it is the most convenient thing that you 
can imagine. It merely proves that it is no 
longer necessary to have all receptacles in base¬ 
boards, where one must stoop or bend over to 
connect appliances, but with this wall outlet 
one stands at ease, plugs in and a red bull’s 
eye lights up to show one that the current 
is on.” 
“That’s quite a convenience,” agreed Mr. 
Householder, “I’ll specify particularly, ‘bull’s 
eye wall switch’ in kitchen and pantry.” 
“Now let’s see,” ran on Mrs. Housewife, 
“there’s the laundry. Put down electric wash¬ 
er, electric drying cabinet, outlet for electric 
iron and on the porch opening out from laun¬ 
dry, put down outlet for porch iron.” 
“Better have a little electric light for dark 
days,” commented Mr. Householder, as he 
hastily included: “3-way switch for controlling 
center fixture. ...” 
“That’s fine,” exclaimed his wife, “the 
kitchen and laundry are the workshop of the 
home. By having plenty of good light and 
modern appliances I can operate my home 
comfortably, whether servants are to be had or 
not. Don’t forget outlet in the pantry for 
dishwasher.” 
V TE’D better get a few conveniences into 
VV the bedroom and bathroom,” suggested 
Mr. Householder. “How does this sound?— 
"Inside the doorway a wall switch con¬ 
trolling two sidewall brackets; two similar 
brackets on each side of bed; one outlet near 
bed for reading lamp, or heat pad, or electric 
cleaner, as needed. Then for bathroom, a wall 
switch controlling two 25-watt lamps, one on 
each side of dressing mirror, two wall re¬ 
ceptacles to provide for luminous radiator, hot 
water shaving mug, vibrator—and do you think 
of anything else?” 
“Oh, yes,” said his wife brightly, “an elec¬ 
tric curling iron.” After a moment she added: 
“There’s the sewing room, put down outlet to 
operate sewing machine motor and some place 
to connect the small pressing iron. We’ve 
planned for the most important rooms, now— 
have we not?” 
“No,” protested her husband, “there’s the 
cellar. I want sufficient light to make it 
bright and safe in every part. I want all 
cellar lights controlled from the head of cellar 
stairs, and a little red lamp wired in to burn as 
a beacon light, and insure the cellar lights 
being turned off when not in use. That’s all, 
I guess.” 
“There’s an ice-making machine small 
enough to be practical for household use,” 
said Mrs. Housewife. 
“Well, I ve heard some of those machines 
don t work well,” retorted her husband skepti¬ 
cally. “There was an article about them in a 
recent magazine—” 
“Yes,” admitted his wife, and then with 
the air of one playing a trump card, she added: 
“And I met the lady who wrote the article at 
our club meeting and asked her all about those 
iceless ice-boxes and she said:—” 
“Yes?” expectantly from the man of the 
house. 
“ ‘Well,’ she said: ‘The recipe for making 
an iceless refrigerator is the simplest thing! 
Take any good ice box and a small machine 
consisting of a compressor, a condenser, an 
expander or refrigerating coils and you have 
an iceless frigerator,—but wait a minute,’ she 
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