An Encounter with a 75 Year Old Furnace
Вставка
- Опубліковано 14 чер 2012
- It is exceedingly rare in residential real estate showings to encounter original heating systems in homes that date back to the 1930s. This 90 second video will introduce you to one of these rare artifacts that is still in use in a home in Champaign, Illinois.
I live in Pontiac and I have a 1939 Iron Fireman Furnace. It ran on Coal, oil and gas back in the day. It had been on oil but was converted to Natural Gas at some point.
Thank you for showing the conversion kit. It's smaller than I thought.
I just went to an estate sale in a house built in 1917 and the original coal-fired boiler was still in the basement. I did see a natural gas line running to a metal "box" right in front of the boiler; now I realize that must've been the conversion kit! Thanks!
That place should be a museum.
Exactly what my parents had when they bought their house in 45 or 46 . Then changed to a Weil McLain oil fired hot water boiler about 10 years later.👷🏻
awsome sososososososo cooolll love it love those old heaters love the vid thanks
no wonder we still use such artifacts today
Had one in our house (built 1917) growing up. It was still there in 1977. For all I know, it's still there. Ours was converted to home heating oil. We had a 300 gallon oil tank inside the basement. The coal room was converted into a workshop with a maple workbench, etc. BTW: the heat converts the water to steam for the steam radiators (I used to love the way they whistled when the steam came up), but there was an inline horizontal tank next to the furnace that heated the house water for the faucets too. It was like operating an old locomotive. Weirdly my Dad had a boiler operator's license that he got from a job he held for awhile shortly after WW2.
Pretty sure that’s a stainless steel expansion tank and you probably had a DHW coil.
can u show us it functioning
Wow. Some history there.
crazy to think about how much more work went into keeping the house warm. There is some irony in that.
Not really that much work. I had a hot air coal furnace for years. After it's up and running you shake it down and remove ashes/clinkers. Add a hod of coal and go to work. In the evening do it again.
I have a gravity furnace in my house. The best even heat ever. The air is very sanitary as the air is HOT! Thus no mold or crap in the air. Basement is very dry. My friends have more modern furnaces in similar homes and they have high gas bills also. The point about the gravity furnace is that it needs no energy for a blower. Saves electricity and no moving parts except for the gas valves.
No noise also. Evenly warm rooms.
Gravity only means that you don't have a pump to move water. These systems are inefficient since they rely on convection to circulate water into the radiators, it means that to work you have to run it at extremely high temperature (less efficient) and also not all radiators get even heat.
Boilers abandoned natural circulation when water pumps were available, I never seen one (even the oldest boiler I've seen in my country had a circulator), since a pump is much more efficient, and also you can use smaller pipes since the speed of the water is higher.
New boilers can even modulate the circulator speed based on the boiler power output to keep the heat exchanger at the right temperature to get better condensation (that way they reach almost 100% efficiency).
@@alerighi We do like our gravity systems. Thank you.
@@alerighi I dont need much electricity. I can use 120 or 24v to run the valve. Very economical. No blower to waste elt. My gas bills are lower than my neighbors. SO is my electric bills. Figure that out smarty pants. Just runs great after 75 to 100 years.
I bet it will never break down if properly serviced too
I got a bigger one at work! it now has a leak from the side. we took the side covers off and insulation off. the right side was pretty corroded and the leak starts in between the segments! also with the side covers off you can see the fire inside through small cracks between the segments. anyway to rescue the boiler?
Good Day,
I Lived in a House that was around 200 Yrs old, & had it had a Coal Boiler system installed in 1935 I am pretty sure that was the correct Year.
It was converted to burn Diesel (Fuel Oil) about 1960, & it is still in operation Today.
The Service Man said that the Water Pans used in that particular unit (I have since forgot the Name but it was made near Hamilton Ontario as far as I remember) were so thick it that it would take the strongest Man with a *good* Sledgehammer to bust it up.
They can and DO,. . . . last forever. . .unless You let the thing sit in sub zero Temperatures full. . .
Is it still running?
@@danielmorse6597 I presume so...
The house was sold to a Mennonite family.
Unless he changed it out which wouldn't make sense.
I have not returned to find out.
The workshop had a 1930 era boiler and it also was in gwc but really was huge and a guzzler. I think it was originally from a school or apartment building.
Could watch the fuel gauge drop.
Pendell Boilers Ltd I remember that.
Had auxiliary pumps and 2¹/⁴" pipes.
Very cool!
Very
My grandpa was born and raised in Chicago. He would get up at 4 in the morning to feed their Octopus/gravity coal furnace on cold days- this was the late 1920s.... not nearly as modern as the system you showcased! Ha!
Very cool
Looks like the famous furnace from home alone 😂
Wow, I'm getting my old coal furnace from 1930 gutted right now! Sad to see it go! Looks very similar to this one but had a pilot light in a dome shaped thing inside.
