The Capitol Red Top Boiler from 1903

Shahrdad

This is the original 1903 boiler in my neighbor's house. It was originally coal fired, but has since been converted to burn gas. The owner really enjoys having the original boiler, but they have added a B&G booster pump to the system. Here are some photos; enjoy!

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

Thanks for sharing! I love that the original aquastat is still working.

A few years ago, I serviced an American Standard "Red Flash" steam boiler that had fire bricks in the heat exchanger to improve efficiency. Your neighbor may have the same as it seemed like a common thing to do.

HVACNUT

Looks like a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.
Is the a regular ole gate valve on the gas line?

Shahrdad

HVACNUT said:

Looks like a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.
Is the a regular ole gate valve on the gas line?

Not sure.  It’s a gorgeous house and very comfortable to live in.  

ChicagoCooperator

Is the architect of your house, and your neighbors house, a gentlemen (one assumes), one Herbert C. Chivers of St. Louis, MO? I've been meaning to ask....

Shahrdad

ChicagoCooperator said:

Is the architect of your house, and your neighbors house, a gentlemen (one assumes), one Herbert C. Chivers of St. Louis, MO? I've been meaning to ask....

No. It was Ernst C. Janssen. He was born in Ohio I believe, and did his training at Karlsruhe Polytechnikum. He designed a lot of homes in this area, mostly for German Americans. Most famous of his buildings is the Charles Stockstrom Mansion, known locally at the Magic Chef Mansion (www.magicchefmansion.com). The home here was built for Louis Stockstrom, the younger brother and business partner of Charles.

ChicagoCooperator

Shahrdad said:

No. It was Ernst C. Janssen. He was born in Ohio I believe, and did his training at Karlsruhe Polytechnikum. He designed a lot of homes in this area, mostly for German Americans. Most famous of his buildings is the Charles Stockstrom Mansion, known locally at the Magic Chef Mansion (www.magicchefmansion.com). The home here was built for Louis Stockstrom, the younger brother and business partner of Charles.

Nice house! My neighbor growing up loved her Magic Chef.

Seems like there was a common style, a bit French influenced, in St. Louis then.

Shahrdad

Yes, but more than that, it was inspired by the fancy homes wealthy people were building in Germany at the time. There are houses in the neighborhood that look like smaller versions of homes being built around Berlin at the time. But I'm sure the homes built in Germany were also influenced by French and Italian architecture. They all feed into and off each other, don't they? The house in this post has had only two owners, and it's been meticulously taken care of. St. Louis is a treasure trove of Gilded Age architecture.

Stelcom66

This is fascinating! Given the year I wonder how it was transported to the site. Likely by a horse(s) drawn vehicle, or if fortunate maybe a a turn of the century version of a truck. Since transportation was limited back then, maybe there were more local manufacturers of heating appliances.

Do the gauges still work?

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

Off Topic: Speaking of German homes, I always liked the way they covered their windows at night as it seemed like a very good way to keep the light and cold out. They call them Rolladen.

Shahrdad

Stelcom66 said:

This is fascinating! Given the year I wonder how it was transported to the site. Likely by a horse(s) drawn vehicle, or if fortunate maybe a a turn of the century version of a truck. Since transportation was limited back then, maybe there were more local manufacturers of heating appliances.

Do the gauges still work?

As far as I know they still work. I believe the owner said that the boiler was locally manufactured, as St. Louis was quite industrial back then.

Shahrdad

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes said:

Off Topic: Speaking of German homes, I always liked the way they covered their windows at night as it seemed like a very good way to keep the light and cold out. They call them Rolladen.

Yes, my aunt's and my cousin's home in Rheinland-Pfalz have those external shutters. It's so clever, because when it's warm, you can keep the excess heat outside. When you open them slightly, the sections pull apart and some light comes in through the holes. The windows there are also very ingenious.

veteransteamhvac

Not to detract from this wonderful thread. I have a good friend who lives in Portland Place whose (according to the house records) home was the first in St. Louis designed for forced air with ductwork built into the walls. She has a twinned 2x five ton force air system. It does an acceptable job but not great as these houses are so dense that forced air is just so limited. This is her second house in the subdivision, the previous one had hot water and she still speaks fondly of how comfortable that house was even though is was mostly stone. She also mentioned that she rarely needed the air conditioning in that house even in the hot, humid St. Louis summers due to the dense, stone construction.

Here is a picture of the first house which she loved so much. (quite the castle!)

Shahrdad

A lot of these houses had indirect radiant heat as well. I don't think any of them had original forced air. One of my good friends lives in a house on Westmoreland, which is right next to Portland Place. Their house originally had a down-feed gravity system, where the water would shoot straight up into the attic through this humongous pipe and then spread laterally and then downward throughout the house. The home was severely altered around 1949, the gravity system disconnected, and a forced air system fed by a boiler was installed. Luckily, the huge pipes are still up there in the attic, and it is really cool to see how the original system worked.

