Small Cook Stove

Over a year ago I purchased a Wehrle No. 118 "Kitchen Heater" made in Newark, Ohio. I'm guessing it is about 80 years old. It had fresh paint on it when I bought it and about a couple weeks ago I fired it up with wood outside to let it smoke off. This morning I got around to hooking it up in my basement to give it a try. (I've at least 5 different stoves hooked up to that flue. It is where I experiment.) I started it with newspaper and small sticks, then added 2 small logs about as big around as my wrist. It has a long but narrow fire box lined with cast iron plates instead of fire brick. Yes it does have shaker grates in very good condition. I added some nut coal (anthracite) and opened the draft. The fire just seemed lathargic. I was burning ok on the end near the smoke pipe but the front of the stove was cold. You could hold your hand on it. The fire just didn't want to spread the full length of the fire box. I tried adding some chips of cannel coal and more birch branches on top but the antracite was still being stubborn. Finally I went a dug some bituminious stoker coal out of my shed Duengeon master had brought me and voila I have a good fire and about 4 gallons of water in a pot at a rolling boil. Got me to thinking that wood and/or bit might be a better choice for this stove. Anthricite did ok in my small flat top 2 lid laundry stove but I noticed when it when out it when out almost all at once. Small stoves seem to need more frequent tending and I'm thinking bit might be a more forgiving fuel.

Stay with it....Everything is a tool to be used when working with coal. We're up to our ears here in ohio with bit. It has characteristics that make it a target for neighbor trouble in more populated areas. Tending is also a tool. Much coal knowledge regarding bit left us here in the days that folks where proud to ashcan the bit furnace and convert to a natural gas burner. We've had to learn stuff all over again. There's a place in Cleveland that is selling full size cook stoves and ovens that are coal fired. Heck,the Amish have been doing it all with wood or coal here forever......Keep working that stove,you may have a diamond in the rough...

I've been using this stove again to take the chill of the drafty basement when working on projects and to keep the pipes from freezing when the mercury dips below 20 at night. It also warms the floors on the first floor. I installed a manual damper in the stove pipe which should of been done on the original set up. The red ash anthracite I've been using doesn't want to shake down without dumping the fire so I tend to let it go out and start over. Maybe white ash coal would work out better if I wanted to keep it going 24/7. When I let it go out the anthracite on the top especially on the end away from the stove pipe doesn't burn completely. I started transitioning to wood before letting it go out just to be sure the coal is used up. Seems to me a lot of the heat just goes up the chimney even though the manual damper does help. Took me forever to boil water. Came the conclusion I have to have a rip roarin fire to boil. Did simple cooking. (Grilled cheese with lots of butter. Mmmmmm) I decide dry softwood sticks are best for cooking because you can ramp up the heat quickly and let it go out when done. Time to find what is left of my bituminous. I misplaced it. Update...threw a chunk of cannal coal in a little larger than a hymnal stored in the racks on the back of the pews. Furious boil next to the stove pipe, half of the lid next to the stove pipe glowed red. That stuff is like rocket fuel compared to pine sticks or anthacite! Need serious heat, that stuff has got it. With all air shut off flames licking right up to the chimney thimble. Basement went from 40 to 50 in pretty quick. Yeeha

As I was sitting on an upside down 5 gallon plastic pail with a piece of stirrofoam on it for comfort down there in my chilly, dank, dark, cluttered, cob web filled basement attempting to make a simple meal as I nursed a dogfish, I got to thinking about the people who bought this stove new. That was a very different time and expectations where much different. Reality was different. I wonder what meals they would of made on it daily. They would of had using it down to a science I'm sure. I wondered how they must of felt that first day when the stove was new. Did they have electricity? Or did they cook by oil lamps? Was this stove for a summer kitchen or was it their year round cook stove? For me this simple little cook stove is a cloudy window to generations past. It is likely it heated the coffee water, cooked the meal, and heated the water to wash the dishes. Maybe even the water for a spit bath. It would be a focal point in the routine of daily life. Maybe I just think too much.

