Some assistance with old stove

[bytal]

We bought a house last fall and this old stove was in the corner of the work shop. Looks like it hasn't been used for a long time. I figured it would be nice to clean it up and get it set up in the work shop so I could use it sometimes when I'm working out there in the winter.

I couldnt really find any information about the stove on the net, other than people call that style a parlour stove whatever that means. I find it a bit odd that it has parts cast in both Vancouver and Montreal. Not even sure if its designed for wood or pellets. There is no rope seal around the door, and no clearance for one either so I assume that is by design. The stove is full of rounded fire bricks and the body of the stove is sheet metal with the cast iron pieces attached to it. What is the purpose of the blue box it is contained within? If I repaint the box would it require stove paint or would engine enamel do?

 

[bholler]

We bought a house last fall and this old stove was in the corner of the work shop. Looks like it hasn't been used for a long time. I figured it would be nice to clean it up and get it set up in the work shop so I could use it sometimes when I'm working out there in the winter.

I couldnt really find any information about the stove on the net, other than people call that style a parlour stove whatever that means. I find it a bit odd that it has parts cast in both Vancouver and Montreal. Not even sure if its designed for wood or pellets. There is no rope seal around the door, and no clearance for one either so I assume that is by design. The stove is full of rounded fire bricks and the body of the stove is sheet metal with the cast iron pieces attached to it. What is the purpose of the blue box it is contained within? If I repaint the box would it require stove paint or would engine enamel do?

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It is designed for use with coal

 

[coaly]

Looks like the blue case makes a plenum around the inner firebox. Probably to prevent people, animals, children, from touching the stove itself, or direct heat up through a floor opening. If it had duct type outlets to connect vent ducts, it would be like a more modern coal furnace, but it gravity vents convected heat out the top and cool air or return air comes in the bottom where the air is coolest at floor level.

Stoves radiate heat in all directions by radiation. Another way to extract heat is through convection. All stoves use both since hot air also rises off radiant stoves. This is a convection heater that heats air instead of floors, walls, and objects by radiation. I would personally leave paint original, or use high temp stove paint if you must. (It's only original once) Many think convection heaters do not heat as well, but a BTU is a BTU and radiant stoves only feel hotter warming you. The hot air coming off this will heat a large area. The number on loading door is normally the diameter of burn pot.

Be careful with the brick, be very careful loading wood if that is what you will be using. You will probably not find replacement brick to match. If using wood, start It with both top and bottom air open. Once burning well, close bottom and only use top intake with wood. You may have to crack the bottom slightly, but not much. The bottom is for coal that requires lots of air to come up through it. Burning coal, use bottom air intake the most, only crack upper a little for oxygen to get to the top of fire to ignite coal gas. It will burn blue on top. You "can" burn wood in a coal stove, but not efficiently. It will get too much air burning too fast and too hot. If coal is available, that is the fuel to use.

Leaks around upper door is not as critical with coal as wood, since coal uses the air coming up through it. Wood will burn getting air from any direction, so a tighter stove is needed. If you won't be using it for constant heat, wood can be used for heat only when you need it. Much more efficient with coal.

That is not a parlor stove. They were a fancy coal burning stove for small areas, with Isinglass windows and nickel trim for in a parlor or entertaining room of a home. Like a smaller private TV room for entertaining guests today. They would heat with a kitchen coal stove, possibly have another stove in a dining room, and a parlor, and possibly others in bedrooms. It was common for travelers with horse and buggy to stop at a home to warm up in the front room, and tend the stove for the owners before leaving.

This is more utilitarian, but could have been used as a floor heater, or floor furnace. (probably called just a coal furnace) An open grate as large as the stove was centered in the home so the heat would rise up through it. A precursor to central heating. If you have exposed wood floors, look for a patched area covering the old opening, or open beams with added floor joists to fill in the opening where an open grate was. Not far from a chimney, and possibly remnants of a coal bin. One issue was the grate would get very hot for bare feet. As gas heat and natural gas became available, that was the downfall of coal ranges, and floor heaters were replace with gas floor heaters in the same opening. They had a flip switch to make the high limit switch closer to the hot plenum when in bare feet to keep grate cooler and you had to remember to flip the switch away from plenum overnight to heat the upstairs. I've removed similar to these and installed the gas type in my gas service business. Should have taken all the old furnaces when offered, but only took the cool stoves I replaced with gas. Bet some wish they had them back today.

Grease every moving part with high temp grease or silver anti-seize. Appears to be in very good shape.

