Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1920 — Home Town Helps [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Home Town Helps

FOR CENTRAL HEATING PLANT Canadian Newspaper Warmly Advocates Such a Scheme, on Ecoi nomic and Other Grounds. The town of Renfrew has carried a by-law to spend $25,000 on a central heating plant for the business ggctjggIt Is erecting a new fire hall and takes advantage of the opportunity. Owen Sound is said to have a similar scheme under consideration. This is an avenue of small-town development that will be much more extensively traveled in the future, remarks the Toronto (Can.) Mail and Empire. Ontario towns are usuajlyicompact, the streets used for business Intersect each other, and with the advent of modern heating systems in the stores and factories, the economic possibilities of a central heating plant are exceptionally good. Many cities and towns in the United States haveadopted the system, and results have been very satisfactory. Insteadof two dozen furnaces, two dozen firemen, one big plant handled by about three men, does the whole business. Modern insulating methods present loss of steam and heat underground and the service Is usually better than any home system. The obtaining of coal is such a problem nowadays for the ordinary merchant and factory operator that the putting of responsibility on a civic plant would be a great relief. The ultimate saving, once the heating equipment is installed, ought to be thousands of dollars a year. In many of the small Ontario towns stores are still heated by stoves, or hot-air furnaces, using anthracite coal. The statistics of the cost of steam heat cannot be made up without consideration of local conditions, because pipe-laying, radiator installation and plant costs vary with.the size of the project, and the location of the premises to be heated. But the Innovation is one that should commend Itself to the notice of all town councils.