1932 autostoker sales booklet

ayetchvacker

I thought some here might enjoy this booklet my wife bought for me. The pictures alone are just incredible. When coal was king!

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

Very nice. Thanks for sharing.

I like the name of the Philadelphia suburb: Bala Cynwyd. How unusual.

bburd

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes said:

Very nice. Thanks for sharing. I like the name of the Philadelphia suburb: Bala Cynwyd. How unusual.

There’s a story behind that name. In the late 19th century the Pennsylvania Railroad begin developing suburban housing along its main line west of Philadelphia, to create demand for commuter rail service there. Much of the housing was “high end”. Most of it had hot water heat with cast-iron radiators, including my house in Ardmore.

The developers named the railroad stations after towns in Wales, thinking this would add some up-market cachet or snob appeal. In fact, at the time much of Wales was a working class coal mining area and had low status in Britain.

It worked though. The area is considered upscale to this day and is known as the “Main Line”. The commuter service is now SEPTA’s R5 line and was quite good when I lived there in the 1990s.

Erin Holohan Haskell

Thanks for sharing, @ayetchvacker. Can we add this to our Museum?

ayetchvacker

@Erin Holohan Haskell of course! I actually submitted it over the weekend but maybe I did it wrong. Not sure. I never got a confirmation screen when I tried to upload it. 

Erin Holohan Haskell

Thanks for sharing this with us @ayetchvacker. And please thank your wife as well for buying this neat booklet.

I'll take a look at that form too.

Robert_25

Thank you for sharing. Anthracite was big business for the D&H, but by the 1930's they could see that oil heat was really starting to catch on. They tried to make heating with anthracite more convenient with stokers (the entire anthracite industry did), but we know how that ended up.

ayetchvacker

@Robert_25 I have a good customer who just removed his auto stoker due to failing health and wanting something more automatic (LP). There are two others I’m aware of still in operation. Like you said, oil took over. Coal heating is starting to drift into the same magical realm a steam. Few know much about it anymore, although there are a handful of mines still selling bagged coal and at least 1 local truck still delivering. Cheers!

ayetchvacker

@Erin Holohan Haskell I thanked her at lunch before I saw your reply haha! She knows what I like, what a lucky guy I am! And she let’s me keep an old water heater in the dining room so I guess I’ll keep her! 

Erin Holohan Haskell

ayetchvacker said:

@Erin Holohan Haskell I thanked her at lunch before I saw your reply haha! She knows what I like, what a lucky guy I am! And she let’s me keep an old water heater in the dining room so I guess I’ll keep her! 

Nice!

HomerJSmith

When I was young and dumb ( I'm not young any more, can't say much about the other) in high school, I worked, as I was told, for the inventor of the stoker stove. The Risdon Stoker Stove. Riston was older than Moses at that time and had a bunch of stoker stoves rusting away on his property.

The stoker stove made it possible for the man of the house to sleep thru the nite without getting up to throw more coal in the fire box. Automation saved the nation.

EdTheHeaterMan

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes said:

Very nice. Thanks for sharing.

I like the name of the Philadelphia suburb: Bala Cynwyd. How unusual.

But can you pronounce it?

I like that the address is so old that it is Bala Ave in the town of Bala. No postal zone number either, and the telephone exchange is Cynwyd and only 3 numbers. Modern science at the end of the industrial revolution.

But we don't need to teach history like this in schools anymore.

ayetchvacker

@HomerJSmith that’s awesome! I was fortunate enough to do some work for an architect in Fort Worth who originated the idea of placing package units on rooftops with downflow duct design. He took the idea to Lennox in Dallas. And now I have to climb ladders all the time! Cheers! 

Robert_25

ayetchvacker said:

@Robert_25 I have a good customer who just removed his auto stoker due to failing health and wanting something more automatic (LP). There are two others I’m aware of still in operation. Like you said, oil took over. Coal heating is starting to drift into the same magical realm a steam. Few know much about it anymore, although there are a handful of mines still selling bagged coal and at least 1 local truck still delivering. Cheers!

Heating with anthracite is uncommon compared to wood pellets or cordwood, but there are still a decent amount of people burning it. Most people keep quiet about it due to the general reaction you get when you mention burning coal to someone that knows nothing about it. I heat my house with a stoker boiler and enjoy the quite operation, warm basement, and total absence of smoke or water vapor from the chimney. Hauling ash is not something I enjoy, but it pays well when considering time required and $ saved.

Robert_25

ayetchvacker said:

I thought some here might enjoy this booklet my wife bought for me. The pictures alone are just incredible. When coal was king!

It took me a bit to get this scanned, but I have a booklet from the D&H as well, see attached.

ayetchvacker

@Robert_25
I think your link is broken or maybe the file doesn’t open on my phone.  
You are right about wood being more frequently burned. The number of outdoor wood boilers seems to be growing all the time around central PA. 

reggi

ayetchvacker said:

@Robert_25
I think your link is broken or maybe the file doesn’t open on my phone.  
You are right about wood being more frequently burned. The number of outdoor wood boilers seems to be growing all the time around central PA. 

It downloaded as a .pdf on Android for me with the link provided...fyi