 

[snobuilder]

Looks like the blue case makes a plenum around the inner firebox. Probably to prevent people, animals, children, from touching the stove itself, or direct heat up through a floor opening. If it had duct type outlets to connect vent ducts, it would be like a more modern coal furnace, but it gravity vents convected heat out the top and cool air or return air comes in the bottom where the air is coolest at floor level.

Stoves radiate heat in all directions by radiation. Another way to extract heat is through convection. All stoves use both since hot air also rises off radiant stoves. This is a convection heater that heats air instead of floors, walls, and objects by radiation. I would personally leave paint original, or use high temp stove paint if you must. (It's only original once) Many think convection heaters do not heat as well, but a BTU is a BTU and radiant stoves only feel hotter warming you. The hot air coming off this will heat a large area. The number on loading door is normally the diameter of burn pot.

Be careful with the brick, be very careful loading wood if that is what you will be using. You will probably not find replacement brick to match. If using wood, start It with both top and bottom air open. Once burning well, close bottom and only use top intake with wood. You may have to crack the bottom slightly, but not much. The bottom is for coal that requires lots of air to come up through it. Burning coal, use bottom air intake the most, only crack upper a little for oxygen to get to the top of fire to ignite coal gas. It will burn blue on top. You "can" burn wood in a coal stove, but not efficiently. It will get too much air burning too fast and too hot. If coal is available, that is the fuel to use.

Leaks around upper door is not as critical with coal as wood, since coal uses the air coming up through it. Wood will burn getting air from any direction, so a tighter stove is needed. If you won't be using it for constant heat, wood can be used for heat only when you need it. Much more efficient with coal.

That is not a parlor stove. They were a fancy coal burning stove for small areas, with Isinglass windows and nickel trim for in a parlor or entertaining room of a home. Like a smaller private TV room for entertaining guests today. They would heat with a kitchen coal stove, possibly have another stove in a dining room, and a parlor, and possibly others in bedrooms. It was common for travelers with horse and buggy to stop at a home to warm up in the front room, and tend the stove for the owners before leaving.

This is more utilitarian, but could have been used as a floor heater, or floor furnace. (probably called just a coal furnace) An open grate as large as the stove was centered in the home so the heat would rise up through it. A precursor to central heating. If you have exposed wood floors, look for a patched area covering the old opening, or open beams with added floor joists to fill in the opening where an open grate was. Not far from a chimney, and possibly remnants of a coal bin. One issue was the grate would get very hot for bare feet. As gas heat and natural gas became available, that was the downfall of coal ranges, and floor heaters were replace with gas floor heaters in the same opening. They had a flip switch to make the high limit switch closer to the hot plenum when in bare feet to keep grate cooler and you had to remember to flip the switch away from plenum overnight to heat the upstairs. I've removed similar to these and installed the gas type in my gas service business. Should have taken all the old furnaces when offered, but only took the cool stoves I replaced with gas. Bet some wish they had them back today.

Grease every moving part with high temp grease or silver anti-seize. Appears to be in very good shape.

Amazing history lesson.
Growing up, I recall the smell older coal heated homes would have from coal storage and burning. Never gave it much thought but were the central coal fired HVAC units in the basements of these homes automatically fed from the coal bins or did the owners have to tend to them?

 

[bholler]

Amazing history lesson.
Growing up, I recall the smell older coal heated homes would have from coal storage and burning. Never gave it much thought but were the central coal fired HVAC units in the basements of these homes automatically fed from the coal bins or did the owners have to tend to them?

Many fed directly from coal bins. We still have allot in this area like that. The owner occasionally has to go into the bin and shovel coal over to the auger if it gets down to that point and ash needs taken out fairly often.

Lots of old axeman Anderson anthritube boilers are still running here.

 

[coaly]

When I was very little, the first time I was at my grandparents when they got a load of coal delivered through the basement window into the coal bin, I was infatuated by the sound and roar of the coal going down the chute. I always wanted to be there when they were getting a delivery. Theirs was hand fired, and my grandfather fired the boilers at our local college. Born in 1899, he never had a drivers license and walked to work early in the morning. He would stop at a apartment building and fire theirs on his way too. I would go with him when I stayed overnight. That stirred something in me.

At 5, my mother took me to kindergarten for the first day. I grabbed the door frame with both hands and put up a screaming fit, not wanting to go in. The janitor, Mr. Workheiser, As tall lanky fellow, took me by the hand to the boiler room. He showed me the horizontal boiler, sand buckets on the walls, and the fire. I’ll never forget the aqua blue boiler, steel stairways and catwalks to get down to it. I was fine after that, and he took me to the classroom.

