Community Chat

[YorkieonmyPillow]

  When you were little-bitty, what did your parents heat your house/abode with?

  We had coal stoves.

  It was messy and if the stove/fire got too hot, the stovepipe would turn RED! We didn't have carpeting, we had those big room-size linoleum rugs.

  So cold feet when they hit the floor in winter!

  There's something I miss about them, though, even though you had to stand right next to them to get any real heat. I guess because it seemed cozy, banking the fire when you went to bed.....

[missy1]

heater (what we use today)

[goldensrbest]

Being from indiana, it was coal.

[shaggygirl]

When I was a kid we had a coal furnace down in the cellar and a truck would deliver the coal down a chute into a small enclosed space we called the coal bin. There was a trap door thing out in the front of the house he'd open to put the chute in. I remember the times when my parents would be out somewhere and call me to go check the furnace and shovel some in if it needed and I'd be scared out my wits going down there by myself, it was so dark and dreary even with a light on. They'd wait on the phone till I got it done. I'd scramble so fast back up the stairs because I was so sure there was a boogie man down there just waiting to pounce on me. I remember things called transoms in the floor, they were like a metal grate, on the first level that the heat came out of but can't remember how the heat got to the bedrooms on the second level, maybe transoms there too.

[NickNack]

We had ceiling heat as long as I can remember.  My grandparents had a coal furnace in the basement just like shaggygirl's.  I can remember going down there, too.

[RedTop]

Our house was heated by wood and coal in a furnace in the basement.    My dad cut and split wood in the spring and summer, and my brothers and I hauled and stacked it in the basement in late September/early October.   Our coal was delivered and ran thru a chute into a designated enclosed coal bin inside the basement.   All the mess was downstairs, not upstairs.   We had a heat register in the kitchen, and one in the hallway near the bedrooms.   I never remember our house being cold.   In fact, I would shut my door to purposely keep the heat out of my bedroom, as I liked my room cool for sleeping.   

[YorkieonmyPillow]

We didn't have a basement.

We kept our coal outside in a separate stall built onto the little garage we had.  It sure was messy.

[Perkup]

One fireplace for the whole house.  We bought coal in small boxes from our local ice house.  They stocked that to sell in the winter months. The living room of our tiny house was usually warm (until we ran out of coal) but the two little bedrooms were very cold.  Kitchen had a wood stove which kept it warm when someone was cooking.  

[Mz iMac]

When I was a ankle biter & crumb snatcher all I remember was a radiator.

As a teenager, we had gas.  At least I think that what we had.  Saying this because we had a gas stove & there were no radiators in the "new" house.

[SeaMaiden]

Oil furnace....