The House the 50s Built pt2

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Hohum.

DeHavilland was given credit for the ply forming technology for the Mosquito, he borrowed that from south coast boatbuilders.

Narrow slats instead of wide ones on Venetian blinds, with nylon ladders instead of cloth ladder tapes (wide plastic tapes came later, before the nylon cord ladders).

A Hoover that was straight out of the 60s.

Asking the 50s folk if this room would have been "groovy", an expression I never heard until the 60s. Thankfully one lady replied it would have been "with it", she could have added "Daddy-oh".

Otoh, I enjoyed the chemical demos; Paraffin Young's distilling and the foam making were fun.

[Owain]

My downstairs neighbour has got them, they're back en vogue in Maison by Poundstretcher.

The television installer hangs out here

[John Rumm]

Can't help feeling that by the time they had finished the room, I preferred it how it was when they started!

Indeed.

[sm_jamieson]

Just watching this. "The electric fire is quite inefficient ..." Oh dear ! Actually I suppose it is, compared to a heat pump ;-) Simon.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

I'm surprised at him, he should know better. Certainly, they were very ineffective (which is what he meant to say, I'm sure); the poorly-designed and often manky reflector and draughty rooms saw to that. In a directly related fashion, I must say I'm impressed with the modern crop of halogen bar heaters of 400W/bar. In a reasonably insulated and draughtless room they heat the place up a treat. They throw out a lot more useful heat to where it's needed than the old ones ever did.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I wonder where in the old ones the part of the 400W ended up that didnt end up as heat..

[John Rumm]

If you are talking about turning money into heat, then its a fair comment...

[Chris J Dixon]

I notice that they didn't show it working. I would have thought there should have been an operable one around.

Chris

[sm_jamieson]

Is he just a presenter who actually knows nothing? Remember James May, the supposed sciencey one explaining the old wiring colours wrong on Man Lab - he clearly did not know them himself so did not know the researcher had screwed up. The other guy that comes to mind is Nick Knowles who actually now knows more than he lets on, having presented DIY SOS for so may years. Simon.

[Paul D Smith]

Probably heat but simply not efficiently radiated. I could imagine the chimney was kept nice and cosy for example. Given that the old bars were simply "wire which got hot" there was a small amount of visible red light but not really any where else for the energy to have been wasted initially.

Paul DS

[Paul D Smith]

I was rather hoping to see a Hoover Constellation. I remember the excitement as a young child when I realised that these were effectively hovercraft, which was how they moved effortlessly across the carpet without any wheels, and why they wouldn't move when you turned them off.

Paul DS.

[Dave Liquorice]

Well that's not surprising is it? But a "reasonably insulated and draughtless room" is nothing like a '50's living room with an open fire place, single glazed windows and no draught excluders on any opening windows.

Not convinced 400W is 400W. Not throwing it away, through draughts, up the chimney or out through the walls is the key.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

That's just what I said, funnily enough.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

A rising column of warm air heated the ceiling and not much got radiated to the occupants. The old 3kW ones had to be on full belt to have a worthwhile effect.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

I suspect they didn't so much vacuum as blast the muck to the side, in that case. Hey, they could have made it as the first bagless cleaner.