Coal For Cooking/Heating. Any Of You Lot Actually Experience?

[xraytech]

Actually, in the early 1970s there was an explosion in my home due to natural gas.
The neighbor across the street had a natural gas leak coming from their supply line, the gas built up in the well for my home, and when the pump for the well kicked on it caused an explosion.
It damaged all the corners of my foundation, some brick damage to outside, blew out the cellar windows and sent the cellar door flying back part my garage.

 

[launderess]

Am not saying there aren't natural gas explosions; just no where near the level many old timers would have one believe to justify sticking with fuel oil.

Boston, MA for instance just had a major natural gas explosion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_gas_explosions

‘It looked like Armageddon’: Teen killed, homes destroyed by gas explosions north of Boston

A series of gas explosions an official described as “Armageddon” killed a teenager, injured at least 10 other people and ignited fires in at least 39 homes in three communities north of…

www.chicagotribune.com

 

[norgeway]

our house

we just moved from has oil heat, I used to service oil and gas furnaces so I haven't ever had problems, if you smell oil or have a film on your walls, then you have a problem, properly installed and serviced oil furnaces are as clean as any other heat.

 

[tomturbomatic]

When I was a child, friends had a home with a converted furnace that had been coal and was now gas. Downstairs was the coal bin, never cleaned, and the stoker that ran across the floor to the furnace. It must be very difficult to wash down coal dust which I guess is why it was never done. I remember other homes in the area with the coal chute in the side of the house beside the driveway. I don't believe any of them were used by the mid to late 50s. Friends built a house at what was then the end of a road in TN and there was no gas service which stopped some ways back down the road. They paid something like $400 a month for years to cover the cost of running gas to the property.

 

[cuffs054]

Growing up we had oil hot air heat.  Don't remember any problems with dirty walls etc. and Mom was a fanatic about clean. I do remember having the Bard serviced and cleaned every year and the same with the Bard A/C.

 

[justjunque]

Another "octopus"

The house that I grew up in had the huge octopus furnace in the basement, which had a dirt floor.
I was told that it had been a coal furnace originally, but that was before my time. At some point, it was converted to natural gas.
Then, probably in the 1980s, they had the huge octopus removed and replaced with a much smaller natural gas unit, with baseboard hot water.
At some point, they also had a concrete floor poured in the basement.

Barry

 

[rolls_rapide]

"...heated the house with coal fireplaces. The one in her living room had a water back of some kind for heating water, so if you wanted a hot bath or water for dishes, you had to light a fire."

That would be the 'back boiler'. Essentially a metal liner jacket containing pipework, fits into the fireplace, effectively becoming part of the grate (back wall and left and right sides - however, there is a hidden flue channel just behind the back wall. It is supplied with water, in a closed loop, heats the said water, which then returns it to the copper cylinder, usually unaided - but an electric pump could possibly be used - I suppose.

A damper-director lid (partly hidden up the chimney breast) controls the stream of burning 'gases'... when pushed fully in, the flames stay to the front, heating the room with a real blazing fire.

Damper pulled fully out, the heat mostly shoots up the hidden flue channel, boiling the water in the cylinder given half a chance. It is possible to wiggle the damper somewhere between the two extremes, giving a decent room heat and supplies of hot water at the same time.

I saw one example once, which had a rudimentary 1950's central heating system off the livingroom coal fired 'back boiler'. No pump was used. It used the principle of hot water rising to the bedroom radiators above. Not terribly effective.

And of course, an updated modern gas variant was/is the Baxi Bermuda type(s).

 

[wayupnorth]

Those Water Backs in a fireplace. If you wanted a bath or washed dishes, could you just use a small wood fire in the warm weather? My coal stove would go out when the outside temperature was about 40 as it stopped any draft from the chimney, so coal would only work during cold weather. My mother had a hissie fit when our old coal converted furnace got a cracked heat exchanger and sent soot and stink thru the vents. We promptly got a new Homart oil forced air furnace, hooked up properly.

 

[launderess]

Probably one of the more famous and recent

Doings with back boilers and coal ranges was in the series 1900 house.





Heating contractor tried to do his best, and cover for mistakes but clearly both himself and the family were out of their depths.

Lacking any sort of safety release valves and or other similar devices commonly found on boilers, these back boilers could (and often did) explode. Since really only way (then) to control things was to manually adjust dampers/fire. If you got busy or whatever and let that tank continue to "boil" for long periods.....

