What do you know about coal heat?
I'm curious about the history of coal residential heat.
How did it work? Coal boiler created steam for radiators?
Were 1920s homes with steam mains built with coal boilers? Did they replace the coal boiler with oil boiler and keep the steam mains and radiators intact?
When did coal stop being installed on new homes (replaced by oil?)
When did the transition from coal to oil heating begin, and what were the driving factors?
Comments
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Trying to squeeze the best out of a Weil-McLain JB-5 running a 1912 1 pipe system.0
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yes
also a lot of conversion burners
around wwii
availability of electricity and oil burners
build out of the natural gas distribution network in the 40's and 50's
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my house was built in 1913 in North Jersey and has a coal bin on the basement drawings. Then it was oil and now natural gas.
I have been thinking of converting it to a coal stoker if only I could find someone around here who thought that was a good idea
NJ Steam Homeowner.
Free NJ and remote steam advice: https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/new-jersey-steam-help/
See my sight glass boiler videos: https://bit.ly/3sZW1el
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My daddy delivered Coal to his customers when he was just a wee lad. Here is his picture
before that is father delivered coal by horse drawn wagon when he was a wee lad. here is his picture (not as a wee lad)
His father George K Young started delivering coal to his neighbors in the Logan section of Philadelphia, back in 1896.
That is when the average Joe has a coal stove in the kitchen that heated the whole house. Those better off may have also had a fireplace in the front and a coal stove in the back. Only the well to do could afford a "Central Heating Boiler" with a radiator in each room.
Circa 1910
As the cost of those boilers and radiators became more affordable then the average Joe might get a furnace or boiler in the basement that you could shovel coal into. That would have been in the 1920s and 30s when Coal was at its peak. Most Americans in the cities were heating with coal
In the late 1940s after WWII was over there was a baby boom. You may have heard about that. Well Americans were prospering.
Those old coal heaters were converted to Oil and Gas. Mostly Oil with the big push by visionary Coal Dealers that saw the change coming. My grandfather allowed my Uncle Joe buy a used oil delivery truck and start selling oil burners to the customers. But it was all on Joe, Grand Pa wanted nothing to do with that new fangled contraption. Other fuel dealers did the same, and you will find many old coal yards next to railroads, starting to install big fuel oil tanks to supplement the dwindling coal business. Here is a picture of the Coal/Oil bulk plant on Olney Ave in 1955, a few years after my grandfather passed away. Four brothers, Frank, George, John & Joe, purchased on December 28, 1955
Those American soldiers who came home from the war, wanted all the modern conveniences like indoor plumbing and that modern touch of the dial heating systems. Many new home projects were also started in the suburbs because there were those new fangled interstate roads Eisenhower built that could get you to work in the city. Many of those new developments like Levittown in NY and PA were all built with oil heating boilers.
That's the way I was told about the home heating coal and oil business growing up in the business.
Edward Young Retired
After you make that expensive repair and you still have the same problem, What will you check next?
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That's a great story, @EdTheHeaterMan , those are great photos you have
Grand Pa wanted nothing to do with that
new fangled contraptionThank goodness we don't see any of that kind of reaction with today's newer technologies!
NJ Steam Homeowner.
Free NJ and remote steam advice: https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/new-jersey-steam-help/
See my sight glass boiler videos: https://bit.ly/3sZW1el
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My house appears to have had a coal floor furnace when it was built in 1924. It was annexed on to the city of ann arbor in 1949, that is when it got municipal water and sewerage and gas. The city had a manufactured gasworks that went back in to the 19th century. I don't know the history of when that was taken over by michcon or when the system was hooked up to the natural gas pipelines without looking it up but I think there is an Observer article about it.
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Cedric's home had a coal fired gravity hot air furnace for the new (1896) addition. Last used (by me) in 1960 — that was one cold winter! I still have about a ton of coal for it… and the furnace is still there, but completely unusable and unsafe. Should remove it one day…
Some of the gadgetry that went with the old coal hot water or steam boilers was really interesting — the fancier ones were fully modulating, based on water temperature or, for steam, on pressure, and sometimes on space temperature. Some older houses may still have remnants of the controls, if you know what to look for. The efficiency on part fire was horrible — but they did modulate, and they did hold even heat.
Br. Jamie, osb
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
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Coal was king for a long time. Oil burners although invented earlier really caught fire (LOL) around 1920.
So, the bulk of the work back then was coal to oil conversions. Why? The housewives had to maintain the coal fire while their husbands worked, and many were capable of doing that. I can remember my grandmothers talking about it.
