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Heating Your House With Coal
Do
you remember the center grate or grille usually between the living and
dining room. This was the only heat grille in the house, upstairs
depended on gravity with the hot air rising for heat. Needless to say it
didn't work very well. We burned coal till I was almost a teen.
Hot
water was a summer-winter hookup from the furnace. Cold weather didn't
always get you hot water- you got steam, and you had to be careful. In
the summer there was no hot water from this system. We had a little
"buck a day" separate hot water heater, which used a bucket of
coal a day to make hot water in the summer. With coal costing $20 or
more a ton there was only hot water on wash day and maybe Saturday.
Don't believe what they tell you, cold baths do not build character.
Showers were something you saw in movies.
Ashes
were the biggest pain in burning coal. They would get tracked all over
the house in winter.
-John
Ciafrani, January 2004
That
center grate was also a good place to sneak a peek after you went to bed
to see who was gathering in the dining room. I remember getting up in the
morning and coming down to open the damper and shake down the ashes and
stand there in your wool robe turning around 360 degrees to warm up as the
coals got hotter and I also remember going to bed with a hot brick or iron
wrapped in a towel to warm your feet. Every time I went to visit my
Grandmother I would take the ashes out to the curb and sift through
them for any unburned coals.
Jim Bessing, July 2004
I
can still remember my parents saying at night when we lived in Ablett
Village " It's time to bank the heater " which meant adding
enough coal to hold the fire over until the next morning. I remember the
coal trucks and the coal bins and if a family was running out of coal they
used to borrow some from the neighbors until they received their delivery.
Jim Bessing has mentioned about sifting the ashes for un-burnt coal. I
used to do that as a chore as my father made a square box with wire mesh
on the top and we used to dump the ashes on the form and moved them
around. It was amazing how much good coal was found. Talking about finding
coal, we used to walk the railroad tracks and pickup coal that fell off
the rail cars. We also saved the ashes or cinders for the ice and snow for
traction. Coal heat wasn't the best heat and there were many nights my
mother, my dad, myself and my sister would be in the vicinity of the
grate, grill, or as we called it the register.
Earl
Crim, August 1, 2004
One
thing I think I forgot about burning coal, was that everyone kept old
orange crates or scrap wood around. The wood was used as kindling but it
had to be dry.
You
would put some scrap paper and kindling in the firebox. Kindling went on
top or under the coal as your preference. You light the paper, the paper
lights the kindling, the kindling lights the coal. So much for auto
ignition. Coal was a poor way to heat especially with gravity hot air.
Steam and hot water was better.
It
was sign of pride that when ashes were shifted that only a few pieces of
coal weren't burnt. The ashes were a pain. In the winter everyone used
them on icy sidewalks and to give cars traction. Guys would keep ashes in
trunk all winter, for snowy weather. Of coarse when you came indoors
during winter you tracked the ashes everywhere. There was also a separate
collection day for ashes separate from the garbage. collection As a kid I
had a little route taking out ashes for some older neighbors. They would
give you ten or 15 cents, which was movie money.
Banking
the fire didn't do much good on a day when temperature got unseasonably
warm. You could tell people who burned coal on a day like that because
they would have front door or windows open.
-John
Ciafrani, August 2004 In
the late spring and early summer you would see quite a few coal
deliveries. People were getting head a start on next winter and lower
price for fuel. Even 35 yrs ago, the oil companies would solicit you to
fill your tank during the summer and I believe I paid about 15 cents a
gallon in August McAllister had a coal yard from bridge plaza to Pearl
Street, between 7th and 6th streets, where Northgate is now on 7th
street was the entrance to the yard. They brought coal in on rail cars
right up Main Street. They would run cars up a hump and dumped the coal
there, then took empty cars away..... and there was coal dust over
everything. -John
Ciafrani, August 2004
Now that weather is starting to
change, thoughts turn to heating season. The Pavonia
Ice & Coal ad reminded me when we
talked about coal heat before, I had meant to tell you this. When ad's
spoke of clean fuel for coal they meant complete consumption of the
coal with a minimum amount of ashes. Those old heaters were all natural
draft, that is, they depended on temperature difference for combustion
air, plus I don't doubt old
houses were so drafty that you had a good amount of fresh air leakage
into the buildings.
