New Hand Fired Base Burner

Gekko wrote:but the thought of a 100 year old casting that has been heat cycled thousands of times, with no documented provenance, scares the *censored* out of me.

The many antiques that are standing up quite well seems to me convincing provenance of their durability.

to replicate a real antique baseburner would be crazy money (unless they were being put in a million houses across America). The casting work was an art on these things (modern tech. or not... it would be very hard to find that kind of workmanship in todays foundries). they certainly would not meet U/L guidelines unless they were totally upended from their intended design. If a new modern one was manufactured today it could NEVER compete with the real thing, some jamoke would make it square and steel and probably try to recirculate exhaust via tubing or they would take a stove like a chubby and attempt putting a double heater rear pipe on it (they would try to portray it as having the same characteristics and same function but NFW!). the thin gauge barrel, the high top to hold the volatiles, the suspended firepots!, the heat chambers on sides, rear, bottom of ash area's with directional gas passage, the castings so fine and perfected you don't need gasket, the cylindrical shape with heat rings to expel the heat into the living area, the nickel work, the intricacy and labor of things as little as door assembly would baffle most workers today, it goes on and on.... Its NOT going to happen!

Gekko, a stove doesn't have to endure the stresses of a jet aircraft. Turbulence, crushing g-forces, acceleration, landing impact, wild pressure & temperature swings - all a stove has to do is get hot, then get cold.

I'm with Fred on this one. I have much more faith in our forefather's designs and workmanship than anything produced within the last 10-15 years.

I don't really care about the artsy fartsy crap like ornate castings or knobs that look like faces, nickel plating etc. ad nauseam.

In my mind copying a BB's tech with modern mfg techniques and materials would be the way to go.

Pretty sure they could be improved upon but that would be thread drift

I guess I can only be part of the new BB Frat!

That would take one (some) dedicated, committed, .. and HONEST individual(s) - all a rarity these days.

But if anyone can pull it off it would be the guys at Leisure Line. Ya ready Dave & Matt?

Gekko wrote:Why arent these manufactured any longer?

One would think with modern mfg methods and materials we could improve on the the design further.

I want one.

Discuss!

Do we know something more about the nature of fire now than they knew then? Has there been some fundamental discovery made about coal burning or the nature of fire since 1920? I don't think there has been any. In fact, I would posture that we have forgotten much of what they knew then as common knowledge.
They were very thorough with the science and engineering to produce these master pieces. There is nothing wrong with modern methods, but rather; the modern value system so I doubt there would be any improvements in performance just a way to make them cheaper and faster.
New isn't always better. The post war mindset which was bred into us by advertising, the constant exposure to media, etc. is that now we are so much better than our grand parents and every thing and every body that came before was out of date, inferior, quaint and obsolete. We lived in the space age Man, we had TV's and cars with big fins on them. We had EVOLVED. All of that high hat, lace collar crap had to go. It is still the same and the baby boomers bred a generation of narcissistic, ignorant, self absorbed morons who still carry that arrogance that rose out the post war era. The smug idea that we are more educated, sophisticated and intelligent than people who lived at the Turn Of The Century is simply absurd.
With all of that being said. I would like to see a new base heater made. I have thought about it many times. But, it would have to be a labor of devotion and love. Something that may exist now, but; in this accelerating stage of our decay as a society, very rare.

wsherrick wrote:

Gekko wrote:Why arent these manufactured any longer?

One would think with modern mfg methods and materials we could improve on the the design further.

I want one.

Discuss!

Do we know something more about the nature of fire now than they knew then? Has there been some fundamental discovery made about coal burning or the nature of fire since 1920? I don't think there has been any. In fact, I would posture that we have forgotten much of what they knew then as common knowledge.
They were very thorough with the science and engineering to produce these master pieces. There is nothing wrong with modern methods, but rather; the modern value system so I doubt there would be any improvements in performance just a way to make them cheaper and faster.
New isn't always better. The post war mindset which was bred into us by advertising, the constant exposure to media, etc. is that now we are so much better than our grand parents and every thing and every body that came before was out of date, inferior, quaint and obsolete. We lived in the space age Man, we had TV's and cars with big fins on them. We had EVOLVED. All of that high hat, lace collar crap had to go. It is still the same and the baby boomers bred a generation of narcissistic, ignorant, self absorbed morons who still carry that arrogance that rose out the post war era. The smug idea that we are more educated, sophisticated and intelligent than people who lived at the Turn Of The Century is simply absurd.
With all of that being said. I would like to see a new base heater made. I have thought about it many times. But, it would have to be a labor of devotion and love. Something that may exist now, but; in this accelerating stage of our decay as a society, very rare.

