Tekkie® wrote:
(PeteCresswell) posted for all of us...

And I know how to SNIP


After buying a few after-market bucket covers, it's dawned on me that
Home Depot's 5-gallon buckets (the orange ones with their logo...)
measure something like 1/8" wider at the rim than do Lowes' and Tractor
Supply's.

Is there a backstory here?

When I was a kid we had a water heater that was called a bucket a day. It
had no lid just a hatch to throw the coal in. Dad had to go down in the
basement at least once a day and never wanted to go anywhere so the fire
wouldn't go out.


I had some friends that bought an old farmhouse that had a coal burning
stove in the dining area of the great room. Similar to your Dad, they also
became slaves to the stove, having to feed it 3 times a day. They fed it
when they got up, when they got home form work and before they went to bed.
If they didn't, it was a bear to get started again.

Funny story about their first winter with that stove...

The living room area of the great room had a huge fireplace. We were over
their house for their first Christmas party and they started a roaring
blaze in the fireplace. As the evening went on, the house was getting
colder and colder. The owner checked the temperature of the coal stove and
noticed it was going down. In an attempt to determine the problem, he
opened the door to the coal stove. He, the entire dining area and the
couple of friends that were standing nearby were immediately covered with
coal dust. It was a huge mess.

As it turns out, the roaring fire in the fireplace was pulling air down the
chimney of the coal stove, cooling it down. As soon as the owner opened the
door to the stove the rush of air blew coal dust across the room, covering
everything in its path.

Some of us were laughing so hard we were crying. Those directly involved,
well, not so much.