Here is the house before the great vandalism of 1939:



And here is the house today:

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

Since you live in the neighborhood, can you tell us about your heating system?

Shahrdad

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes said:

Since you live in the neighborhood, can you tell us about your heating system?

Mine is an old gravity system. The original coal burning boiler had two 3" pipes coming in and two 3" pipes going out. I don't have photos of the original boiler, but the man who owned the house in the 1970s told me that it was a big, six-section boiler wrapped in asbestos. At some point, an oil burner was installed on it. In the 70s, the then owner had the boiler removed and replaced with a Weil-McLain boiler with 196,000 BTU/hr. output. That's the boiler I want to upgrade now. The system must have been designed pretty well, because the house is very even throughout, no matter the outside temperature.

ChicagoCooperator

Shahrdad has produced another interesting thread!

Ah, yes, the German Rollo's - they apparently all close at sundown across Germany (I first saw them in France as a kid - my dad had grown up with them or similar in pre-war Poland). In Sweden the modern thing from the 30's to the 80's was venetian blinds between the glass (coupled sash for access, one would have single glazed and the other insulated glass). Less common now with triple glazing (have even seen quadruple glazed - decorative divided lite with triple insulated unit!).

veteransteamhvac

Shahrdad said:

A lot of these houses had indirect radiant heat as well. I don't think any of them had original forced air. One of my good friends lives in a house on Westmoreland, which is right next to Portland Place. ....

My friend lives on Westmoreland in one of the later built houses (1930s era) and it was for sure designed with forced air ductwork, not retrofitted. It's one of the art deco houses, black metal casement windows and all! The expense and luxury of a home central air conditioning system at that time must have been incredible.

Here is a old photo of the living room and if you look carefully in the lower left corner under the bench you'll find a register!

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

If you look closer, one of the books on the shelf is, "Radiant Heating" by T. Napier Adlam along with a 1912 edition of "How To Properly Design & Install the Honeywell Method of Hot Water Heating". I guess the owner realized too late the benefits of hydronic heating.

EdTheHeaterMan

Everybody is showing off the houses and heaters they have worked on, I feel so left out. So there's the home I grew up in and the heating system was able to outperform everyone else in the village.



The heater



Walked 6 miles to school in the snow, all year, uphill, in both directions.

Shahrdad

The great majority of the houses in that neighborhood were built from around 1890 to 1910 or so, basically the gilded age. By the 1930s, most of the super wealthy people who built this neighborhood were moving farther west into Clayton and Ladue, and very few new homes were being built there. A few of the gigantic mansion actually got demolished when heirs didn't want to pay the taxes or do the upkeep. Even in the 1970s, you could buy one of these beauties for a song, and people would think you were crazy. Washington University and the medical center did a lot of investment in the area, buying old people out of houses at high prices, so they could afford a smaller place, and selling the homes to rehabbers. There is a wonderful documentary called something like "A neighborhood worth saving" about how this amazing area was saved.

Shahrdad

EdTheHeaterMan said:

Walked 6 miles to school in the snow, all year, uphill, in both directions.

You and me both!

S.

veteransteamhvac

EdTheHeaterMan said:

Everybody is showing off the houses and heaters they have worked on, I feel so left out. So there's the home I grew up in and the heating system was able to outperform everyone else in the village.....

But did you have indoor plumbing?

EdTheHeaterMan

Yup, hand-operated pump over the washtub. Only used in the coldest part of the winter though. Still use the outhouse year-round, with the Montgomery Ward catalog pages. We was liven' large! Envy of the neighborhood.

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

None of us are old enough NOT to have had indoor plumbing.

JUGHNE

I worked on a farm in the summer of 1965, we had H & C inside with grey water drains. The outhouse was out back without any hand washing facilities!
They raised 7 kids there who survived to this day. IIRC, they are all collage graduates.

The next summer the WC was installed with some form of septic tank.
No TV BTY.
They had a 32 volt system until the late 50's.
Wincharger and gas generator feeding batteries as needed.

Wall phone had a crank and batteries with a central "Operator"......10-12 people on a "party line".

Have not worked so hard, for so little, since then......great meals though!

EdTheHeaterMan

@JUGHNE
Great story. Good old days are fond memories for many of us.

I'm surprised that no one has recognized the old house I posted, is Jed Clampett's old home from season 1 episode 1 of the Beverly Hillbillies.

ChicagoCooperator

My mother is 91 and depending on where she lived as a child, did not have indoor plumbing. And some places no electricity either (but they did have telephone service, while the next valley over had electricity but no phones [or vice versa]).