Welcome! Here are the website rules, as well as some tips for using this forum.
Need to contact us? Visit https://heatinghelp.com/contact-us/.
Click here to Find a Contractor in your area.

1928 construction and octopus furnace?

JoshuaC
JoshuaC Member Posts: 2
Historical question here: I work with a school built in 1928. The cast floor grills now in use for return air make me think that it was originally a boiler "octopus" system. But also, every room has a 2x2 foot corner that is walled in sort of like a closet, but the only opening is a now-covered area about 1.5x1.5 toward the top. Looking in, these run from the basement to the attic with no obstructions--you could imagine Neo sliding down one in the Matrix. Did these have to do with heating at all?

Comments

  • SuperTech
    SuperTech Member Posts: 2,134
    You should definitely post some pictures
  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 23,090
    And where do they go once they reach the attic? The ones I've seen like that -- any number of old schools in Vermont -- were for ventilation. Some of them dumped into the attic, which was in turn ventilated, but many of them originally went up through the roof to proper vents -- almost like chimneys.

    The efficiency of such systems was pretty abysmal -- warm air came in through the octopus furnace and the grates, circulated around, and then exhausted through the vents. Intake to the furnace was some return air, but a lot of outside.

    However, the rooms weren't kept all that warm, and even in the spring and fall a good deal of ventilation and fresh air was desirable. I hate to say it, but a room full of 20 farmer's kids, fresh from the morning milking, needed it...
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
    JoshuaCSolid_Fuel_Man
  • JUGHNE
    JUGHNE Member Posts: 11,038
    How many stories tall is the building?

    The floor grills used for return air must have supply air vents somewhere?

    Could that 2 x 2 corner been a masonry chimney at one time?
    Is there evidence of where the chimney might have been, the basement would maybe tell you.

    You use both terms of boiler and furnace.

    The best traces of evidence are often in the basement if the ceiling is unfinished.
    JoshuaC
  • EBEBRATT-Ed
    EBEBRATT-Ed Member Posts: 15,405
    Probably for ventilation. They thought stale air killed people back then
    JoshuaC
  • mars_6
    mars_6 Member Posts: 107
    Could very well be an old coal fired gravity furnace system.
    Matt Rossi
    JoshuaC
  • JoshuaC
    JoshuaC Member Posts: 2
    Sorry, the "boiler" was just old imprecise talking habit. I was thinking gravity furnace--no trace of it in the basement, just those registers, but mars mentioning coal will have me see if there are traces of a coal bin of some sort down there. It is a one-story building that has some split-level parts (like the original kitchen was "sunken" at one end of the structure). These corners are not masonry, but are just plaster on lath (my house has an old kitchen chimney in a corner that does look just like these in the room). They seem to just open to the attic at large, but I'm waiting to borrow a ladder sufficient for getting into the attic for this weekend. I'll see if I can't post some pictures tomorrow. It sounds like Jamie Hall's take on it is pretty close. And JUGHNE is right, there are 'new' floor supply registers cut in around the rooms, but they seem like obvious modifications following usual forced-air design.