does anyone have vintage pre-1987 central air condtioners, forced-air gas furnaces, and thermostats?

[rp2813]

My parents' house had the original gravity furnace from 1925 up until my mom developed asthma and they replaced it in the early 80's with a super filtrated forced air system. We didn't even know it until the old furnace came out, but it had a large metal plate on it, probably 12" by 18" that indicates it was a Mc Laughlin Warm Air Furnace with "gas fuel, electronic control." I saved it and used to have it on the wall in my office when I worked for an HVAC contractor. Still have it up in my garage now.

I pulled an old roundie Honeywell t'stat at my house to replace it with one that has a timer. My sister has a really old (probably 60's) t'stat that seems to be acting up so I gave her the roundie. If she hasn't installed it yet (she's in LA so likely hasn't needed the furnace for several months) I will do it next time I visit her. These are great units that are completely accurate and reliable.

 

[rp2813]

What Brand of Thermostat is This?

The nursing home my mom is in was built in the 60's, maybe late 50's. She was moved to a new room recently and I noticed an older looking thermostat in there. It's the usual smoky gold plastic and appears to be a loose interpretation of a round Honeywell. It has a large "P" with a shield-shaped outline around it for a logo on the front. Anybody know what this one is? Might the "P" be for "Payne"?

 

[toggleswitch]

~M-I-L?
What is that?

~One side says 'draft' and the other side says 'check'.

Draft=> To induce greater draft/heat?
Check => To reduce or prevent draft/ heat as in "check-valve" or "check-mate?" Or the saying "keep it in check?" As used, to mean => "Keep it controlled?"

~I see electric forced-air furnaces....but they cost frightening amounts of money to run.

Yes, in most areas WITHOUT hydro-electric (read: super-inexpensive) power they can cost double to quadruple what a fossil-fuel-fired unit costs to run. But Dan, I thought your area has some of the most inexpensive power in the country due to hydro-electic generation, so I'm confused by your statement.Woudja fill me in, please. First thing that can be done if electric heating is painfully costly is get a heat-pump, well at least, if fossil fuels can't be done. Without ducts, a Mitubishi Mr. Slim is a good option. IMHO







http://www.mrslim.com/

 

[petek]

What Brand of Thermostat is This?

Could it possibly be a rheostat for an old Pryne Blo Fan ceiling exhaust. Mom still has one in her kitchen ceiling but I can't remember if it has a shield on it or not.. I'll have to take a look.
Search Pryne Blo Fan on Ebay there's some stuff there as well as some of their 50's cheescake calendars and desk blotters which are a hoot of hooters and gams

 

[toggleswitch]

pricey pricey pricey electric heating!

http://www.naturalgas.org/overview/uses_residential.asp

 

[polkanut]

Togs dear,

M-I-L stands for mother-in-law. Now lay off the caffeine!

 

[toggleswitch]

Hello Shady Pines Rest Home?

LOL

I started with Mid-century, In-Line.........and could not visualize past it!

(They're coming to take me away, ho ho he he ha ha, to the funny farm....)

That's OK I could not get past a prior interpretation of "FF" till I saw Filter-flo! AND IT WAS SO OBVIOUS!

 

[toggleswitch]

Natural gas powered heat-pump that heats and cools.

Since this thread appears to have peaked, I thought I might hijack..........er...... re-direct it at this time.

In the summer it cools with natural gas, using that fuel when sales/consumption is at its lowest. Relieves over-burdened electrical grid in summer YAY! In the winter it functions as a heat-pump extracting heat from the outdoors, concentrating it then releasing it indoors.

There is always some degree of heat outdoors; absolute zero (no heat @ all) is measured in degrees Kelvin. Hence "Kelvintor", get it?

°F = (K × 1.8) − 459.67
°C = K − 273.15

Anyhoo the heat used to power the unit is also harnessed in the winter resulting in efficiencies of 136% +/- IIRC.

