Your Generation? another Poll

[unclemick]

Anymore West Coasters? I remember our Boy Scout Troop used a church basement. So - rent was we had to shovel periodic loads of sawdust into the bin for the church furnace.

heh heh heh - you don't see sawdust much anymore .

 

[W2R]

I remember my father had to shovel coal into the furnace back in St. Louis in the 1950's and 1960's. The coal was delivered by a big coal truck that emptied it into a chute that went directly into the coal room. We kids were forbidden to go into the coal room or furnace room as this part of the house was considered to be too dirty and dangerous for little kids. I don't think the furnace was ever converted before 1965, when the house was sold since we just weren't living in it during most of prior years.

 

[MRG]

Imoldernu,
Thank you for explaining banking coal/coke. Our family was from coal country, mom and dad "escaped" post WWII as soon as possible. Their new house was oil heat, they were so happy to get away from coal heat, coal cracker country, and life around the mines. I remember going there as a little kid, dad would always bank the coal for GP's while they were still on their own. The kids were never allowed down to the furnace/coal bin area.

Do you know how manual fed furnaces were "banked"? I remember dad talking about auger fed and manual. Later in life I saw the auger fed type and thanks to your description that makes sense. But how is a manual fed coal furnace banked?

Yes, I did Google that topic but am still a bit confused. Thanks.

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[HFWR]

Anymore West Coasters? I remember our Boy Scout Troop used a church basement. So - rent was we had to shovel periodic loads of sawdust into the bin for the church furnace.



heh heh heh - you don't see sawdust much anymore .

My paternal grandparents used reject wooden shoe heals from a shoe factory in an adjoining town for fuel.


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[Sea Kayaker]

This thread is starting to make me feel young. And it is appreciated.

 

[Walt34]

Y'all are making me realize how good we had it. Oil-fired hot water heat in the winter, intact roof overhead, indoor plumbing, hot water, three meals a day, new shoes in the fall, and so on. And back then I thought we were poor because we couldn't afford new bicycles.

 

[MRG]

My paternal grandparents used reject wooden shoe heals from a shoe factory in an adjoining town for fuel.


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Good use someone's waste is heat.

We used to cut up slabwood all summer had huge pile at the mill. Couldn't give the stuff away in the summer. Winter time $3.00 a pickup load you load, grocery money. Couldn't keep up with the demand. We'd deliver to a few older people in town mostly just throw it down their coal chute. A whole pickup load $15.00. We'd hold back some for the regular customers, they didn't have the money for coal. We didn't make any more by delivery, helped a few folks that couldn't afford to pay more. Again just grocery money for us.

The truck a '47 Dodge. Heater didn't work, on one side the widow was out, the other side wing window was out. Doggone cold at 5F.

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[mickeyd]

Same here, Mom was afraid (probably justifiably so) of what I'd do with it. So the best I could do was a wrist rocket slingshot (I think that's what they were called) and steel ball bearings. I did enough damage with that.

Was that a Whamo slingshot?

By far the most ironic thing to come out of all of this "No Red Rider BB gun" episode for me is that I went into the US Army at age 20 and spent a number of years in the infantry (including a couple of tours in Vietnam) where I was required not only to carry an M-16 rifle, but to often fire it at other people on a regular basis.

 

[Walt34]

Was that a Whamo slingshot?

Probably was, I remember they advertised a lot.

 

[samclem]

Same here, Mom was afraid (probably justifiably so) of what I'd do with it. So the best I could do was a wrist rocket slingshot (I think that's what they were called) and steel ball bearings. I did enough damage with that.

Oh, yes. A wrist rocket slingshot with steel shot probably packs much more energy than the BB gun your Mom nixed. And with glass marbles. . . I can't believe they still sell them without some sort of waiver/registration/fingerprinting.

For the uninitiated, a "wrist rocket" slingshot is like a normal slingshot but for two features: it uses long surgical tubing as the bands for storing the energy and (most important) it has a padded brace that wraps over the top of the wrist that lets the user comfortably pull back a lot harder. The speed with which the projectile leaves the sling is very impressive.

 

[Walt34]

Oh, yes. A wrist rocket slingshot with steel shot probably packs much more energy than the BB gun your Mom nixed. And with glass marbles. . . I can't believe they still sell them without some sort of waiver/registration/fingerprinting.

