Are you this old?

[CADplans]

Here's an oldie: have you ever seen a hypocaust? That was a basement furnace with a big octopus of 8" ducts that went to every room in the house and circulated air by convection -

The house I grew up in had one, it was taken out in 1950, the year I was born.
Mom told me about living there in the 1930's,, money was nonexistent,,
Coal, at $2 a ton was too expensive,,

Somewhere, my dad would get old telephone poles.
Mom and dad would cut the poles with a two person crosscut saw.

They would toss the pieces in the stove to keep the house warm.

Mom said the house smoked like a steam engine!! LOL!!
EVERYONE wondered why the house gave off so much smoke,, I guess creosote smoked when you tried to burn it.

The old furnace was replaced with a natural gas forced air furnace.
They installed a gas range and gas refrigerator, all three at the same time.

We had a neighbor that simply had a gas burner installed in the hypocaust furnace, no other changes.

 

[3Ts]

Ah, you were south burbs, and I was nw burbs. Now I'm far nw burbs, Barrington area.

Interesting! Is that the Barrington just down the road from Fox River Grove? I lived in FRG for a short time. The Bettendorf castle was not far from where I lived and is quite interesting.

 

[Oaktree]

I wonder if our coal furnace was originally of the hypocaust type. We'd lived with Grandpa until moving to Flint for Dad to open the TV station. Visiting years later the huge 'pot' and ducts were still there but Grandpa had a gas conversion upfitted with blower and eventually AC. The several 12" or so ducts reduced headroom in ~1/4 of the basement. There never were any cold air returns, but the house heated evenly anyway.

My parents had one of those when I was growing up. Don't know what it was designed to burn, but it had been converted to oil when they bought the house. About the only room that ever got very warm was the dining room (which was directly above it) and the cellar even though there were ducts to a couple other rooms too. Cold air return was also in that room.
It got replaced with FHW when I was a senior in high school. Seemed weird to have heat in every room, and to not need 6 layers of blankets on the bed in the winter. Only thing we missed about the old furnace was that the heat grate was a great place to dry mittens, gloves, hats, etc.

 

[lman]

Here's an oldie: have you ever seen a hypocaust? That was a basement furnace with a big octopus of 8" ducts that went to every room in the house and circulated air by convection - no furnace fan. It was deluxe in the days before electricity. It would burn about anything; wood, coal, my dad had a cousin with one. He had converted it to a sawdust burner because sawdust was free.

We had one of those in the basement when I was a kid. I remember when we took it out, it was so heavy that we broke some of it up(cast iron) with a sledgehammer.

 

[3Ts]

hypocaust - yep, I lived with my Aunt while I was in college and she had one of these in her basement that had been converted to either gas or oil, I don't remember which. The coal bin had been converted to a pantry and the access for the coal chute was still visible. The house was on a cobblestone road but is gone now due to putting in a 4 lane road thru the neighborhood.

 

[JasperFrank]

I remember that we had an account with the gas station next door. They would run up a monthly list of charges, gas, us kids getting stuff, we would pay once a month and settle up. This was a different world.

 

[jyoutz]

Some have mentioned but you would need to put a coin on the needle arm so the needle wouldn't jump and skip.

Thanks. I remember using record players, but never learned that trick.

 

[forestcreature1]

View attachment 726702

Only those shorter pole lines are power lines. The others are communication lines [telegraph].

 

[npalen]

Here's an oldie: have you ever seen a hypocaust? That was a basement furnace with a big octopus of 8" ducts that went to every room in the house and circulated air by convection - no furnace fan. It was deluxe in the days before electricity. It would burn about anything; wood, coal, my dad had a cousin with one. He had converted it to a sawdust burner because sawdust was free.

We had that type of heating system in the house on the farm where I grew up but this is the first time for me to hear it called a hypocaust. It was a huge four story house and the pipes were probably a foot in diameter and wrapped with sheet asbestos for insulation. I recall burning coal, wood and then later on it was converted to LP gas. There was a huge return air pipe that was probably 30" to 36" in diameter that fed air in under the furnace.

 

[npalen]

The house I grew up in had one, it was taken out in 1950, the year I was born.
Mom told me about living there in the 1930's,, money was nonexistent,,
Coal, at $2 a ton was too expensive,,

Somewhere, my dad would get old telephone poles.
Mom and dad would cut the poles with a two person crosscut saw.

They would toss the pieces in the stove to keep the house warm.

Mom said the house smoked like a steam engine!! LOL!!
EVERYONE wondered why the house gave off so much smoke,, I guess creosote smoked when you tried to burn it.

The old furnace was replaced with a natural gas forced air furnace.
They installed a gas range and gas refrigerator, all three at the same time.

We had a neighbor that simply had a gas burner installed in the hypocaust furnace, no other changes.

Ours was also retrofitted with a gas burner and then about 80% of the flue was blocked off to prevent losing excessive heat up the chimney.