@Greetings, it'sme! Yes, had it removed and replaced with a new boiler system. The guys weighed it and said it was 1700 lbs. The basement looks much bigger without it.
Gas boilers are way more efficient than that guy said.
Looks perfect! Can you tell me which type of radiator were originally came with the house? Steam or hydronic radiators?
High_ridges , My parents was the exact same boiler , hot water / radiators.👷🏻
I have a similar system with the tongue looking thing. The pilot valve work but when I open the main gas Line the furnace is not turning on. Any idea what it might be??
Make sure the thermostat is passing the 12 or 24 volt current to the gas valve. Make sure the standing pilot is lit. When you closed the main valve, you cut off gas to the pilot light so you will have to reset the pilot thermocouple. The instructions for that are somewhere here on UA-cam. Since the thermocouple may be defective you may have to replace it due to age and disuse. Henceforth do not close the main valve for summer layover. Saving 2 dollars worth of gas could cost you $200 unless you replace the thermocouple yourself, which is an easy job.
I haven't seen one of those since 1971, One of these were on the basement of Trinity Chappel in Pencoed, South Wales UK,
My late father was the Boiler Man there, & i remembers the Dust, Very well Lol 😄😂😅 But it was Bloody awful !
haha, I just bought a house in Czech that was built in 1933. It still runs it's OG coal burner to heat the radiators and hot water. Just older a truck load of coal each winter now...
Very cool I have one in my house which is oil and is very noisy
some could been converted to oil fired applications some using a Beckett oil burner.
Trying to find info on this old furnace ! PACIFIC SOA5E,
Can’t go wrong with Weil mcclain
Cool but also inefficient, for what a new condensing boiler costs (that is 100% efficient if used properly) doesn't make sense to keep it running. The cost of a new boiler pays itself in a year of saving gas.
Didn't even look to be in service. Cob webs in it?
how often did you have to add coal? Seems like a PITA.
Probably every 12 hours. For someone in a remote location it is far cheaper than heating oil.
not a furnace its a boiler
would that originally have burned anthracite or bituminous coal? anthracite is still in use today, i heat my own home with it. its cheap, hot, and burns cleanly. its cheaper then natural gas. i personally prefer it, i can get all of my coal in one delivery and its done for the year. i use a modern keystoker 90K freestanding stove. you can also get forced air and coal boilers still being made by companies like keystoker.
can you convert this unit back to coal. it would be much more economical to run it on the fuel it was built to run with. converting coal furnaces and boilers to natural gas was for lazy people and is actually not a very good idea. the unit was not designed to run with natural gas, so burning gas it would be very in-efficient
Prior to world war II most homes in the U.S. were heated with Anthracite.
Best heat for homes #1 coal, #2 Kerosene, #3 (#2 oil) Diesel, #4 LP, and dead last at #5 NG. Wood is just too variable.
No, it will stay gas. The old grates and smokestack would have to be replaced. I use coal at my farm however.
i have one at my grandparents. they converted to oil. now im told theres no NG conversion for it
Not true. It can be converted but it may be a matter of finding the parts. Many boilermen are incompetent today. See Steven Lavimoniere's channel on UA-cam; he could do it for sure (though might recommend replacement .. most of these conversions were done from the 30s to 60s).
You have to see what you have ,convert to a combo gas valve but you need to do some work to convert it properly
I would restore it and use the boiler with the coal.
that furnace looks grumpy
hello people in 2021
I have one to demolish. Will a sledge hammer do it
how difficult would it be to remove that natural gas setup and convert it back to coal. it probably works extremely well on coal
Andrew is no doubt a Trump supporter. He probably is one of the coal workers conned by Trump!
Probably is way more efficient burning coal. Not as much heat goes up the chimney and anthracite coal is very clean burning
Coal in those boilers actually is more efficient and cleaner burning than gas if you burn anthracite coal or hard coal no smoke and blue flames
Joseph Jarrell , anthracite coal is hard coal, bituminous coal is soft coal!👷🏻
probably just put the draft cover on, with ash pan, and the grate back on the ledges the gas burner sits under. although it may be hard finding those pieces now
Bring back Coal & Fire Logs ! They are the best 😀☺
Can you say, Asbestos.
So true, i'm here with my mom and loving it.
Looks asbestos free to me?
@@VinylToVideo I'm no heater expert, I could be wrong lol.
I think you are incorrect, they have a water heater next to it to heat the water. That thing is a incinerator or something
Some hot water heating systems are paired with water heaters or hot water holding tanks, but this is most definitely a boiler. In most cases the water heater for plumbing and the boiler for radiant heat were completely separate systems.
MORRIS6161 , Exactly what my parents had hot water coal boiler for heat ,gas hot water for domestic. Exact boiler!!👷🏻
Not old at all.