Lead paint?

[bkrsdoz]

Meant to post 8 or 9.

[dave-bernard]

Just joking!

[green-thumbs]

Lead paint was not the best white paint in that it reacted with

sulfur dioxide in air from coal fired stoves and furnaces and turned yellowish. Premium pain had Titanium Dioxide pigment that stayed a pristine white…under the soot and

dirt from burning coal. I remember the good old days down side as my job was to pull the clinkers from furnace and fill

stoker from pile of coal in corner of basement. We were

fortunate, Some had to make do without central heating and

Winters were longer and colder back then.

That house when my grandfather owned it had a small coal

stove to head a portion of upstairs where he lived, a single

water outlet partial dirt basement and an outhouse back

by the alley. My folks had a full basement, bath, kitchen

and central heat installed. The coal furnace gave way to

oil and eventually gas when it became available. I got

elected to paint the outside of the house when I was 12

The experience left me all in favor of child labor laws.

Louis

[Tubs]

Worked on a farm that had a gravity coal furnace. It burned rice size coal (3/16″ to5/16″). An auger fed the coal from a hopper into the center of the furnace. The coal was push up a tube where it would mushroom up onto a round plate to burn. The ash would drop off the side of the plate to the bottom of the furnace where another auger would take it out to a small conveyor. The conveyor would carry the ash up high enough for it to drop into a 5 gallon pail. The pail would need to be changed 2 or 3 times a day depending on how fast you were feeding the coal. The hopper held enough coal for a couple days, again depending on how fast you were feeding the coal. You could slow it down enough to last several days if you needed to be gone before the hopper would run out. You would have to pick the ash up off the floor. The ash was spread on the drive where needed. Next job was
working at the coal yard that delivered that coal.
Tubs

A "Boathouse Repair" is one thats done without having tools or the skills to do it properly.

[crosbyman]

memories…

we had a coal bin in the basement corner where big  bags of coal were dumped…dad had to shovel the stuff to keep the furnace shooting heat up in the  house   via a 4×3  floor grill .

Dad,   a fireman , had to  fill the furnace at bedtime and early mornings before it  flame out .

the high point came  when a 200 gal  oil tank was installed behind the house  and  a oil burner fitted on the  coal furnace  ….  happy   days  🙂  no more shovelling

then came electric baseboards  years later …   next will be global warming…but I won’t  be around ….

Joining AOMCI has priviledges 🙂

[Author]

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