Modern heating contractor hired for the 1900 House project nobbled the range's hot water producing capability by moving firebox too far from heat exchanger/back boiler. Result was nil to no hot water. The man was finally called back and to undo what he had done and admit the mistake. Mind you he meant well using modern day thinking/experience, but when applied to living in early 20th century it just didn't work.

Recall reading comments at time series was running from those who lived with or through using coal ranges/back boilers. They were common enough well into 1940's and 1950's. They still are and many people love their back boilers.

When you think about it a back boiler increases the efficiency of a coal or whatever range. That is you're taking heat that otherwise would go to waste and or is being generated anyway to make hot water. Sort of like running a coil off a steam/hot water heating system to make hot water.

Problem for both systems is just that; one must have the range/boiler going year round in order to get hot water

https://www.1900s.org.uk/1940s50s-boiler.htm

 

[sudsmaster]

Fascinating videos on steam locomotive coal firing management. The automatic stoker certainly seems an improvement over the "little, often" drudgery. I suspect even with the auto stoker, however, coal fired steam engines are still labor and maintenance intensive, and diesel-electric vastly more economical.

I was surprised at how the fireman in the older locomotives had to break up the big blocks of coal. I always assumed (perhaps from the looks of the fake coal in the model train tenders) that the coal was already broken up. I guess the reasoning was that it gave the fireman something to do since he was there full time anyway.

I was also surprised by the water troughs between the rails for the passing locomotives to scoop up. I think later designs had condensers that captured a lot of the water out of the exhausted steam. At least more advanced steam cars of the 20's and 30's had that (Doble was one brand).

Once I remember seeing my Dad having to clean out the oil furnace burner. So it did require some maintenance. I never knew what grade heating oil they used, but there was usually a whiff when the system started up first in the winter. It was a gravity flow sysem, not forced air. So I guess it would have worked in a power outage as well.

The forced air gas system in this house is about 40 years old now. It seems to run quite well. I did some upgrades on the intake/filtration side of it after I bought the home. It used to tin can a long flat galvanized intake run under the floor when it started up and stopped blowing. I upgraded the air return filters and also wrapped the intake run with fiberglass insulation. This helped quiet things down and probably made it more efficient as well. The home had been vacant for almost a year, and the first time the furnace came on that first winter, there was a definite mouse aroma. Small wonder my cat was so interested in it, LOL. That aroma gradually went away and I never asked the cat why.

 

[sudsmaster]

 

[launderess]

Stoker: http://www.steamlocomotive.com/appliances/stoker.php

Condensers on steam locomotives caused more trouble than they were worth, and thus it never took off.

Water pans were used by the New York Central: http://railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=93&t=75246

http://cs.trains.com/ctr/f/3/t/204315.aspx

In general using coal for fueling any sort of furnace or boiler was nasty work.

Steam locomotives and ships in general were labor intensive to run and maintain. Switching over to oil solved some issues, but soon even that went as diesel displaced steam engines.


[this post was last edited: 9/24/2018-06:41]

 

[launderess]

H.E. Shacklock Cooker

Almost makes one want to run out and buy; *almost*. *LOL*

Shacklock Orion, Coal Range

 

[rolls_rapide]

H.E. Shacklock Cooker

You could imagine Mrs Bridges cooking up a decent meal on that.

It's peculiar how things are initially made out of the most robust materials available at the time. They were made to last centuries and they did.

These days, items are made of the cheapest, flimsiest metals available - without any nod to longevity at all.

 

[launderess]

Mrs. Bridges was forever going up to her rooms for a lie down; leaving poor Ruby to cope usually with comment "don't let the fire go out..".

Now the "Two Fat Ladies" yes, one can see them getting on famously with a H.E. Shacklock Cooker. God knows they loved the AGA range to pieces.

 

[abcomatic]

"Ruby, you wretched girl!"

 

[launderess]

Sadly despite the success of his range business things did not end well for H.E. Shacklock. Unable to shake his inner demons the man committed suicide.

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WC19021218.2.13.3

His company would eventually be acquired by Fisher & Paykel, who own it still, though they have long since ceased using the Shacklock name.

Henry Shacklock - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[hotpoint95622]

Goal

until recently we used coal and wood to heat our home, fuelling our Rayburn range cooker which heated the central heating radiators, domestic hot water and cooking all in one......

 

[hotpoint95622]

coal

Rayburn, still in production though bought out by AGA and made not far from where I live in Shropshire...