At one time the ammonia/water mix used in the process was thought-of as dangerous. It is now touted as "environmentally friendly." Go figure!

http://www.robur.com/home_eng.jsp

 

[toggleswitch]

Kelvin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin

 

[selectomatic]

Thanks to the link that reminds me how overpriced my heat is

Due to some unexpected bills, etc., I was unable to go forward with my plan to install some sort of Propane-fired heat in my home for this winter.

I still favor in-floor water heat, but that's quite a bit of investment -- and the payback would be 10-15 years at least. Once again, I'll probably have to rely on measures which will reduce heat loss, and which can be achieved without a huge cash outlay.

-kevin

 

[jons1077]

1915 Gravity Charcoal Heater

Sorry I cannot remember what the brand on this one is. It is what's in our house in Portland at the moment. The picture does it absolutely NO justice as far as its size is concerned. It originally was charcoal burning since there is a chute going from the side of the house to the basement. It was eventually converted to oil and now resides looking more beautiful than ever. I can't wait to slap on a MOP suit and get rid of it.

 

[toggleswitch]

~Thanks to the link that reminds me how overpriced my heat is, Toggle.

*LOL*

Even one propane heater (VENTED!!!) in the form of a wall-furnace or console-unit or even a floor-furnace will reduce your heating bills dramatically compared to resistance electric heating.

In a financial crunch you can get a "temporary" through-the wall heat-pump A/C "sleeve-unit" [i.e. back-breather]in a standard "Fedders" sleeve to hold you for a winter or two......Or just replace an existing through-the wall A/C with one. It will be electric but MUCH less expensive to run.

If you don't have central A/C it might make sense to add one of these with a heat-pump or propane furnace. Adds value to your house and then you have more than just duplicate heating systems with no cooling.

Since I beleive you have baseboard heating (albeit electric) you might even want to have the air vents in the ceiling, for ease and economy of installation costs, (which is NOT ideal for heating), but BE SURE to have a low-wall or FLOOR return to pull the cold air into the system which pulls the heated air down (thus avoid stratification=> hot head, cold feet).

Too much said.

Later!

 

[toggleswitch]

Friedrich brand heat-pumps, through-the-wall.

It may hurt now with the intial outlay, but these will pay for themselves, I'd say in three years or less.

Again, the Mitsubishi mini-spilt systems (a/k/a Mr. Slims) are quiter than through-the-wall unit (nearly silent except for a blower indoors, actually). Three or four indoor untsts (read: rooms/sapces) can be connected to one outdoor unit. The compressor works up to 50% faster in severe winter to help extract more heat from the out-of-doors.

It is understandable to want perfection in your new heating system, but the intial outlay as you said will be very dear in cost. Perhaps an interim measure will suit you well!

Best of luck and happy choices!

BTW, Jon, more pics of that gravity coal furnace would be much appreciated.

For those of you with oil heat, RIELLO oil-burning heads are Italian in origin and burn CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN! [A very high pressure atomitizing nozzle-head breaks the oil down into very fine easy-to-burn mist.] I was reluctant to steer away from the (former) US market-leader of a Beckett brand burner-head. NO REGRETS SO FAR! And I no longer need an annual cleaning. *LOL*, well my heater doesn't anyway! LOL

http://www.friedrich.com/current/php_prodline.php?line=TTHP

 

[selectomatic]

Ceiling heat is definitely a bad idea.

The house has electric baseboard heat, and when I bought it, it also had air-conditioning upstairs with ductwork in the attic. After the first few years, when rusty, dusty water would drip out of the vents all winter (yes, the ducts were insulated, but when the attic gets to be well below 0, that doesn't help much -- the warm, moist air rises up, condenses, and drips out), I took out the offending ducts and vents.

Besides, the air conditioner was only on the upper level, and it never worked anyway.

I've looked at a few stand-alone Propane single-room furnaces which vent through the wall, but they're pretty pricey and inefficient. And since I live in the country, I'd have to get a gas tank and lines installed before I could actually use anything other than jiggling electrons to heat the house.