Coal conversions to oil started probably in the 20s and continued up till the 70s for the most part. I started as an oil burner tech in 73' and most coal conversions had already taken place by then. Springfield, MA schools converted a lot of their schools from coal to oil in the 60s.
My grandfather lived to be 91 and was still burning coal in his house when he passed in 1971
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I remember my grandma saying they had to get a gas furnace when my grandfather died in 1955 because she didn't know how to fire the coal furnace.
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I have sent you a PM.
leonz
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Coal is still in use in Wyoming. It is messy and dirty, and very cheap. Just checked today's price in case anyone wants me to pick some up. $105.35/ton for lump and $85.35 for stoker. That's about 19 million BTU. Most people don't mess with it. NG and propane rule out west, followed by firewood and pellet stoves.
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Lignite? I know ND has huge deposits and some burn it there. World of difference from that gorgeous , glassy Pennsylvania anthracite.
Trying to squeeze the best out of a Weil-McLain JB-5 running a 1912 1 pipe system.1 -
"sub-bituminous" around here. Grade between lignite & anthracite. Not as much BTU's as eastern coal, but low in sulphur and cheap to mine. Only glassy when sprayed with waste oil. It's going away, but not right away. 50% of the coal mined in the US is within 100 miles of my house.
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Anthracite still heats a lot of homes, particularly in PA and surrounding states.
I do know that coal is cheaper per BTU than Wood Pellets, but I don't know how it compares to Oil or Propane - like all heating types (except possibly geothermal) it is more expensive than Natural Gas.
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Sadly even geothermal is not much if any cheaper than natural gas. Fracking started really happening right when I installed my ground source heating system in CT and it was disappointing. It's hard to beat how cheap it is to get fuel when you inject the earth and groundwater with toxins. Why can't it ever be more expensive to do stuff that poisons the earth I wonder? I'll click the "off topic" button on myself on my way out. Edit: I can't react to my own post. Someone do it for me please and thank you!
NJ Steam Homeowner.
Free NJ and remote steam advice: https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/new-jersey-steam-help/
See my sight glass boiler videos: https://bit.ly/3sZW1el2 -
@ethicalpaul Done. 😀
Trying to squeeze the best out of a Weil-McLain JB-5 running a 1912 1 pipe system.2 -
The image of the 1916 postcard of the 2 kids ringing the doorbell reminded me of this thread.
What decade did houses get wired for electricity?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/19/business/halloween-shopping-retail-costume-store-growth.html
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Initially most coal was burned in radiant coal stoves. Gravity furnaces and boilers (steam or hot water) were used for central heating. Hand firing was first replaced by stokers in commercial applications once electric power was widely available. Stoker boilers for residential use became more common after WWII.
My home is heated by an “Electric Furnace Man” stoker boiler that I installed when heating oil first went to 4$ per gallon. If you have any questions about how it works I would be happy to provide more information.
also, here is a thread from a few years back:0 -
When did houses get wired for electricity? Depends on where you are looking, @CoachBoilermaker . New York City? 1890 perhaps in some cases. Appalachia or rural midwest ?— or my uncle's house down the road from me? Try 1935 to 1955. Cedric's home didn't get electricity until about 1930, and it was one of the first in the area.
Br. Jamie, osb
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England0 -
Doorbells could be powered off of telephone dry cells too. Many rural places had 32 vdc battery systems powered by a windmill generator before they had utility power. People had electric things before they had utility power.
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My house started with several either wood or coal stoves, can't say which.
Then at one point they stored coal in the basement and it's still filthy from it. Then it had oil and finally I converted it to natural gas.
Best I can tell the stoves came out and the steam went in sometime in the 1920s.
Single pipe 392sqft system with an EG-40 rated for 325sqft and it's silent and balanced at all times.
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My home in Urban Rochester NY was built with electric wires in grounded conduit (i.e. largely code-complaint today) in 1920.
On top of that it had a natural gas boiler with a 24v thermostat in 1920 and was never coal or oil.
I discovered the thermostat wire was original when the original 24v transformer pooped out and I replaced it. When I removed the wire, I cut my thermostat connection - that had been running through a new transformer installed on the boiler.
It was a high-end tract home, but crazy to think that it hasn’t need these parts upgraded in 100 years.
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Unoiled and oiled Montana Sub Bituminous Stoker Coal is under $9.00 a ton picked up at the mine.
It burns very well in the AHS S130 coal stoker boiler owned by mine electrician there and it makes a fine white powder ash with few if any clinkers.