Coal by nature burns
dirty, giving off soot, and natural draft
doesn't help any. On the plus side you had heat even in a power
failure. Soot and other products of combustion build up in stack piece
and chimney, and as it builds up your combustion draft drops off. The gas of
combustion, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and so on, have to go somewhere.
With the old chimneys made of brick and mortar, the next thing you didn't
know is that you had a colorless and odorless gas
filling the house.
Another problem was a fire in
the stack or the chimney. That's one
reason that when they put a new heating system in today they usually put
a chimney liner in, as it stops combustion gas leaks and keeps chimney fires
down. A lot of people in "shoulder season", that is, fall & spring, would build
a wood fire in the coal furnace. If the wood wasn't dried out, or was a from a sap tree
like pine, this added to whole problem. It wasn't unusual as a kid to
read about a family over come with flue gas and it was known on
occasion to lead to a death.
Good old
days? I wonder! -John
Ciafrani, October 2004
We
had a coal bin in the front of our house at 152 Eutaw
Avenue. We bought our coal from the Pavonia Coal Company. Depending
on Dad's budget, we would get one half ton or one ton delivered. Some
time in the early '50s we switched to gas heat. -Tom
Probst, October 2004 When
we got oil heat, we cleaned out the coal bin. Of course the wooden chute
to send coal under the front porch to the coal bin stayed. In the winter
we kept 32 ounce Ballantine's under there to keep cold. One winter we
got a real bad cold snap in December and the whole case of beer froze.
From then on only a few quart bottles went there at a time. -John
Ciafrani, October 2004
While
poking around I found a paragraph on "Blue Coal". According to
this little note, Blue Coal was used as a selling point in as much
as it was supposed to have superior burning qualities and as a theft
deterrent. Some of the coal companies sprayed the coal with a blue
coloring, so that if anyone tried to steal coal from a slow moving train
they would get blue coloring all over there clothes and hands, making it
easier for police to catch them. When the coal reached the coal yards
its blue coloring was used as a selling point. Three cheers for
truth in ad's.!!! -John
Ciafrani, November 2004 I
can’t help smiling when I
read such tales of woe as “Heating
with Coal”. Did
everyone but me have central heating back in the 30’s? Although
it must have been fun to be able to spy
on those downstairs through the ceiling grates,
it must have been wonderful
to feel the warm air rising
into your freezing bedroom
on a cold winters night. Most houses with central heating ,which you
didn't use in the summer, came equipped with a gas range for cooking and
most houses with gas had a water heater. Central heat
via a furnace also meant the ability to pay for coal by the ton
which few if
any on little Cooper Street
could even dream of. Life
on the other side of the tracks: Coal
was a luxury to be bought only when it was absolutely necessary and
then only in 50
lb bags. Blue coal or pea or nut
or even coke, it didn't matter on any particular day, except
which happened to be cheapest. I
would take my little
wagon up to the Pavonia Ice and Coal Co. at 23rd and Howell
Streets
when we had the money and struggle with
a bag I could hardly lift then haul it back home
and try to carry it into the
house. This was our secondary source of coal.
At other times, which I hated, I would be ordered to take a bucket and
walk the railroad tracks to find coal that had fallen off
coal cars. This also meant playing hide and seek with
the railroad police, who were not the friendliest people in the world.
