1906 Rheem Water Heater

amhplumb_2

I have a customer with one of these old Rudds in operation and it looks brand new! She is the third generation to use it. Edwin Rudd invented and manfactured them here in Pittsburgh around 1890 a "skip and a jump" from our neighborhood! Either her grandfather, or grandfather's neighbor worked at the plant. Anyway, the thing was well taken care of by her grandfather, her father, and she carries on the tradition by having me clean the coils and flue and check it over every year. It has all the original equipment with the exception of an automatic safety pilot added in the 60's at the gas company's insistance and in spite of her father's protest! She grew up having it in grained that one of those new fangled "glass tanks" will never go in her home, she says! However she likes the idea of the new tankless ones if she has to replace it someday, but jokes that she will be long gone before it goes! I hope so! I know its a gas hog, but there's just her and her husband, and it's probably their only vice, so what the heck! Ironically, they got rid of the old gravity warm air furnace a couple of years ago, that used too much gas!

Tom Hopkins

You gotta see this gem

This thing certainly belongs in a museum. I'm going to post this pic without permission because it's too nice not to. Go to www.flickr.com and search boiler. This guy sounds like a homeowner who just took this out of service recently. I hope he didn;t scrap it! There's a couple more pics at the site.

Ooops, I see it is a Ruud.

Unknown

Don`t feel bad,

I did-it too! This brings new meaning to "build a house around this".

Dave

laurence salvatore_2

old water heater

Deep in the bowels of the New Canaan Play House, now a duplex movie theater, in New Canaan Connecticut; where angles fear to tread and just past "Rat Beach" There is one that looks very similar to the one in the picture still operating, well its warm and full of water. It also appears to be gas fired (the flames underneath are a dead give away) which is stranger still, since there is no metropolitan gas in New Canaan. There is a large international gas pipe line that passes through the town. The manager tells me he gets no bill for gas.

laurence salvatore_2

old water heater

Deep in the bowels of th New Canaan Play House, now a duplex movie theater, where angles fear to tread and just past "Rat Beach" There is one that looks very similar to the one in the picture still operating, well its warm and full of water. It also appears to be gas fired (the flames underneath are a dead give away) which is stranger still, since there is no metropolitan gas in New Canaan. There is a large international gas pipe line that passes through the town. The manager tells me he gets no bill for gas.

Unknown

Free gas?

I wish I knew how he managed to get that!! Maybe it`s an "old clause" that was included in his property taxes way back when.

Dave

Tom Hopkins

No gas!

I wish I could say that. No bill is awesome! Must have fallen thru the cracks. I hope someone has regulated the pressure.

Ken D.

Water Heater

WOW!! They don't make them like that anymore.

Al Corelli_2

saw one recently still hooked up to the gas. It looked EXACTLY like that one.

Offerred to remove it (to put in my office), but we were not low bidder (big surprise there, huh) and didn't get the job.

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