40 
House & Garden 
TWENTY MILLION FUEL-SAVERS IN AMERICA 
How to Keep the Home Fires Burning and Still Get the Maximum of Heat 
and Power Out of Every Shovelful of Coal 
Prepared for House & Garden by the United States Fuel Administration 
M ORE than a million men are in F'rance. 
They are there to fight our fight. 
Here in America 20,000,000 householders 
are in the fight. They, too, are battling with 
an enthusiasm that knows no equivocation or 
hesitation. They are fighting to conserve every 
commodity our fighting men in the fields and 
trenches shall require of us. 
Of all the commodities our country needs 
now to provision its fighting men, none is so 
vital as coal. In times of peace it has been 
an axiom that coal moves the world: in war 
times it is unanswerably true that coal is the 
motive power which moves ships and trains 
transporting supplies and soldiers, that it turns 
almost every wheel of industry producing sup¬ 
plies. Moreover, coal preserves the health of 
the fighting power of the vast army of domestic 
laborers and producers. 
Seven hundred and thirty-five million net 
tons will be required to satisfy the demands of 
the present coal year if America is to protect 
her soldiers, her Allies and her civilians. 
Seven hundred thousand miners are working 
under tremendous pressure in the coal mines of 
the country to bring forth a record output of 
coal. Under the stimulus of the Fuel Ad¬ 
ministration’s measures the production has 
broken all records. But the demand for fuel 
to fill the ravenous maw of the war machine 
grows so rapidly as to outstrip even the record 
production now coming from the mines. The 
work of the miners must be supplemented by 
the elimination of every wastful and unneces¬ 
sary use of coal, if the war need is to be met. 
We, the householders, are as hotly in the 
fight as are the miners. Our share will be sup¬ 
plied from our saving of coal. 
To run his furnace in such manner as to 
save every possible pound of coal, the heating 
experts of the United States Fuel Administra¬ 
tion advise the householder that the interior of 
his furnace be cleaned and kept clean through¬ 
out the year. Every two weeks, soot should be 
completely removed. The furnace operator 
might as well lavish his coal on heating ten 
inches of iron as to use it to heat even one 
one-hundredth of an inch of soot. 
To coal and fire his heater, the experts ad¬ 
vise: 
General Rules for Furnaces and 
I Kitchen Ranges 
1. Be sure there is a check-draft damper in 
the smoke-pipe besides the turn-damper. This 
check-draft damper is as important in con¬ 
trolling the rate at which the fire burns as is 
the throttle of an engine. Open it to check 
the fire. Close it to make the fire bum more 
rapidly. Work it. Experiment with it in the 
daily regulation of your fire. The coaling- 
door was not put on the furnace to be used as 
a check-damper. Never open the coaling-door 
to check the fire. If you cannot check the fire 
without opening the coaling-door, you need 
proper dampers. 
2. The turn-damper should fit the smoke- 
pipe loosely and must never be entirely closed. 
With the average plant it may be kept partly 
closed most of the time in mild weather, but 
during severe fveather it usually needs to be 
opened wide. 
735,000,000 net tons of coal will be required to 
satisfy the demands of the present coal year 
if America is to protect her soldiers, her 
Allies and her civilians. 
It is up to the 20,000,000 householders of 
America to conserve their coal and get the 
maximum of heat and power from it. 
This article tells you how. 
3. Make use of the lift or slide-damper in 
the coaling-door only to let oxygen in to con¬ 
sume gases, if you are using soft or bituminous 
coal, after fresh fuel has been added. 
4. Just enough draft and that from below, 
checking the draft by letting more air into the 
smoke-pipe, is one of the best general rules. 
This furnishes oxygen from below, necessary 
for the consumption of the coal-gases, and at 
the same time gives time for them to be con¬ 
sumed before being drawn up the chimney. 
This method also avoids escape of coal-gas into 
the cellar. To make the fire burn more rapid¬ 
ly, do not open the whole ash-pit door but the 
draft damper in the ash-pit door. Opening 
the whole ash pit supplies air to the fire faster 
than it is needed for combustion. The air is 
heated, passes out the chimney and is so much 
heat wasted. 