Oh - parents didn't know about the steel ball bearings. Those were outsourced. I remember they worked wonders on a hornet's nest.

And I probably did use a few glass marbles.

 

[imoldernu]

RE: the wrist slingshot... ummm... yea... I still have and use one. Our campground home is in an oak forest, so there are many many oaks... 14 on my property alone... and so tons of acorns... We also have hundreds of geese that we love, but sometimes they like us so much they congregate on my lawn, and... poop. Enter the slingshot and the acorns, not that it bothers them too much... They become a little aggravated, but being hit by an acorn, thwap!.. is more of an insult, than a "hurt"... I get the evil eye, and some squawks, but it's more of a game for them, and they just go about their business.
.....................................................

To finish off the coal burner furnaces:
1st... banking... it simply means putting new coal or coke on top of the fire, so that it will last through the night. as in putting money in the bank for later use.
The picture below, is similar to the furnace that we had in our home. At the top, a water boiler to heat the water that goes into the HW radiators in each room of the house. Below the boiler, the burner... a metal door that opens so coal can be shoveled in. The coal sits on a metal grate with interlocking teeth that are moved back and forth by a handle outside the furnace. (In the picture, the black vertical handle on the left hand side of the door that goes to the lower section). As the fire burns down the ashes drop through the grate into the bottom of the furnace where there is another door where the ash is shoveled out.
The other part of this, that was common then.. was that the cast iron furnace was covered with asbestos paste several inches thick, to insulate and keep the heat inside. That asbestos also covered all of the pipes leading from the boiler and all through the basement. The basement was often covered with asbestos dust from this insulation. The asbestos was in almost all homes, schools and businesses, usually in the basement.
As kids, in grammar school, the bathrooms were in the basement of the building, and the heating pipes (covered with asbestos) ran all across the low ceiling. The game for us boys, was to jump up to touch and scratch off the asbestos from the pipes. who knew

Coal fired asbestos covered, hot water boiler home furnace.

 

[MRG]

Imoldernu thank you for the education. Makes my parents dislike for coal heat make a lot more sense now. There was a time before they moved away that dad traveled so mom would have to taken care of the furnace. She hated coal, the mining, and the mine fires. Her dad worked in the mines for a while so I imagine his laundy was a treat!

Yes even our new '57 furnace had asbestos sprayed on and around it, who knew.

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[aja8888]

I was one year old when Dad joined the Navy and went to war (1944). We lived in Pittston, Pennsylvania and Dad was a coal miner like his Dad. I never met either grandfather as they died of black lung before I was born. Dad went to the South Pacific to fight the Japanese and I lived with Mom and Grandma in Pittston until he came back from the war.

Grandma's house was all of 1,000 square feet and a "mine house" (owned by the coal company). Heated with coal and no inside bathroom. We had an outhouse in the back yard and raised chickens for food. I spoke Lithuanian only as that was our heritage and Dad being away, I leaned from Mom and Grandma as that was all they spoke, I was three when Dad returned. We moved to Connecticut after the war so Dad could find work as the mines were closed.

Even as a toddler, I remember the ashes being spread in the street and the warmth of homemade quilts that were piled on top of me as the furnace was really the kitchen stove (I imagine the furnace in the basement was shot and no grown men were around to fix it).

Boy, do we have it good now.

 

[Walt34]

Interesting about the use of coal, I never saw any of that up close. My paternal grandparent's house was originally heated with coal but had been converted to oil by the time I arrived.

But I do remember Aunt Nettie's (paternal grandmother's sister) attachment to her coal stove, a huge and ornate thing that dominated her kitchen. I've never seen anything like it before or since and we all remember enjoying whatever she cooked on it. Her kids had taken up a collection and bought her an electric stove that she hated - made them take it out and bring back her coal stove.

She was memorable for another reason too. Aunt Nettie cussed like the proverbial sailor and it was the first time that I'd ever heard a female of any age cuss, or in some cases the first time I'd heard those words from anyone. I didn't know women were allowed to do that.

 

[Texconsin]

Grew up in Chicago, and one of the first "complicated" things I remember reading was the envelope in the mail that said: "People's gas, light and coke company".

Me: "Mom, why do we get Coke with our gas bill?"
Mom: "Let me tell you what coke is..."

I've heard that coke is still quite popular in Chicago. And I'd bet some gas company guys deliver it on the side.