The AHS Coal Gun stoker boilers like the original Axeman Anderson coal stoker boilers are induced draft coal stoker boilers that use a rolling fire grate that allows coal to drop from the feed tube to the solid coal grate as the fly ash fines and dead ash fall off the end of the rolling grate. The major difference between the two stokers is the Axeman Anderson coal stoker boilers use an open auger design to feed the coal stoker, the AHS coal gun stokers have a hopper and can be set up with an auger to feed it.
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where did the gas come from? was there a local gasworks or a local natural gas deposit?
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There are a lot of natural gas deposits around Rochester. When I lived there I knew two different guys that each had private gas wells on their property feeding their houses.
Not sure if the city had manufactured gas or well gas in the 20's , but there's plenty around there.
Trying to squeeze the best out of a Weil-McLain JB-5 running a 1912 1 pipe system.0 -
Original residents of this residence (Coal late-20s->Oil ??s->Gas mid-70s) always maintained that coal-heating kept the house most consistently comfortable. I've always assumed this in part was due to the on-off nature of combustion with the later boilers.
Although presume room air-temp was as set by thermostat, with current gas, always complained "the pipes are cold" (between cycles on milder days). So wonder if the "continuous" coal kept pipes and radiators from completely cooling, with all the iron always providing at least some - even low - level of radiation or convection.
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Radiant heat off a coal stove (or a wood stove for that matter) does feel quite a bit different than forced hot air or hot water baseboard.
Coal boilers also tend to have a lot more mass than the oil and gas boilers that came later, and the coal fire is always burning - so the coal units tend to keep the boiler area fairly warm. e.g. My grandmother said the oak floors in her house were freezing after she had the ancient steam boiler replaced with a modern oil boiler.
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What I know is that coal is better than wood. And washed hard furnace coal is better than cheaper coal.
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Both Sub Bituminous Coal and Anthracite Coal are less work and provide better heating.
Ithaca, New York was one of many municipalities that had a manufactured gas plant which also provided electricity this plant was located next to the rail line that came from Pennsylvania and connected to the ERIE and New York Central railroads along the Erie Canal.
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The English chopped down most of their forests and when wood got scarce, coal was gathered from the surface of our grand singular roundish space ship. Burnt for survival. (album title) Track 1- Not ideal but ya gotta do what….. Track 2 Unintended consequences. Anyway, the coal holes got deep and were often filled with water. Then, necessity gave birth to a first of it's kind energy converter, a chemical to kinetic type, the steam engine. It first pumped the water from the coal holes for access to more and more and more, etc. It wasn't long till someone put the carcinogenic contraption on wheels. Now the coal holes product could be carted around far and wide giving up its BTU following the law of Entropy. The sprouting drivers of the Holocene developed like invasive weeds and we humans multiplied like a virus in an unwitting and robust host. Thanks coal. You were principle in our one shot comfort and convenience seeking long term experiment. Who has more fun than people?
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Whale oil is even weirder than burning rocks!
NJ Steam Homeowner.
Free NJ and remote steam advice: https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/new-jersey-steam-help/
See my sight glass boiler videos: https://bit.ly/3sZW1el
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I have a story about the old days of coal delivery. The Reading Anthracite company had an advertising campaign that to be sure you were getting the real Reading Anthracite, you should look for the red spots on the coal.
As a Reading coal dealer in the 1940s and 1950s The F P Young truck may from time to time get a load of coal from a bulk coal yard without those famous Red Spots. That is when the can of Red Paint came out and of the storage compartment on the truck and my father would sprinkle Red Spots like the the Monsignor would shower the congregation with holy water on Easter Sunday.
You did not want to go back and shovel a ton of coal out of a basement because the customer requested Famous Reading Anthracite with the Red Spots. You know that my uncle Frank and his brother John (my dad) needed to do that once to keep a customer happy.
I remember that logo of the stick man with red paint bucket (lower right)
Edward Young Retired
After you make that expensive repair and you still have the same problem, What will you check next?
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Whale blubber is one thing. Even weirder is
500 gallons of it to be found inside the head of an adult sperm whale
It is the fuel involved in the definition of the scientific unit of measure - Candle power
The Royals had exclusive rights to it for cosmetics.
When processed: "This was the most valuable product - an oil that remained liquid in freezing winter temperatures."
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If this is to be believed (and there's no reason why not) Rochester was supplying gas to folks since the mid-1800s and heating by the late 1800s. That said, some neighbors to me clearly had coal heating as my neighborhood was on the outskirts of town. I just assume by 1920, one of the last annexations of my city, the gas lines were extended.
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There was also “Blue Coal”, from the Glen Alden Coal Company. Quite a few other companies used scatter tags, which were small pieces of paper either company logo mixed in with the coal. I have some from the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company.
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