In Praise of Older Stoves

What can I say...I love older stoves. Here is a picture of my main heating source (the stove, not Katie), but post pictures if you have them! Some details would be nice, but this is no competition, I would just love to see what other people have!

This is a 1893 Wood and Bishop Pot bellied Stove

 

This is our main cook stove...a 1917 Crawford

 

And this is the back up, of the back up boiler...a 1970 WC-90 New Yorker wood boiler...

A little explanantion here: Our main woodstove is a pot bellied stove and it uses so little wood to heat our home, that it is our main heating source. If we are gone for an extended period of time, our propane boiler operates, but this boiler will back up that boiler if needed.

 

My old Godin, 10kw, multi-fuel stove:



It was originally installed during the oil embargoes, late '70s. It is multi-fuel. It can burn wood quickly or coal (anthracite or bit). I use wood for a fast warm-up and anthracite for extended burns. This design has been used in France since the 1800s.

When I bought the house it was shoved in the corner and used as a decorative piece. The person I bought from said he hadn't lit it since he moved in. There were no flue pipes and the firebox was filled with solidified ash. I found the specs, they were in french but usable. I set up the stove using local codes but making sure they exceeded the stove's specs. I had a local shop make up a 110mm to 5" outlet adapter, moved the stove so it had proper clearances, and connected it using 5" stainless pipe. I've been using it for 20 years now and am very happy with how it works. When the wood-stove can't handle an extreme cold spell, this unit more than takes up the slack.

KaptJaq

 

Katie is gorgous, especially in the red dress and I can't believe I'm saying this, but can we see a picture of just the cook stove alone? It looks to be in great shape.


None of that even sounds right. Am I really getting that old already? ???

 

Well if it means anything Mad Adder, at least you have good eye sight. I have had guys tell me (particularly in the case of the wood boiler photo) that I was lying and that they could not see the a boiler in the photo anywhere. At least you saw the stove Katie was sitting on!

We bought the Crawford stove a few months ago. We actually wanted a wood/coal burning cook stove, but we wanted to keep the stove in the kitchen, but did not have the clearances for it. This meant putting such a stove in the living room, and that seemed kind of silly.

We were out getting stove legs for the pot bellied stove at a stove shop/museum in town, and Katie saw this stove. It was gas, but would work just as well as a wood/coal model, but fit well with our 1930's style kitchen still. The antique stove shop was getting out of old gas stoves and just doing wood, so we got it for half price. We love it, and are surprised modern stoves have not reverted back to the older design of having a bigger cooking surface, lower height, etc. It really makes grill cooking a lot better. The oven is a different story as it has no timer, delay or temperature setting, so we got a modern wall oven and have installed that in the cabinets where the pail is in this photo.

I probably should have posted this photo from the start, but when I took the photo the light in the hood was on, and is kind of wrong for a 1930 farmhouse kitchen, so I used the other one.

 

I can' believe the condition that stove is in. It makes a great conversation piece and is very decorative...and you have a penny wall?!? We have a 62" x 17" section above the counter that Nicole wants to do in pennies. She has already started cleaning and polishing. We need about 1900 polished pennies to do it. Did you guys do yours or was it done when you bought the house?

 

Oh no, we did it ourselves. In fact I built this entire house myself, starting in 1994 and doing almost everything I could. This included using gravel from our gravel pit to make the concrete slab foundation, quarrying the slate (we have a gravel pit and slate quarry on this farm), and of course felling the trees and cutting the lumber on the family's sawmills. The pine flooring in the photos came from this farm too of course, and while we have never got around to sanding the floor, it does need to be done. The concrete counter tops (black) we poured ourselves too, using gravel from our gravel pit to do it. My mantra has always been; "Do as much as you can for yourself". It has taken 23 years of building, but no mortgage on it either!

The Penny Back Splash only took 707 pennies, so it was $7.07, which was far cheaper than even buying copper tin ceiling tiles which was our original plan. To form the penny back splash, we cleaned the pennies first in a vinegar bath, then rinsed them. That shined them up well. Then we hot glued them to the back of a 1/2 sheet of plywood. Then we used 2 part polyurethane (super thick stuff) to cover the pennies and let it harden. Then I took copper tuning, shined it up and crimped the ends and mitered them to make the surround trim, then adhered it to the wall with screws, and finally put the slate around the back splash. It was really easy and pretty fast too do, 2-3 days time.

Here is a picture of those wide pine flooring boards in tree form just after I cut the trees.

 

You are one fortunate man!! ;-)

 

Hey thanks...I do feel very fortunate as they serve me so well.

The pot bellied stove obviously heats my home, and the Crawford Cook Stove feeds the family. The back up New Yorker does not get a lot of use, but that might change when we move into my Late-Grandmother's home. It is a 1900 era 4 square and lacks insulation, which Katie feels is going to kill us next winter, but I am sure we can pump enough heat into it as my Grandparents did for 60 years.

We do plan to add insulation, but going a room at a time as we refurbish it.

 

Wow looks like it should still be on the showroom floor.

 

Nice!

 

Thanks.
I might rebuild it this fall though. Not that it does not burn well, but it is not airtight. I can break it down into its many parts and then add fiberglass gasket rope to help tighten it up. I know this is a firewood site, and I know I live in the most heavily forested state in the nation, but I burn a lot of coal. That requires the stove to be airtight above the firebox so that the draft only pulls air through the coal bed. It does really good burning coal now, but could be better.

What will be interesting though, is installing that pot bellied stove in the house we are moving too. A four square, its chimney is some 24 feet high or so. Our last chimney was only 14 feet and consisted of single wall pipe. Exposed to the outside, I think it was cooling the air and reducing draft. A tall, masonry chimney drafts so much better because it stays warm once it is heated. Or at least, it would seem to me it would.

BUT it still would not hurt to tighten it up.

 

I wish the chimney in the house we are moving into was just a wee-bit off-set! (LOL)

Downstairs, we could open the whole bottom up and have a wide open living space, but there is this !@#$%^&* chimney right in the center of the house! Then upstairs, we could make the stairs better, but the stairs would end right at this @!#$%^&*( chimney. No matter what we want to do, there is this !@#$%^& chimney right in the way!

We might remove the chimney down the road when we build a mudroom and install our boiler and no longer need a stand alone woodstove, but the rub on that is, the chimney...despite being an old 1900 Four Square, is brand-new. My Grandmother had it put in right before she died so it is in perfect shape. Too bad to tear out a perfectly good chimney.

 

Hey! I also love her. But she is in your care now.

 

Tear it out. I understand the feeling, especially when it comes to respect for grandma though. I think you have a great American life. One to be envied even. I've only flown over Maine, but Man! That puppy was dense. I have wanted to go over there for years.

 

good job thats not hot,i mean the stove,