On Monday, August 12, 2019 at 2:30:17 PM UTC-4, Scott Lurndal wrote:
dpb writes:
On 8/11/2019 2:56 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote:
On Sunday, August 11, 2019 at 1:30:23 PM UTC-4, dpb wrote:

Dad, being the first of the children born on the farm (third overall)
used to say he was "born in the coal room" because the house was as yet
unfinished and they were living in the basement while remainder was
being built at the time he was born. The room that was used ended up
being the coal bin for a while after the house was done and the family
moved upstairs...

But the first main pipeline was laid across the pasture just to the SE
of the house within 10-15 years and grandpa got a tap as part of the
right of way deal and converted well before I was born probably another
15-20 years anyways. Initially, all of those allowed cost-free gas for
domestic use but that got broken by the successor company of the
original almost 30 year ago now. Never could see how they could be
allowed to do that, but the courts said it was legal through some
loophole in how the contracts were written. I wasn't home at the time
so don't know all the tricks they pulled nor how much was paid to whom.



My Uncle had a gravity "octopus" woodburner in the farmhouse basement until sometime in
the early 1980's when he switched to propane. Narrow little stairway down to
a cramped cellar several times a day to feed the beast.... Cutting cordwood all
summer on the hills (and some of that was before hydraulic splitters).

My house used to have a "hybrid" forced air/gravity furnace...more or less.

The original gas valve had a "locking tab" on it that allowed the user to open
the valve manually and light the burners during a power outage. Since there was
no power for the blower, it basically worked like a gravity system.

Of course, no blowers meant nothing (except for gravity) to take the heat
away from the heat exchanger, so there was a pretty strict duty cycle listed
in the manual. Obviously it was completely dependent on the user to adhere
to the duty cycle. Not the safest set-up ever designed.

When the furnace was 30-something years old, the gas valve went bad and I
couldn't afford a whole new system, so I had to have the valve replaced.
The repair guy laughed when I asked if he could get an "original" gas
valve so that I wouldn't lose that feature. He mentioned a "code" or
something like that. ;-)