vintage coal feeder, looking for info

ch4man

found this in a basement floor. home owner says the house is around 100 years old.
I find this old stuff fascinating. anyone have any insight?



ps , im not good at uploading pictures. i think

JUGHNE

Is the triangle shaped part removeable?
How about the circle with 4 holes in it?

My first guess is a damper for air control for the coal fire. But under/in the floor?

Reminds me of something that Indiana Jones or Dan Brown would be interested in.

Fred

When I was a kid, we had a similar device that was mounted about 3 feet up a door casing, just above the only large central floor register in the house, which had a gravity hot air coal furnace in the basement. Your turned the dial to a number and that told you how far the damper was open.. That device had a looped chain that went through it, to the damper.

mikeg2015

DId some googling search. WM Sharpe made boilers. THeres a reference to a ash collections system. That would makes sense to have it under the floor. Wonder if that is near a wall and there’s a collection point outdoors. Not sure what the adjustment does. Maybe sets a opening size to the hopper. Or combustion air was fed from that point, maybe used outside air to keep from drawing air from the basement.

mikeg2015

FOUND IT!

Wowzer! This thing was quite the contraption. Its an ash receiving device. I think some of it might not be missing or there a LOT more under the floor.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US946469A/en

mikeg2015

https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/3f/47/21/f1e95da71b17d3/US946469.pdf

ch4man

Wow, thanks Mike, I knew this group of guys would come through..

every day I learn how much I dont know.........