My grandfather was too light to be a fireman on the DL&W railroad, but he had the knack of firing engines, so when they had a heavy freight going up the mountain to Scranton, he was “invited” to help get it over the hill. As the engine was stopped at the station for water before the run up, there was a sharp turn down the track about mid train. The towns people would run with shovels to shovel coal off the cars as fast as possible in the turn while stopped. After the train left, they would go back with wheelbarrows to take coal home. Each car holds 100 tons, RR never missed it.

I have receipts here somewhere of 2.50 and $3 a ton when my grandparents went through 10 tons a year heating an average size home. They would pay all at once for a discount, and get wagon deliveries as they needed it. I still have the coal shovel with the 3 digit phone number on it given to customers. Company is still in business that I buy from, and they have the same shovel hanging on their wall in the office. With insulation and twice the size home I use 2 tons a year.

Another story from my grandfather firing engines, we had a small line they called a “wiggle line” that uses smaller engines and lighter rail than larger main lines like the Erie and DL&W. It only went about 20 miles through 3 towns. He was firing a mixed train with a few freight cars, and when they had enough people, they would add a passenger car on the end. They came to a open field with deer, shut it down and grabbed their rifles to hunt! He had to go back and tell the passengers they would be a little late until they were done. Everyone was fine with that. Different times back then.

 

[snobuilder]

cool stories. I had no idea folks still heat with coal . Must be regional? Common in PA?
Are you talking supplemental or an automatic, thermostat controlled coal fired central HVAC system?

 

[bholler]

cool stories. I had no idea folks still heat with coal . Must be regional? Common in PA?
Are you talking supplemental or an automatic, thermostat controlled coal fired central HVAC system?

There are both central heating units and freestanding stoves used. There are pockets around the country where coal is still readily available where heating with coal is relatively common. I did years ago but I prefer wood.

 

[coaly]

Freestanding stove. I had a Gibraltar with blower for a few years. They are a stoked stove, meaning you shovel or dump coal on the fire once a day, shake a few times a day. I went to a Hitzer EZ Flow that is still a freestanding stove but has a hopper you fill from top, keeping it full. Gravity feeds onto fire as it burns down. Top off with a bucket a day without opening front door to load. Holds enough coal for 3 days if you don’t top it off daily. Still shake and remove ash daily. Variable speed blower with air chamber up the back and over top to remove convected heat.

Coal burns steady, without the heat fluctuations of wood. One match at the end of October burns constant until you let it go out in spring. I use 2 tons, that is now $240 a ton picked up, weighed on scale. It was about $100 a ton when I started mid 80’s. So we heated for $200 a year, now $480. This stove has a bimetallic thermostat that opens as needed, and an air intake on ash pan door to set for the low burn when thermostat is closed. We keep thermostat turned down so it only runs in the idle position and supplement with wood since we cook, bake and heat hot water with the kitchen cook stove adding too much heat to the home.

Prefer wood since I cut my own and have dead and storm damage trees on enough acreage to get rid of anyway. Some years we will heat with wood only, others when we buy a home to renovate to make a rental out of, burn only coal, not being here to fire wood. We have no central system, but I have a 3 flue chimney to add boiler with cast iron baseboard if I ever hook it up if we need a automatic system. Pound for pound coal is far easier and cheaper if you had to buy wood. No smoke, but pollutants are far worse, we try to keep coal burning to a minimum.

Coal creates finer, and much more ash. It can get airborne if you don’t know how and when to shake it. I’ve replaced a few coal stoves with wood or gas in my area due to coal being “dirty”, mostly with European Stoves without movable grates you clean fire with a slicer knife through little slots that tend to let more fly ash in.

The coalpail forum is the largest online forum for coal burners where you can see how many still burn modern to antique stoves. Years ago it was used for everything from tractors, road rollers, of course trains, ships and power plants. Stationary boilers ran line shafts in factories, and portable boilers on farms ran portable engines for pumping water to threshing wheat and grinding corn. Portable boilers ran steam engines to drill the first early wells. The hit and miss gas engine and later high compression engines replaced building a external fire in a boiler to run an engine. I still repair, rebuild and relocate the steam engines the hit and miss engines replaced. Modern, safer boilers have replaced riveted antique boilers in all but very few cases.

 

[snobuilder]

My curiosity had me on youtube watching coal stove videos. My favorites were presented by Obediah's, ...featuring Sarah.😉