Old Houses and Coal

 
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joeq
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Post by joeq » Tue. Oct. 18, 2016 4:47 pm

As we all know, home ownership entails some up-keep, maintenance, and modifications. Some homes, require more than others, and homes like mine are a never ending battle. I'm sure many of you can relate.
So the Mrs. "requested" improving accessibility into our kitchen, which necessitated scraping out a new driveway, (gravel) on our M/T lot, cutting a path through a "natural" walled barrier of lilac bushes and other obstacles, removing an existing window, and installing an entry door. It sort of looks like this... (Still under construction)
New Door and Driveway 010.JPG
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New Door and Driveway 015.JPG
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New Door and Driveway 021.JPG
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Sorry for the sideways pic, but I'm still not savy on correcting.
Anyway, whats this got to do with coal? while doing the demo on the old window, this tag fell out of one of the bays. "Dependable" anthy.
Dependable.JPG
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My house is about 100 years old, but the window appears to have modern studding scabbed onto the original rough cut 2x4s, to frame it in. I've been here about 30 yrs, and I know the previous owners didn't put it in, so who knows how long this tag has been in there. but it just goes to show, this house may have been heated with anthy B4 me, 50 years or more ago.
Just curious if anyone knows of this brand, and if any of you have found any cool stuff in your walls. (If only old houses could talk. I'ld love to hear the stories.) :D


 
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Post by WNY » Tue. Oct. 18, 2016 8:02 pm

A lot of have old houses and use coal. there's a thread on old houses below.

I use 2 stoves to heat our 1890 Victorian. use no gas at all once I start the stoves.

Old Houses

 
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Post by joeq » Tue. Oct. 18, 2016 8:26 pm

Thanks for the link to the old house, Dave. Looks like some gorgeous specimens. I'm pretty sure my house had radiators in it, because I can see the holes in the oak flooring in the corners where the piping was probably run. I think my brick chimney in the kitchen, (boxed in w/ sheet-rock now), had a stove hooked to it, or maybe on the other side of the wall, in the living room, there might've been one. Wish I could talk to owners of the past about its history.

 
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Post by WNY » Tue. Oct. 18, 2016 8:40 pm

No problem.

We've been working on ours for past 10 years on and off. mostly outside paint work, 10 colors now!

our brick chimney has a connection in the parlor room, but nothing in the living room, still has the old floor furnace (convection type) in the living. I use it for the coal stove in the basement also, disconnect one or the other. I plumbed the Coal Stove into the duct work to heat the downstairs with the stove (Leisure Line Hyfire) in the basement. Another stove (Keystoker) in the back of the house and heat pipe run upstairs. Still stays cooler upstairs, but good for sleeping.

 
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Post by Sunny Boy » Tue. Oct. 18, 2016 8:45 pm

Joe,

That coal sign looks like it was printed on a Japanese flag. :shock:

You might find info on the house in your town records and local historical society. Some libraries also have an archive of historic documents and photos that is not always known about by the general public.

I've been able to look up the history of both my houses and who the previous owners were by searching deeds at the country office building and the Library's archive of old news papers. Sometimes elderly previous owners are still alive and can tell you about the house.

The one I'm in now I found a newspaper article that mentioned the day construction started on, "the Judge's new house" - April 12th 1866. and I found a date in the foundation stonework mortar of when an addition was added on in 1892 and the house was changed from an "English cottage" (old term for colonial) to a Queen Ann Victorian, by the towns first coal dealer.

You never know what historical surprises you'll find unless you start looking.

Paul

 
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Post by coalnewbie » Tue. Oct. 18, 2016 8:56 pm

I use 2 stoves to heat our 1890 Victorian. use no gas at all once I start the stoves.
I knew I liked you.

 
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Post by rberq » Tue. Oct. 18, 2016 9:11 pm

Our house is about 150 years old, and you are right about upkeep being a never ending battle.

We found newspaper when tearing up some hardwood flooring to replace it. It had been laid between the subfloor and the hardwood. The carpenter who found it said, "Hey, look, this old floor only lasted a hundred years." He was probably off by 50 years because where he was working was the "new" :D flooring patched into the old, in an area added on well after the original house was built.

When we sealed up a foot-deep dead space upstairs last winter, I put a couple of current newspapers wrapped in plastic into the cavity for somebody to find in another hundred years. :) If the mice don't get them before then.

