New Gas Buildings

The Ann Arbor Gas Company
    to Enlarge Their Plant.

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REDUCED PRICE OF GAS

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The Reduction in Price Takes Effect January 1.

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This Progressive Company Will Spend $30,000 in Improvements, Building Gas Holder, Retort, Generator and Boiler Houses.

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The Ann Arbor Gas Company are about to make two moves, which will greatly benefit our citizens and consequently, it is to be hoped, will prove profitable to them.
On the first of January they will reduce the price of gas to all consumers. The exact cut in price has not yet been fully determined, but it will be applied to all bills commencing Jan. 1.
The company has kept under the average price in Michigan cities and is now gathering statistics of the prices in all cities of Michigan preparatory to making another cut.

   The second move is the building of what will practically be a new gas plant on their property west of Beakes st. , and between the Michigan Central and the Huron river, which will be recollected as a flat piece of ground considerably lower than the railroad track.
The old plant will be retained, but a new gas holder, a new retort house, a new generator house and a new boiler house will be erected next spring.

   The growth of the output of the gas company under the management of Henry W. Douglas, who, by the way, is known in gas circles as one of the best gas men in the state, and who has been tempted with offers of management of plants in much larger cities, the growth, we say, has been enormous.
In 1889 the output of the plant was less than 10,000,000 cubic feet, while this year it will be 30,000,000, and this in spite of the university putting in its own lighting plant and the pushing of the electric light company.
Nothing but good management and attention to the wants of the people, together with such reduction in prices as the expenses of operation warranted, could have effected this result.

Within the past two years the whole system of the piping has been revised, two trunk lines now carrying the gas to supply the laterals.
Much of the old mains have been taken up and replaced with larger piping and a less percentage of leakage secured.

The new gas holder to be built in the spring will have a capacity of 200,000 cubic feet.
The present storage capacity is 50,000 feet, so that the new plant will have five times the storage capacity of the present.

The new boiler house will have new and larger boilers, the present boilers being now worked up to their limit on account of the increased consumption of gas.
Besides these the new retort house and the new generator house will contain the latest and most improved machinery.

The present plan is to keep the purifier apparatus where it is and also the ammonia plant.
This latter plant was put in about a year ago and it will be news to many of our readers that the gas company is making ammonia.
Yet this is one of the things which makes or unmakes companies, the utilizing of all waste.
The ammonia is driven off of the coal with the gas and was formerly wasted.
Now it is saved and re-distilled.

A pumping plant will also be built, so that the gas company will no longer be dependent upon city water.

Besides the increased capacity obtained by the new buildings the main reason for moving the greater part of the gas works, is the securing of increased railroad facilities and ease in handling the coal and coke.
The side track of the railroad will be 10 feet above the floor level, so that at a glance the ease of handling coal can be seen.
The coal will be handled directly from the car into the apparatus by a system of elevators and after the gas has been extracted the coke will fall through hoppers into the wagons and thus all shoveling be avoided.
The company at present is using 2,000 tons of coal a year.

The present works are now so crowded that one can hardly turn around. Every square foot of space is utilized. The new works will provide for convenience and will be models of their kind.

The improvements will cost in the neighborhood of $30,000.
Work will commence the first thing in the spring and all the generating plant will be moved next summer.

The gas company is to be congratulated upon its progressiveness and its consequent success.

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Philip Brenion who has been a regular in the U. S. army for the past five years, is at home in Bridgewater.
He was in the battle at Santiago, afterward going to Porto Rico, and was in most of the skirmishes there.
His health is good and he expects to enlist again so that he can go to the Philippines.