At that age it
didn't dawn on me that they were looking out for my safety as well as
protecting railroad property. My
route for coal scavenging usually ranged
from behind the Haddon Press down to behind
Dimedio Lime, Du Bell Lumber and Concrete Steel Co. On a bad day I would
have to continue all the way beyond Warren Webster's to the
Standard Oil place at Federal
Street and River Road to fill my bucket after which it was a heavy trip
back to Cooper Street. Our
heating system at home consisted of a large wood/coal cooking range in
the kitchen which was jet black and had shiny nickel plated parts
hanging on it. I also had the job of polishing this stove which was done
while it was very hot using a liquid consisting of an oil and carbon
black dispersion. You rubbed this on with a
cloth and it smoked like a volcano
and you continued rubbing until it was dry and shiny black, and so were
you. This
stove was used for cooking and heating water. There was only one faucet
in the house and it was ice cold water. This is why in those days there
was a Saturday bath, you didn't shower a couple times a day even if you
wanted to. There was no hot water and no shower.
Bathing was done in the galvanized laundry
tub. During the week you washed your
face and hands. Picture
a woman's life during this period: Throughout
the hottest time of the year she always needed a fire. To cook, to have
water for the wash and to
heat the iron for ironing. The wash was done on a wash board which most
women today have seen only in museums. It was backbreaking labor.... and
let’s not forget my sister's hair which also required a fire. With no
electricity how else do you heat a curling iron? There
were two kinds of curling irons I remember
my mother using. One was called a Marcelle
Iron and this made waves. The other
was a curling iron much like those used today,
except that they weren't heated
with electricity. Then how were they heated?? Glad you
asked. The
irons were held in the fire until
they were hot. Then they were taken out and closed on
a piece of paper, preferably a brown paper bag. This would smoke, turn
black and sometimes
erupt into flame. You would
continue testing it until
it no longer discolored the
paper. At this point you would
then proceed to put the
hair in and roll it up as you do today.
After a few minutes you would unroll it and hope the hair didn't stay
with the iron. Sound like fun?? I have a curling iron for you to try, if
you are so inclined. Ironing
clothes on a 100 degree day was not fun either. Or any other day for
that matter. During
the summer months we used wood which
meant you could allow the fire to go out
when it wasn't needed. The wood
was usually scavenged by me from
old shipping skids.
These could be obtained from the Haddon Press and a few other businesses
by hook or crook. Usually the latter. Many commodities in those days
were shipped in wooden barrels. These were usually made of gum wood
which was difficult to chop. The ax jumped back at you as if it had hid
a block of rubber. Women
today say they are overworked because one day a week that may have to
DRIVE Johnny to Little League. That
takes care of the kitchen. There
was a pot bellied stove in the
parlor which was seldom used at all. Parlors
were generally
used for special visitors or which happened, it seems , all to
often in those days,
wakes. Next
comes the pot bellied stove in
the dining room which was where we lived. This room
served as living room, dining
room and family room. This stove was our primary source
of warmth throughout the winter months. This
stove was not large but it kept the room comfortable. What
about the bedrooms? There was zero heat except what your
body generated and the
quilts managed to hold next to you. The
kitchen stove didn't help because the kitchen was a separate room
attached to the rear
of the house. As
mentioned before the parlor stove wasn't used for general heating.
Because of the size and limited
utility of the dining room stove there was no ceiling grate
to allow heat to rise to the
upstairs…which would result in cooling the down stairs. I
remember one occasion where I didn't think it was warm enough and being
home alone I proceeded to remedy that situation. I filled the dining
room stove with coke, which was all we had on hand that day. Then I
opened the damper all the way which I had seen my father do. In a short period of time the pot
belly was glowing red. Soon after the
stove pipe started to get red and the red
rose higher and higher and I became more and more scared not knowing what to do
about it. The
red was within three feet of the ceiling when my father walked in the
door. In a short
time he had the stove under control. As the stove returned to its normal
black my bottom
became redder and redder. I had doubts I would ever sit again. This
is the way life went on in the good
old days.... and
they really were the good old days. Ask anyone who grew up during that
period. You may get
a different answer if you ask those who were unemployed adults during this time.
It’s all in your perspective.
