Kerosene Ranges

[washerboy]

In the vintage appliance thread there's an ad for the Boss 1946 Kerosene Range. Does anyone know how those stove performed/ worked? Wouldn't they have stunk up the entire house? What sparked my question was my parents bought an older home in 1958 then less than a year later sold and moved to a new subdivision. I ask why they moved so shortly after purchasing their first home, he said "The kitchen had a kerosene stove and your mother hated it" I thought to myself..wouldn't it have been cheaper to have an electrician come in and install a 220 outlet and then buy mother an electric stove? Moving seemed extreme and expensive. Anyway I wish I'd ask since he's now passed. Maybe happy wife happy life who knows. Thanks!!

 

[norgeway]

Believe it or not

I knew a older lady who cooked on a Perfection Kerosene range up into the early 90s, She could bake as pretty a pound cake as you ever saw, BUT it DID smell up the house, About like having a couple of those unvented kerosun heaters going

 

[kb0nes]

Having a kerosene range in the kitchen would finally make a gas range seem as it it is an improvement in cooking technology.

 

[wayupnorth]

We had a Kenmore gas on one side and a kerosene heater on the other side growing up. And yes, you would get hit with the stink as soon as you walked in, even though it was vented into a chimney. Many of the homes around me growing up had kerosene with either gas or electric stoves as they were all older homes with a kitchen on the rear that needed the extra heat. Never saw a pure kerosene range.

 

[Ultramatic]

 

 

When I was a kid, my dad got a very old, cast iron, kerosene stove in his store. He was always buying oddball appliances out of curiosity. Anyway it was a 2 burner, tabletop model. White and light grey. Off to the right sat an inverted glass jar filled with kerosene. If I remember correctly, the jar had a metal wick that fed the kerosene to the two burners. It was match lit. And yes, it did have a strong smell. It was just for display purposes. After the novelty wore off, it got tossed to the back of the store. I don't remember what happened to it.

 

And I actually liked the smell of kerosene. But then again, I love the smell of jet fuel, and leaded gasoline when it was available.

 

[washerboy]

Thanks for the info!!/mark

 

[tomturbomatic]

Baking in the oven was hard. There was a thermometer on the door like in solid fuel range and two burners underneath that had to be adjusted evenly to heat the oven evenly for balanced baking results. Results also depended on the conditions of both wicks being the same so that a higher flame on one side did not cause over browning of the baked good.

My friend, the home ec teacher told me about having one of these in the lab during the 1940s when students had to be given experience on all of the types ranges they might have to use, except for solid fuel types. They had to bake cakes for some Mardi Gras-type celebration, the kind of cakes with the little trinkets in them. She told me that they tried to bake a cake in the kerosene oven, but it browned too much on the outside. She cut into it after it had cooled and it was "underdone" inside so she went to a bakery, bought a frosted cake and stuck some of the trinkets just under the icing.

My father's mother heated wash water in a boiler on a kerosene stove in her basement and the place always smelled of kerosene, as well as coal for the furnace. My mother's family used one on the porch in the summer when it was too hot to use the cookstove in the kitchen in Hibbing.

Life was so hard for them.