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

Automatic Washer - The world's coolest Washing Machines, Dryers and Dishwashers

Help Support :

Now my grandparents’ house had a coal chute, but it was sealed-up before I came... Just a panel next to a basement window that had my grandpa’s workshop right under it, whereas the furnace was right in the middle of the basement, replaced by an oil-burning furnace, at least according to my mom...

I only remember the Lux-Aire gas furnace, she and grandpa opened when it was running & see those flames in there... And the off-season just had very low, mostly-blue embers, that was the standing pilot light—decades later my own furnace, here, had...

As for the oil furnace, there, I think the tank for supplying the oil, would have gone against another adjacent wall distantly next to it, with some sealed piping, I remember seeing over-head, that the active gas piping right from the meter for it, and the water heater replaced, or became just in use... Next to the meter outside, was a short pipe, capped off, that the oil was delivered through...

I remember a furnace shown in my family’s old encyclopedia brittanicas which showed a screw-drive system delivering the coal into a furnace, 8n one of 5he pictures, most-likely in the Coal chapter...

I don’t know how my family got that coal into their furnace, the trough it would have been delivered in, was a distance away, in a little corner, unless the furnace for it was right next to it along that wall, there, predating my granddad’s workshop, though his tools, (lathe, drill-press grinder, with a couple single-tube fluorescent lights over them) are very much from that era...

Hard to believe they could overcome the coal gas fumes, the rigors of stoking that furnace & the not-so-clean, burning, hauling and storage, which with given the cold winters we have (& had very much, back then) were a very drop-everything necessity to heat your home...

— Dave
 
During my childhood and early grade school the house was heated with an ornate coal base burner, a coal cook stove, and a kerosene stove. Later, the coal base burner and the coal cook stove were replaced by kerosene stoves. When natural gas became abundant these were replaced with gas console stoves. Cape May moved from coal to oil to natural gas. When I went out on a cold winter day during the coal era you could smell the coal fires. That gradually change to the smell of the oil burners. Now, with natural gas there is nothing but the smell of the ocean when you go outside in the winter.

Harry
 
"screw-drive system delivering the coal into a furnace&#

That would be a stoker.

Long used in industrial/commercial equipment(steam ships, locomotives, etc...) to feed boilers by the 1950's or so they began to make an appearance in domestic settings.

For railroads and steam ships the theory was simple; mechanically delivering coal to boiler(s) reduced the need for manpower (firemen for locomotives, and stoker for steamships and elsewhere). Also as boilers/engines grew more powerful a man or men just couldn't shovel coal fast enough to meet peak demand.

This is how you manual stoke a steam locomotive:



And here is how it's done with a stoker:


As you can see a stoker is nothing more than a worm/screw that both crushes large lumps of coal as it moves the stuff towards boiler or furnace.

Eventually some bright blubs got the idea to introduce automatic stokers for domestic and other applications. Iron Fireman was one: https://archive.org/details/Sweets1938Sec2624IronFiremanMfgCo

Automatic stoking helped deal with several issues related to using coal.

One, they dealt with the often unpleasant and labor intensive task of shoveling coal into boilers/furnaces.

Two when part of an overall system automatic feeding of coal could produce heating automatic as anything from oil or gas. That is you could regulate temperature via thermostats leaving a complicated network of chains, dampers, and other devices to control the fire. Instead of having to go down to cellars and "bank" a fire for the night, you just turned down the heat regulator. Beauty of this also was that one could also wake up to a warm home as some systems even had timers. They were rudimentary (often worked by wind up clocks) compared to today's but never the less.

launderess-2018092107003806327_1.jpg

launderess-2018092107003806327_2.jpg
 
Keep The Home Fires Burning

Is not just a war time ditty offering advice to the women back home; but was a large part of their lives at that time.

Be it coal, wood, peat or whatever until replaced by gas, oil, or electricity a home would have one, two, or more fires that had to be kept up. Kitchen range/stove and steam boiler/furnace in cellar were just two. Depending upon the home and household financial circumstances there could be various fireplaces as well; all this right up through WWII and after.

Since men folk were away at their office or whatever occupation it usually fell to women/housewives to keep those fires going. That is unless the family was wealthy enough to afford servants or maybe lived in an apartment building where at least the hot water/heat was tended to by someone else.

Some coal heating systems advertised all a man needed to do was tend to the fire once in the morning, set things, then it should be left alone until returned after work. Rubbish. Depending upon weather and other circumstances the boiler/furnace often did need attending during the day, and since Her Indoors was home......

The various automatic devices (stokers, magazine feed) all advertised and promoted "Don't Let Your Wife Shovel Coal". Going on about how the automatic feeding and regulation of fire saved the Little Woman from toil, heavy lifting and in general messing about with what should be man's work.

From what one understands a coal fire going out be it in a locomotive, ship, home boiler/furnace or stove was a huge deal and royal pain.

If the thing couldn't be started up again the whole "fire" would have to be dumped and a new one started.

Wood obviously is an easy fire to start; OTOH coal, especially the hard stuff can be difficult to get a good fire going. Hence "keep the home fires burning".....
 