My Mom told me that her Grandma would have the cook stove moved outside and situated under a canvas canopy for the summer then move it back in the kitchen for winter. My Mom says the stove was beautiful with a reservoir at the right side. We don't know what happened to that stove. I wish I had it.
You're right. Life was different then.

hence the concept of the summer kitchen--most of the old farms had a seperate structure of some sort to keep the main house cooler in the summer--there's alot of those stoves put up in peoples barns just holding the floors down now adays most used either wood or coal--as a kid we used to help grandpop hay & the like--we would eat breakfast,mop up our plates w/ good homemade bread & flip the plates over on the table--Grandmom would bring lunch out to the fields & for sup (supper) we would go back,flip our plates back over & eat--then she would wash the dishes & pots with the hot water from that reservoir you mentioned--yep,things were simpler

Nice stove. Which weighs more, the stove or anvil?

freetown fred wrote: go back,flip our plates back over & eat--then she would wash the dishes & pots with the hot water from that reservoir

Hmmmmmm.....dish got washed once a day, and no one got sick? I'm thinking maybe all our obsession with maintaining a sterile environment might be overdone. You can't build immunity to nasty bacteria if your body isn't exposed to it. Silver in real silver eating utensils is a natural anti-biotic. Sourdough bread starter is a balance between yeast and other benign bacteria. I noticed at most farms flies are a fact of life. In the days before screens to just dealt with it in the house too. It was the way things were.

My father's mother passed on in 1984. She was born in 1885. Right up to nearly the end of her days she made bread with King Arthur flour every week. It was a heavy, hearty white bread. At one time she lived in the officers quarters at Fort Trumbull in New London, CT. My great grandfather was the chief engineer on steam powered Army mine sweepers stationed there. He was deployed to the Philippines during the Spanish American War. The officer's quarters had the basement built into the side of a hill so the back side was open and at ground level. Looking at old pictures she mentioned they had a summer kitchen down there. I wish I had asked her more about it when I could. With all the steam engines around I'd bet money they cooked with soft coal. New London had a gas plant at on time making city gas from bituminous. I'm not sure how early it was operating. Back in the twenties and thirties my father's father bought coke from the gas plant and used it to heat his office among other things. In case anyone has been wondering that is where my name (cokehead) came from. Maybe someday I'll come across some coke to experiment with.

"Grandma would have the cook stove moved outside and situated under a canvas" This sounds like a practical solution to beating the summer heat. I looked at a lot of pictures of summer kitchen outbuildings on the internet. One thing that surprised me was the small size of the limited windows. Limited windows meant limited ventilation and light. I bet the door was open most of the time. Being under a canvas was probably nicer in a way.

I was given a grand tour of a semi-private collection of stoves at the Antique Stove Hospital by the owner's son years ago. They had a stove there called a "shoe fly" which would of been used in a small apartment or tenement. I have pictures on film somewhere. It was small (two lid) but well made and had a formed refractory liner. Those in the city had little choice but have the kitchen in their flat year round. I'd have a hard time dealing with that. I need my space.

"Nice stove. Which weighs more, the stove or anvil?" The stove is small but very heavy for its size. There is a lot of cast iron in that thing. If it was any heavier I'd need a hand truck to move it or a custom built dolly on big wheels.

The section of my old farm house that I demolished was a series of summer kitchens and wood sheds..

I'm guessing and taking some info from neighbors, but there was an old chimney on an outside wall, during the winter, the cook stove was inside the dwelling, and hooked into a thimble on the inside side the chimney.. when the weather warmed up, The stove was disassembled, moved to the former woodshed, leaning against the outside of the house.. and hooked to the chimney using the outside thimble.

Then, if the family grew, the summer kitchen became perminant, and another woodshed was build against the summer kitchen..
and if more room was needed, then the chimney was moved or a new one built, and another woodshed became the summer kitchen, and another woodshed
built..

This demolished section of my house was comprised of at least 3, eight foot 'addtions', that were built right on the ground, or a simple row of field stones in a shallow trench.. just like you'd build a woodshed..no crawlspace, wood 3" off the ground.. squirrel, groundhog and mouse heaven..

Gotta love it.

Greg L

Johnathin, do you still have that coal fired water heater we were playing with last year? That thing was nice. Also if you want some more Bit. I have a whole lot now. Santa said I was naughty. And I was rewarded justly with 1 metric ton of bit. Come on down whenever you get a hankering for a cold one. Bring Smitty with you and any stragglers from the coal forum. The door is always open.

Duengeon master wrote:Johnathin, do you still have that coal fired water heater we were playing with last year? That thing was nice. Also if you want some more Bit. I have a whole lot now. Santa said I was naughty. And I was rewarded justly with 1 metric ton of bit. Come on down whenever you get a hankering for a cold one. Bring Smitty with you and any stragglers from the coal forum. The door is always open.

That 'ittle coal fired hot water heater is in the background of the picture of the small cook stove above. Today I just dragged home a 80 gallon Peerless indirect hot water heater. I have a bad habit of not finishing projects so I really shouldn't embarrass myself by mentioning it. My intention was/is to hook it up to the mini boiler so the small cook stove is going to loose it's chimney thimble. Good thing I don't change women as often as I change stoves or I'd be broke. Someday I'll get the Tarm going. Ian would have a heart attack if I did. He helped me get it in my basement maybe three years ago!