OMG!

I certainly did not start this thread to de-volve into a critique of modern society!

I simply thought a new "EVOLVED" BB would be a marketable idea and wondered why no product, excluding social opinions, has been brought to market.

Oh well.....

One improvement I can think of, unless the BB's already did this of course, would be to pre heat intake air via a heat exchanger on the flue connector.

Gekko,
I believe the Glenwood no 6 base burner preheats the secondary air. Most likely others do too

You wanted a discussion as to why they weren't making them anymore and I gave you what you wanted. A reason and a discussion as to other's thoughts about the subject. Nothing happens in a vacuum.
As far pre-heated secondary air. They had it. They had pre-heated out door combustion air intakes, combination radiant and convection units. Self feeding magazines, internal check dampers, built in humidifiers, insulated, suspended fire pots where the actual fire is insulated from heat loss by its own exhaust gasses. I could go on, but; you get the idea.
They weren't just fancy on the out side.

As far as a market is concerned. I believe there is one or could be. It is amazing how many people have caught on to these stoves after only a couple of years of information being posted right here on this forum. Before that there was virtually no publicly accessible practical knowledge about how these stoves work or that they even existed at all.

I agree with some of the others here. I don't think there is enough demand for this type of stove, since there would be a lot of money required to produce such a stove, and getting a good return on the investment would be extremely difficult.

The other issue, is that shipping coal long distances for heating doesn't really make sense. This limits you to the few states around PA, and even here, the competition against other fuels is fierce. I know some would disagree, but I think that pellets, especially those made from biomass such as miscanthus, which can be grown on marginal soil, would be a better long term "sustainable" heating fuel.

That being said, I love burnin' me some black rocks for heat, and I intend to keep warm for years to come doing so!

SMITTY wrote:That would take one (some) dedicated, committed, .. and HONEST individual(s) - all a rarity these days.

But if anyone can pull it off it would be the guys at Leisure Line. Ya ready Dave & Matt?

I agree... Dave and Matt would be good candidates to produce a quality hand fired coal stove, the problem is they really need to build one that meets the needs of todays houses and todays society (just because a few of us might want a big beast baseburner in our living room does not mean the "majority" would. baseburners were not made for "todays" fireplaces, they were not made to match "todays" décor, they certainly were not made for "todays" wallet. To meet the needs of the "majority" (something that MUST BE DONE to be in business) a hand fired coal stove needs to fit into todays living room, todays fireplace openings & hearth, it needs to have decorator options to match todays décor, it needs to be cost effective and retail for under $3,000 fully loaded, it needs to meet UL approvals, and last but not least... it needs to be ALLLLLLL of these things while at the same time being as good a coal burner as possible given ALLLLLLL those requirements and constraints!

I personally don't know of any hand fired coal stoves that fit onto "todays" hearths & fireplace openings except for what they call inserts (the coal stove inserts that are available are deficient because #1 they are costly #2 they are always square boxes (if big square boxes were best for coal they would have been so in 1900! ), #3 they don't radiate heat in living area anywhere near what a free standing hand fired coal stove can.

décor... I know a few good handfireds that have décor to match colonial times, I know a few good handfireds that match Victorian times, I know of a few crappie handfireds that match "todays" décor (I wont elaborate on manufacturer names but most my good friends here will know). I don't know any stoves that can instantly change décor to match anything (you buy your stove and that's IT! if you buy a green enameled VC your not going to be able to get a decorator kit to change it to a brown enameled VC without rebuilding the stove (something the "majority" cant and wont do)... they can however turn a screw driver for a couple of screws.

Todays people want airtight... for a good modern coal stove it has to be airtight and remain airtight at year 1 and year 31 without "todays" consumer needing to rebuild it, recement it, rescrew and glue it. (todays people are not the self sufficient farmers of yesteryear... they are computer geeks, etc.)

todays "majority" are NOT people who wish to have their whole house heating system replaced with a coal boiler/furnace!!! they are school teachers, they are dads who go to the office, they are familys who simply want to "reduce" oil bills and see a beautiful fire and heat while enjoying opening xmass presents and relaxing next to the xmass tree! WE ARE NOT THE MAJORITY HERE!

however much we may not wish to admit all these things.... Matt and Dave know it to be true.... (one only need to look at the Pioneer to know this!)

someone better be paying some Gosh damb marketing incentives for all this! or im going to start working for a stove company pretty soon

Some of those old timers knew a thing or two about getting the most heat from these old style stoves.