5. All heat pipes in the cellar should be 
thoroughly and completely wrapped with as¬ 
bestos or similar covering to prevent loss of 
radiation. 
6. Grates should be cared for properly. A 
short, quick stroke of the shaker handle will 
sift the ashes through the grates. Leave grates 
in flat position at all times. Keep fire pot free 
from clinkers. Clean ash pit daily, to prevent 
damage to grates. In severe weather grates 
should be shaken until a glow appears in ash 
pit. In moderate weather a bed of ashes should 
be carried on top of the grates. 
7. Avoid poking and slicing fire-bed. It 
causes draft holes and clinkers. 
8. Never shake a fire that is low until you 
have put on a little fresh coal and given it time 
to ignite. A thin fire wastes coal. Disturb the 
fire as little as possible. 
9. Storm-windows and storm-doors, weath¬ 
er-strips and such protective devices are eco¬ 
nomical of heat. They should be used. 
10. Keep the temperature of sitting-rooms 
at 68° or less, unless there are old folk, little 
children or invalids in the family, in which 
case, a higher temperature may be needed. 
Rooms where you do not sit are more com¬ 
fortable if much cooler, as a rule, providing the 
air is kept a little moist. Get a thermometer— 
a good one. Use it inside, not hanging out¬ 
doors. 
11. Keep an even temperature. It is not 
economy to allow the house temperature to drop 
way down at night. It takes just twice as much 
coal to heat it up again next morning. 
12. Turn off the heat in unused rooms as 
far as possible. Bedrooms should be kept much 
cooler than living-rooms. Don’t try to heat all 
the rooms all the time. If you have a hot- 
water heating system, make heavy radiator slip¬ 
covers and put them over radiators when not in 
use. This will prevent them from freezing. 
13. Always keep two pans or open-top jars 
of fresh water on radiator or in front of regis¬ 
ters to keep the air in the home moist. 
14. Study the Specific Rules applying to the 
system of heating used in your house. 
Rules for Hot-Air Furnaces 
1. Provide cold-air drops from upper floors 
so as to insure a return circulation from all 
rooms to the air intake of the furnace. 
2. Regulate the window of the cold-air box 
so as to avoid too great a current of outside air, 
especially on very cold days. 
3. Always keep the water container in the 
air-jacket filled with clean water. Moist air 
heats much more readily than dry air, and is 
better for health, as well as more comfortable. 
4. It is advisable to keep a jar of water 
near one of the first-floor registers that send 
out the most heat. Change the water frequent¬ 
ly, preferably every day. 
5. Hot-air pipes should have q good pitch 
upward from the furnace, and should be of 
sufficient diameter. They should also be 
wrapped with sheet asbestos. A separate pipe 
for each room with turn-damper near the fur¬ 
nace is a good rule. Each pipe should be la¬ 
beled, so that certain rooms can be shut off at 
the furnace when desired. 
6. Be sure the fire-box is gas-tight. All 
cracks must be thoroughly cemented or a new 
section put in before winter sets in. Other¬ 
wise coal-gas will escape into the air-jacket and 
be carried up directly to the rooms. 
7. Study carefully the General Rules per¬ 
taining to other types of heating-plants as well 
as your own. Notice the “clean-out” door and 
remember why it is there. 
Running Hot-Water Plants 
1. All the water should be emptied from 
the plant and clean water put in at least as 
often as every spring and every autumn. 
2. When the first fire of the season is built, 
as the water is being heated, use the radiator 
key to open the air-valve of each radiator in 
turn until all the air remaining in each radia¬ 
tor is allowed to escape and water starts to 
come—radiators filled with air will not heat. 
Repeat this operation frequently. 
3. Be sure that water always shows in the 
glass gauge of the expansion tank which is 
usually located in the top-story of the house 
above the level of all radiators. 
4. Be sure the boiler and cellar pipes are 
covered with asbestos. 
5. Study carefully the General Rules re¬ 
lating to all types of plants. Keep heating 
surfaces of the boiler well cleaned. 
The householder’s wife has a fuel charge. 
Her kitchen range cap be a criminal waster. 
As specific as the cellar rules are the directions 
the heating experts of the United States Fuel 
Administration issue to her for running her 
coal range: 
(Continued on page 60) 