Here's the house, circa the 1930s we think, based on how the people are dressed, and because the barn in the picture burned in the 1940s. The ugly horizontal window, just to the right of the people, was installed by my former carpenter/farmer neighbor who died 15 years ago at age 94. The window is closed in now, and my coal stove sits just inside where the window used to be. There were a couple more of those awful windows elsewhere, which She Who Monitors Style had removed or modified years ago.
HOUSE.JPG
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Post by rberq » Tue. Oct. 18, 2016 9:25 pm

Sunny Boy wrote:Joe,
You might find info on the house in your town records and local historical society. Some libraries also have an archive of historic documents and photos that is not always known about by the general public.
Yes, the taxing authority where I grew up took pictures of every house in the city, I think in the 1930s. The city historical society now has them.

 
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Post by CoalHeat » Tue. Oct. 18, 2016 10:08 pm

WNY wrote:A lot of have old houses and use coal. there's a thread on old houses below.

I use 2 stoves to heat our 1890 Victorian. use no gas at all once I start the stoves.

Old Houses
I forgot about that thread!

 
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Post by joeq » Tue. Oct. 18, 2016 10:40 pm

Sunny Boy wrote:Joe,

That coal sign looks like it was printed on a Japanese flag. :shock:

You might find info on the house in your town records and local historical society. Some libraries also have an archive of historic documents and photos that is not always known about by the general public.

I've been able to look up the history of both my houses and who the previous owners were by searching deeds at the country office building and the Library's archive of old news papers. Sometimes elderly previous owners are still alive and can tell you about the house.

The one I'm in now I found a newspaper article that mentioned the day construction started on, "the Judge's new house" - April 12th 1866. and I found a date in the foundation stonework mortar of when an addition was added on in 1892 and the house was changed from an "English cottage" (old term for colonial) to a Queen Ann Victorian, by the towns first coal dealer.

You never know what historical surprises you'll find unless you start looking.

Paul
Paul, I think it's pretty "neat" (?), that your house transformed from a Colonial, to a Victorian. Being that age, I can see it happening. And being a judges house, it must have some historical significance.
Like I mentioned, I've only been in my house less than 30 years, but I know it originated as a "paupers" house, and I've been all through the historical societies town history, (which is minimal in this small town), and there isn't anything pertaining to this property. But the elderly people from my neighborhood, (who are all passed now), gave me "some" interesting tid bits of info, which is all I have to go on. There was an older gentleman who passed by our house when we 1st moved in, and stopped only for some breif comments, and mentioned he was raised in this house. But we couldn't get him to stop and talk. He had some hard feelings about the place, and later I heard from others that his parents sold the house out from under him, and he never forgave them.

 
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Post by joeq » Tue. Oct. 18, 2016 10:49 pm

rberq wrote:Our house is about 150 years old, and you are right about upkeep being a never ending battle.

We found newspaper when tearing up some hardwood flooring to replace it. It had been laid between the subfloor and the hardwood. The carpenter who found it said, "Hey, look, this old floor only lasted a hundred years." He was probably off by 50 years because where he was working was the "new" :D flooring patched into the old, in an area added on well after the original house was built.

When we sealed up a foot-deep dead space upstairs last winter, I put a couple of current newspapers wrapped in plastic into the cavity for somebody to find in another hundred years. :) If the mice don't get them before then.

Here's the house, circa the 1930s we think, based on how the people are dressed, and because the barn in the picture burned in the 1940s. The ugly horizontal window, just to the right of the people, was installed by my former carpenter/farmer neighbor who died 15 years ago at age 94. The window is closed in now, and my coal stove sits just inside where the window used to be. There were a couple more of those awful windows elsewhere, which She Who Monitors Style had removed or modified years ago.
HOUSE.JPG
So RB, you mentioned you put a stove on your frt wall where the old window was. Do you have a brick, or metal chimney running up the wall? When I installed my stove, I didn't have too many internal options for placement, and ended up on a wall facing the street, but not "directly" as in yours. My piping is metal (SS Metalbestous), and I hate the appearance of it. Some day I'll be boxing it in, but right now it's butt ugly, and takes away from the esthetics. (Not that that house has that much appeal W/O it.)
P.S. I like the arbor in your old photo. Is it still there? I have some rough lumber in my garage as we speak[/i ](?), and I plan on building one similar this weekend, for my new drive way entry to the walk path, through the bushes.