Regards Tom
Agin
December 18, 2004
The
natural hot air or gravity system in some ways was worse than a stove in
living room or kitchen. It was no more than a large vent that
opened on the first floor. Some houses had a grille on the second floor,
but often they depended on stairway for any warm air. The drawback was
that you lost the radiant heat off the furnace. At least with a stove
you could huddle or sleep or sit around it. A lot of the heat from the
furnace was wasted. An
even better system of natural draft hot air heat with ducts to the
second floor were grossly inefficient. Steam heat was the warmest, but
as the boiler aged rather than replace or do needed repair work, most
people converted to gravity hot water. The problem here was that the
radiators were sized for steam. The hot water didn't circulate fast
enough in very cold weather. Circulators for forcing the hot water to circulate
through the system were expensive and pricey. The usual result of
converting was that water would circulate as the temperature increased
but the whole time the supply & return lines were giving up heat all
over the house. Add
that to the fact that those brick row houses with a frame back had
no insulation. By the time the water got to the second floor, the loss
was high, plus there were always one or two rooms that if the weather
was very cold didn't get much heat. It was like trying to heat the
outside. In
the 40's and 50's a lot of people had insulation blown in the frame back
walls of their row houses. The problem was that the insulation, a
product like cut wool paper, would settle after a few years.
The lower floor would have all the insulation, while the upper floor
where it was needed at night was still starved for heat. Add the fact
that the radiators (many of which had been originally for steam) were
quite often undersized left a lot of back bedrooms as cold as walk-in
boxes. Most
hot water and steam heat systems had an extra coil to use the exhaust
from the furnace to heat hot domestic water. Still, the bath was no
treat in a cold bathroom. A bath and washing your face, hands, and other
parts was, in winter, a wake up experience for a bath in winter. I
still remember people in the 40s and 50s collecting scrap wood. That
pine used in pallets burned quick and was a dirty fire. -John
Ciafrani, December 2004 I had many
opportunities to stay over in houses
with central heating and although they were not perfect
when compared to post-war standards I don't remember a single one that could compare
to an entire house heated with one little stove. One
point John made brought back fond memories. That being that you could cuddle up to a potbellied stove. I can remember
running in the house half-frozen from playing in the snow and cuddling
to to the stove. This was truly ecstasy. It cannot be duplicated by
entering room warmed by central heating. The concept of using the staircase as a
convection channel to heat the upstairs only works with an open
staircase. The houses on
little Cooper Street's stairs
were totally enclosed clear to the bottom with a
full wall both on the dining room side and the living room side. There
was a door on one side or the other of the stairs to isolate the
dining room, which you wanted to heat, from the living room which you
did not. John states that taking a bath in a cold bathroom
was a horrible ordeal. We took our baths in a
tin tub in a nice hot kitchen, so take your choice. But a
BATHROOM? WOW! Now for the great equalizer. Although we bathed in the nice warm kitchen, think about when
nature called. Remember the old poem : "Out of bed and unto the floor
and a fifty yard dash to the outhouse door" Actually it was probably about
twenty feet door-to-door. When the temperature was down toward freezing or a rain storm was in progress this was a real
challenge, and since our lighting was kerosene lamps and
nobody was going to light these in the middle of the night the trip
would be made in total darkness. John made a comment about pines and other such
woods burning dirty and is probably right. I was
too young to pay attention to such things but I remember that my
father saved all his old flashlight batteries and on occasions put
them in the fire. He said that the acids in the batteries helped
keep the chimney clean. Whether it worked or not I
don't know. Tom
Agin
December 21, 2004
When
times were hard, it was not an uncommon practice to go to the railroad
tracks to pick up coal that had fallen from the trains... this is in the
days before diesels. Coal-fired locomotives operated in Camden into the
1950s. This
of course could be a dangerous practice, and at least one person was
killed while picking coal, hit by a train near
North 32nd Street in April of 1928. Phil
Cohen
October 1, 2005
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