Page 41 - Curriculum Visions Dynamic Book

Learning to save fuel and money
In the middle of the 19th century the Siemens and Chance brothers in England began to think about ways to reduce the amount of fuel that was consumed in furnaces. By recycling the heat from furnaces, they were able to reduce the fuel used to a tenth of that needed
by earlier methods. As a result, glassmaking became cheaper again, and so its uses grew.
(Left, above, and below) The revolutions in
glass are shown in these pictures. When glass was expensive and could only be made in small pieces, windows were tiny. As glass became more affordable, windows grew larger, and stores in particular could have fine frontages. But the fact that glass still could not be made in large pieces meant that the windows had to be divided up by glazing bars.
Finally, with the invention of plate glass made by the flotation process, huge sheets of glass could be made that were not only big but also strong enough to stand up to blows. Thus the changing face of our buildings owes as much to changes in glass technology as to any other part of the building revolution.
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