THE LUCY SHOW

in 1962 featured an episode where Lucy decided to put a rumpus room in the basement. But before Lucy and Viv somehow managed to glue themselves to the wall, they had to move the coal bin. And once they were stuck, the coal truck showed up for a delivery, stuck a chute through the basement coal door and buried Lucy and Viv up to their necks in coal. This was 1962 or 3 so having coal furnaces, especially in rural areas, most have still been somewhat common or the plot/gag wouldn't have worked.

My grandparents in upstate N.Y. converted from coal to oil in the early 50's. That house still heats with oil today. Again, very common in rural areas as there is no infrastructure for natural gas. My mother complained that oil heat was dirty. There was always a film on walls and shelves that had to be scrubbed off by some good ole elbow grease!
 
“There was always a film on walls and shelves that had to be scrubbed off by some good ole elbow grease! “

I’ve never used coal for heat,but the little three room school house built in 1887 that I went to for the 8th grade had oil heaters, and they stunk and were filthy.

I think that anything that burns with a flame to heat causes a film to develop on the walls and every other surface of a home, be it coal, wood, oil, propane or natural gas. Our last home had a gas stove and gas forced air heat. The kitchen counters were white formica and I had to scrub them down at least every two weeks because of the dirty film the gas stove left on everything.

We have a pellet insert that we used every fall and winter to heat with from 1997 until last fall. I decided that since the cost of the pellets had gone up so much we might as well try using the electric hydronic baseboard heaters and see how the cost compared. Well, it only cost slightly more, maybe an additional $40.00 per month during the coldest months than using the pellets. The house was MUCH cleaner, way more convenient and comfortable than the pellet stove heat. So, we’re done with burning anything for heat from now on. Plus, with the Bay Area Air Quality Control Board, there are now so many “No Burn Days” anyway , due to air pollution, that burning pellets or wood for heat is impractical. Fortunately, the power seldom goes out here, so relying on electric heat isn’t problem.

Eddie
 
Oil for heating/cooking

Comes in various grades; the lowest (bunker fuel No.6) is quite dirty and really nasty stuff. Then mayor Bloomberg as part of his nanny state NYC government and newly created environmental plan for NYC forced all buildings to convert from No. 6 fuel oil to lighter and cleaner grades.

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

How nasty is bunker fuel? Well it basically is the residue what is left after more desirable grades of petroleum have been burned off. It would have been waste until some bright bulbs found that the cheap and plentiful stuff could be used in boilers, furnaces, etc....

However No.6 and other low grades of bunker fuel are basically sludge. They must be warmed in order to flow from storage tank to heating device and are nasty to burn. In addition to particulate matter the stuff leaves heavy residue that can clog up boilers and generally make a mess.

Before our building switched over to (ok forced) to higher quality fuel oil one could smell each time the boilers came on.

Railroads, ships, buildings, etc.. all welcomed switching out of coal for "cheap" bunker fuel oil. In NYC alone there are scores of buildings that went up early in last century still with their original coal boilers. The things were merely switched over to burn fuel oil.
 
While natural gas has been available in my area since 1961, a couple of my neighbors still heat with oil furnaces. It must still be fairly common in the Cincinnati area as one of the major petroleum distributors has been advertising their new oil tank insurance program.

If I were to use any fuel burning devices, I would have them outside with connections to the house, so as to avoid soot, odor, etc.

https://www.lykinsenergy.com/residential/heating-oil-tank-insurance-program
 
There have been debates going back ages to when natural gas first was being piped to residential areas about safety.

Many then and still today believe natural gas will "blow up" your house/property. Thus stuck with coal and or moved onto heating oil, but wouldn't have gas for heating or cooking, period.

If you live in an area which does not already have natural gas, getting it may not be easy either. Know here in NY area the various utilities won't run a main to a block or whatever unless nearly all or a good majority of homes agree to have the stuff. People used to go around and talk to their neighbors asking if they would sign up for natural gas.

Now if you live out in the boonies, forget it; no one is going to run a natural gas line just for you; well maybe they might if you paid what likely is going to be very dear costs.

In an effort to get large buildings off heating oil, ConEdison (pushed by NYC and NYS) has been upgrading gas mains on blocks all over Manhattan and other parts of city. Idea is that with increased supply running down the block building owners would only need to pay for having a larger main run to their buildings.

This may be necessary since many buildings only supply gas for cooking which does not require large mains. Heating was coal and now oil. Some more modern buildings use duel fuel boilers (gas and oil).
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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
 
"...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).
 
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.
 
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
 
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.
 
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]
 
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.
 
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.
 
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......

hotpoint95622-2018102206510005028_1.jpg
 

Similar threads

T
NYT on Induction Cooking
2
Replies
35
Views
1K
vacerator
V
Ultramatic
Appliances: The Future is Battery Powered
2 3
Replies
83
Views
1K
tolivac
T
richardc1983
Fisher & Paykel DH9060FS1 9Kg Heat Pump Tumble Dryer Review: Truly innovative technology
Replies
25
Views
2K
lavamat_jon
L
thomasortega
Happy, happy, happy and I want to share my happiness with you
Replies
6
Views
122
thomasortega
thomasortega
A
Thank you for your help. Another saved from the scrap yard!
Replies
5
Views
113
appnut
appnut

Latest posts

Back
Top