This chapter discusses different heating process the domestic heating and cooking. For many years, a group in the Laboratories worked on the mixture of physics and engineering design involved in domestic heating and cooking appliances. Clifford Paterson's 'Confidential history' suggests that a group for this work was established some time after 1925. (The wing which for many years housed the group was built in 1927). The earliest work was, according to Paterson, led by a Mr. Kinnes, and then by O.W. Humphreys (later Sir Olliver) who was subsequently to have a distinguished career in GEC. But the files of laboratory reports record work on kettle elements and handles for domestic irons as early as 1919, the year the laboratories were founded. The other one heating process built in the laboratories are industrial and process heating.In the early 1930s two new departments were set up at GEC Head Office. One, called Industrial Heating, dealt with space heating in industrial and commercial premises; the other, process heating, dealt with heating applied to factory processes.

Inspec keywords: domestic appliances; laboratories; space heating; process heating; history

Other keywords: space heating; domestic heating; heating process; cooking appliances; factory processes; process heating; GEC Research Laboratories; industrial heating; confidential history

Subjects: Process heating