 
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Post by rberq » Wed. Oct. 19, 2016 11:20 am

joeq wrote:There was an older gentleman who passed by our house when we 1st moved in, and stopped only for some brief comments, and mentioned he was raised in this house. But we couldn't get him to stop and talk. He had some hard feelings about the place, and later I heard from others that his parents sold the house out from under him, and he never forgave them.
Researching deeds on our house, we found that the folks we got it from had helped their son buy it, then a few years later the parents foreclosed on the mortgage. We met the son once, later, and he didn't seem to have hard feelings. He did remember, as a teenager, getting angry and throwing his shoes out through the window glass of the upstairs north bedroom. :o Hope he did it in summer. That bedroom had a plaster ceiling, and apparently critters in the attic above, because there were lots of round dents in the plaster where it been thumped by the end of a broom handle to scare them away. We all know how well THAT works. :lol:

 
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Post by rberq » Wed. Oct. 19, 2016 11:47 am

joeq wrote: So RB, you mentioned you put a stove on your frt wall where the old window was. Do you have a brick, or metal chimney running up the wall?
We originally installed a wood stove there, with Metalbestos SS out through the wall like yours. You’re right, it was butt ugly facing the road. The best thing about it was, very easy to clean by pulling the bottom plug and running a brush up. Also didn’t have to worry about leaks from penetrating the roof. Eventually we put Metalbestos SS straight up through the roof, which as you see is only one story at that point. It draws nicely and doesn’t look nearly as bad, though still not pretty.
joeq wrote:P.S. I like the arbor in your old photo. Is it still there?
When we bought the house the arbor had been moved around to the right side of the garage which replaced the burned barn. It was in poor shape and eventually went away.

Interesting picture here, showing the chimney and the roof with light snow. Notice how little snow is to the right of the brick chimney. That was with lots of insulation in the room left of the chimney, and nothing to the right. A couple years ago we had cellulose blown into the walls and attic, and a picture taken now would not show any difference from one part to the other.

 
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Post by ad356 » Sat. Oct. 22, 2016 6:32 am

i know all to well about an old home. my house is around 140 years old. its a plank style home. they constantly need something and right now I don't have a great deal of money. I suppose its better then spending another 100K on something somewhat newer. my parents home was built in the 70's, its still 40 some years old, they paid nearly another 100K on their home, and it has its own problems, they have aluminum wiring. if you know about aluminum wiring its among the very worst, its worse then having old wiring. my good friend that its a professional electrician says aluminum was a failed experiment.

i do now know what this house was heated with years ago, but I would not be surprised if it was coal. down in the basement there are a couple abandoned stove pipes that are old stove or furnace hook-ups. this home came with a piece of junk oil converted to natural gas forced air furnace. I used that furnace for one month and discovered I had a heating bill of $300 for a month in November. I decided that I was not going to invest money in a new gas furnace (which is what most people would have done). the home is as I said, old plank construction. we have heating ducts on the first floor ONLY, this is an old 2 story farm house. with no heating ducts on the 2nd floor and very narrow wall cavities, installing a new and effective natural gas furnace would have been quite expensive. I don't relish being a slave to utility companies anyways, I like to pay for my fuel when ever I buy it with no surprises in the mail. I hate utility companies with the multiple taxes, fuel delivery charges, and surcharges. I made the huge mistake of buying into wood pellets. I started out with a tractor supply stove, it was utterly terrible.i put up with that stove for 2 years and replaced it with a Harman P61. it was better but it would chew threw pellets like they were candy and the house would still get cold when it was miserable outside. I think the one year we burned close to 7 tons. the price of pellets steadily rose and availability was a problem. I burned with that stove for 3 years and finally got fed up. I found a good used keystoker 90K off of Craigslist and could not be happier. compared to wood pellets it is a heat monster, its economical to run and last winter my heating bill was around $700.

i think old homes are best heated with coal and I think a more modern home would be dirt cheap to heat with coal. I spent quite a bit of money replacing windows, gutting the old horsehair plaster, insulating the walls behind the plaster, and installing drywall. this house is still drafty and still looses heat. I don't quite know were the heat is going and at this time I really cant afford to investigate any further. at least the coal is a economical, its almost a godsend. it makes this 150 year old home economical to heat and I wont be making any changes to my fuel source. if I ever did anything it would be a coal boiler with baseboard heating to distribute the heat better. I am not in the position to make natural fuel rich. I believe that a modern home that's well insulated natural gas is just fine but for something older coal is just impossible to beat for its BTU content.

after all its probably not the first time in this home's 150 year life that's the primary source of heat has been coal.

 
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Post by rberq » Sat. Oct. 22, 2016 8:23 am

ad356 wrote:i know all to well about an old home. my house is around 140 years old. its a plank style home. they constantly need something
I wasn't familiar with plank construction. Had to look it up. Thanks for the education. No wonder it always needs something. :(
ad356 wrote:this house is still drafty and still looses heat. I don't quite know were the heat is going
I couldn't figure out where the heat was going in one section of my cellar. It seemed pretty tight. I finally took down the underfloor fiberglass batts that were trying to fall down anyway, and then I could see a double-fist sized hole directly to the outside. Somebody years ago wanted to run an electric wire out to a porch, so they just knocked out a couple bricks from the foundation. I gave it a squirt of foam insulation to fill the gap; I'm anxious to see how much that helps once the weather gets cold.


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