When was electric heat first used?

DanHolohan

<a href="http://www.heatinghelp.com/living_book_story.cfm?id=21"target="_blank">Electric Heat</a>

Sasha

When was electric heat first used?

DanHolohan

Take a look

HERE

It pays to wander off the Wall.

Larry Weingarten

Didn't Thomas Edison...

... use it to "heat up" some prisoners and unfortunate animals?

Yours, Larry

Brad White_159

Edison lost the bet....

Thomas A. Edison (proponent of DC) and George Westinghouse (proponent of AC) vied for supremacy in the market.

Edison made a public display of animals stepping on a plate, animals including an elephant, to declare that AC was dangerous and inefficient.

(What, DC used in the third rail would only tickle?)

William Kemmler found out the joys of AC sometime later at Ossining Prison. Westinghouse refused to sell his generators for such purposes, so Edison arranged a straw buyer- the guy was not stupid!

In the end, Edison's ploy was ineffective and DC current was relegated to trolley cars and elevators. AC was relegated to lights, toasters and electric chairs. Such was progress!

Edison later admitted he knew the truth all along, but hey, that's capitalism!

EBEBRATT-Ed

Brad,

Very interesting. I knew(but had forgotten) about the Westinghouse/Edison thing AC/DC. This may not be a PC conversation!

Elephants stepping on plates and other goodies I never herd before.

ED

Long Beach Ed

Back in 1906

... the Pennsylvania and Long Island Railroads used electric heaters in their electric suburban trains. Some of those heaters are still around. They ran on 600 Volts and had a little plate on top for boiling water for tea or warming the engineer's gloves.

Long Beach Ed

Brad White_159

There is a film strip

on the net somwhere of the elephant meeting it's doom. It is grainy as old silent movies tend to be and is not for animal lovers.

(One can only imagine that poor Jumbo was in fact the real Lindbergh kidnapper which perhaps explains the broken ladder and footprints in the yard. )

The real AC/DC thing came later, starring another national law enforcement figure, J. Edgar Hoover.

Mike T., Swampeast MO

Brad:

When discussing Westinghouse and A/C current NEVER forget that it was TESLA who developed the ENTIRE system of A/C generation, transmission and utilization that made Westinghouse FABULOUSLY rich.

Brad White_159

Of course you are right, Mike.

Tesla made Sir Isaac Newton look like an English physicist.

Actually, I would consider Tesla the Newton if not the Gallileo of his age. Marconi, Westinghouse and many others defacto cashed in his chips for him. I recall he died almost penniless.

Thanks for the reminder.