Abstract
THE determination of the efficiencies of different ooo methods of heating is a problem very difficult to solve on a purely scientific basis. It is, indeed, difficult to attach a precise meaning to the expression “efficiency” in connection with heating apparatus. The word as commonly understood in connection with devices for the utilisation of energy in any form means the ratio of the total amount of energy utilised to that consumed. In a heating apparatus it is difficult to say what fraction of the energy is to be regarded as “utilised.” If we regard that heat only as utilised which is delivered into the air of a room, in one sense every apparatus which when suitably disposed delivers almost the whole of its heat into the air of a room may be regarded as having nearly the maximum possible efficiency—100 per cent. Such, for example, is the electric low-temperature stove (not taking into account the generating mechanism or boilers from which the heat is ultimately derived), or the oil stove, or the gas radiator, which deliver the products of combustion into the air of the room.
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BARKER, A. Problems of Efficient Methods of Domestic Heating . Nature 96, 490–492 (1915). https://doi.org/10.1038/096490b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/096490b0