Many of the late 19th and early 20th century stoves do pre-heat the in-coming air. Most, much more than most of the modern heating appliances. That's why most old stoves were designed to draw primary air from the ash collection areas of the stoves. It gets VERY hot down in that part of these old stoves.


I just measured my Glenwood kitchen range with my IR gun. The top plates over the firebox are just under 600 degrees. Running the IR gun over all five openings of the primary air damper frame in the ash door , it measure 200 degrees, plus or minus about 10 degrees. Then there's the triangular coal grates that stick down into the in coming air stream by about two inches below the coal bed. The air has to go through the narrow gaps in and around those grates. They shed A LOT MORE heat into that primary air before it hits the coal.

The base burners, having flues gases circulating under the ash pan area, may heat the ash door and primary damper even more.

And, remember, you can't extract 100 % of the heat out of any coal stove, or you won't have any chimney draft. You'd have to go to a forced draft like some modern heaters. And guess how much heat you'll get during a power outage (happens almost every year with the winters here ) ????

There's a reason so many of these old stoves are still around and working. My Glenwood range turned 110 this year and kitchen ranges tended to be used for a longer part of the year than parlor stoves, or furnaces. Old stoves holding up is not the question - the question is, how many of the new stoves will last anywhere near as long ?

Paul

Makes sense SB, old school is when ya take the critters out of an old barn & pretty much stop using it, she'll fall in, in short order--me thinks that constant use of the of the old kitchen ranges would mean more consistent maintenance, hence, a much longer longevity

freetown fred wrote:Makes sense SB, old school is when ya take the critters out of an old barn & pretty much stop using it, she'll fall in, in short order--me thinks that constant use of the of the old kitchen ranges would mean more consistent maintenance, hence, a much longer longevity

Right you are Fred, No cows = no barn in a few years. I think there's a few other things going on as well.

My business is restoring antique machinery. What I see of today vs 100 years ago is not so much the technology to make the same machine better, but how to make it cheaper. Alot of engineering goes into "streamlining" production processes and products to get/keep a competitive edge. That all too often makes the product not as "durable" as much of the old products had to be.

Take cars. 100 years ago the roads were so poor they would scare most off-road drivers today. There was no need for speed limits, not because there wasn't enough traffic to worry about, but because you couldn't go fast if you wanted to - except in towns where the roads were better. It also required that the better cars (and trucks) had to be over-built by today's stands to hold up to those poor roads.

I think one of the reasons why many of these old stoves have survived is because they were "over built" of quality materials. Not all were though and they are few.

Case in point - Rathbone and Sard kitchen ranges. Try and find one. Early 1900's R & S ads say they made over one million stoves. I've only seen one R & S kitchen range - the one my girl friend's parents had. Plus, pictures of a couple of R & S parlor stoves on the internet. They look to be very well made with all the "technology" and decoration of top stoves of their day, but they didn't survive in any numbers. I think the reason was R & S didn't do a good job casting iron. That range had almost all of the cast iron plates in it broken. And, not because the girl friend's family didn't know how to use it either.

The top plates were in the worst condition with multiple cracks in each. And the round "burner" plates were not designed as a one piece casting, but separate castings with an acorn inlaid into the center. Very decorative, but it was a poor design that also made them very weak.

I've never seen an old range so badly cracked up as that one. And, I've been searching the internet for even just pictures of another. It's a shame because it was a very pretty stove at one time.

If R & S built one million stoves, why are there so few compared to say Glenwood, or other stove makers ?

Paul

I'm not a pro of deco but I know one thing about it: few years ago, if your deco was modern all had to be modern and so on for other decos.
Now things have changed and are lot more tolerant about having more than just one deco style in the house. If done with good sense, matching modern with more old-fashion and even antique can be very nice. But yes taste is a personnal affair.
All that to say that an antique stove or Baltimore Heater can match about any decos in a house. Sometimes an antique one can gives a warm (in all the senses) note to a cold modern (in all senses) deco.
Not all ""new kids on the ..."" want to play with an antique stove but if shown to them all what an antique can gives back for the pleasure to do other thing than sitting in front of a screen playing to kill peoples ...many could like to get the real reward of using their hands for a positive ""hobby""