Levittown

Firedragon_4

I have an article here from an old magazine that says the first 300 homes in Levittown were equipped with Timken Rotary boiler/burner units installed in the kitchen.

Q. Were the GE's used as a replacement for the Timken's or were they in another neighborhood?

Q. Why have I never seen a lot of talk about the LI Timken's? Are they all gone?

Thanks, just an old lover of industry history and the quietest burner ever made asking.
George Lanthier

Unknown

The Timkin

was situated under the stairs in the Levitt Cape style homes , not many of them though ( the GE , Low and High York were all original boilers in these homes also ) . Special precautions were needed for this type of boiler - the back wall we cut out to remove the boiler is full of fireproof brick , I'll post a pic of it .

The Timkin boilers were all removed , although I am not sure why , and mainly replaced with the Dunkirk Blue Circle cast iron boilers . This was done though an access hole in the kitchen , leaving the fireproof wall intact behind the boiler . It wasn't exactly the ideal choice with the coil , supply and return pinned behind the boiler .

I've never seen a Timkin boiler under the stairs , but a serviceman I know has the install manual with diagrams in it . I'll ask him if I can borrow it to scan and give it to Dan for the Library .

J.C.A._3

George and Ron Jr..

I don't know about Levitown, but on the "Gold Coast" here in Ma., I used to work on Timkin burners on a regular basis.The biggest challenge I found ended up being the fuel. The last holdouts we had, either had to use a cut of fuel and kero, or straight kero.

Had 1 customer who refused to get rid of the burner. Said he had heard the "roar of the new burners", and wanted no part of it!Kept it going as long as I could but the end result wasn't pretty. A Carlin 100 CRD stuffed through the old sight door, a backfilled "tray" that used to support the fire grates, and no stopping the flue gasses from tranfering any appriciable heat to the water jacket.

After the 2nd season of trying to feed this set-up, he finally relented and bought a new system. Saved him about 50% in the first year. (after the conversion)

Line firing into a boiler designed for "wall washing" flames led to a great loss of transfer. I still haven't heard or seen anything as quiet as a well set-up Rotary burner. Much like the G.E., when the parts dried up, the burners were deemed useless. Try as I might, I kept a couple going FAR longer than I should have. At the time...the customer was always right. Sometimes you've got to explain the reason that could show a flaw in their thinking.(lack of parts being a BIG factor!)

Oh the things I've learned in these years. Wish I could pass them on, but the "new guys" never saw this stuff, and probably wouldn't understand. Fond memories,,(AGAIN) NOT! But I will admit that the old stuff makes you look at the new stuff with a squint. Those of us that worked on it, we remember the finer, and not so fine points of them. The passing on of our knowledge is what it's all about.

The teaching of the things we've learned along the way WILL be our legacy. Chris

John Mills_4

Here's something I scanned

and Dan put in The Library.

http://www.heatinghelp.com/pdfs/108.pdf

Probably not the boilers found in Levittown but a Timken ad. I have a couple more I'll scan and send in soon.

Ken D.

Timekin

I am pleased to see I am not he only one who ever had to work on these old units.(Am I really that old?) In our area Philadelphia,Pa -Trenton,NJ, we had GE's, Timekins, Duotherms, Winklers, Williams OilOmatics (5010's), Iron Firemans, Bethlehem Dynatherms,Etc, Etc. I do have an appreciation of the new units. They are so much more standard that we don't have to carry all of those parts. People still complain their new heaters are nowhere near as quiet.

Unknown

John , I think that is

the the Timkin found in Levittown . Looks alot like the one a seviceman pointed out to me in his install manual .