I'm still looking at all of the options, but nothing good is cheap, and nothing cheap is good.

I'll try and remember to take a picture of our old boiler at work tomorrow so that I can redeem myself a bit for having contributed to this derailing.

-kevin

 

[toggleswitch]

~After the first few years, when rusty, dusty water would drip out of the vents all winter.

How do other homes in your area/climate handle this?
Do the vents all have to be closed all winter?

My ducts [to a newly installed colling-only system]are in an unheated attic and so far no problem. Then again my ducts are basically like vinyl dryer hoses, but insulated and have a larger hose over the insulation. Nuttin' to rust except the register "boot", and the grille itself.

Seriously, any type of heat-pump will reduce costs and pay for itself. At one time I had heard that my latitude was the furthest-north ridge suitable for a heat-pump. But
in am sitting in central CT (further north) at this moment in a community full of heat-pumps!

 

[washertalk]

Remember, if you do change any Thermostat that has Mercury in it to turn in at the local chemical recycle center as the Mercury is extremely poisonous.

Jonathan, that snowman is scary. Is it covered with Asbestos or is that fibreglas.

It is awesome how much smaller and efficient today furnaces and boilers are. I replaced a FA furnace 2 years ago with a 96% efficient, gas furnace. It vented out the sidewall and used outside air for combustion. So much different than 20 years ago.

Unfortunately, the savings that are recognized through these new furnaces have lead people to believe they can build ever larger and impractical homes, Mcmansions. blah. That ends up cancelling any savings we could have had as a society.

 

[selectomatic]

Sorry, this isn't really forced-air

Here are some shots of the boiler in the building where I work. It hasn't been used in many, many years, but it's still there. It has to be -- there's really no way to get it out of the building. You'd have to remove the building from around it.

Our shop is located in what was, in days past, the showroom and offices for a car dealership. We don't know exactly when the original section of the building was built, or what it was built for. We're pretty sure it was built in the early 1900s.

It's been built onto and remodeled several times. The section where the boiler is located was probably added in the years immediately following World War II, when the automotive industry (like so many industries) was booming.

It's our guess that the boiler was originally coal-burning, but that it was converted to natural gas at some point. You can see in the pictures below that it has the sort of doors with adjustable vents that you'd expect on a solid-fuel furnace.

As part of the natural gas conversion (presumably), a combustion-air blower was added to the front of the firebox (shown in the bottom picture). Unfortunately, it sticks so far out of the front of the thing that the boiler-room door no longer opens all the way. That's why the pictures only show half(!) of what's there. You can get an idea of scale from the normal-sized door in the foreground.

This thing is really huge, and it's kind of scary -- it's the sort of thing you'd expect to show up in a Stephen King movie. People in the movie who ventured into the boiler room would not meet with a happy fate.

-kevin

 

[toggleswitch]

There is no EASY way....................

~there's really no way to get it out of the building.

Smash it into smaller pieces with a sledge-hammer as was done with my old boiler.
(Boilers heat water; furnaces heat air.)

 

[cuffs054]

I would think the shutters were used for coal fire to control draft.

 

[toggleswitch]

Hmmm I would have assumed that air-shutters for coal burning are non-electric and use a bi-metal thermostatic damper control. Unless there was an auger-screw electric coal-feeder coal burning was not normally electrically controlled/regulated, IMHO.

The beauty of coal-burning steam-generating central heating systems systems (as were typically found in NYC) is that they were totally non-electric.

I would further assume these pictured to be electrically operated and for a gaseous or liquid fuel.

Gas burning conversion heads are known as power-burners (they look like oil-burners)and deliver a ball-of-flame in one location rather than a more typical designed-for-gas furnace or boiler which has a number of gas burning tubes or jets that spread out the flames. The power burners typically have a fan to push secondary combustion air into the combustion chamber, and to induce a positive draft. Of course the (non-powered) gas venturi used to mix in primary air for combustion is normally outside the combustion chamber.