Good Time Stove Company

PREVIEW MAGAZINE: APRIL 2010 THE SANCTUARY IN HIS OWN BACK YARD

2010-04-12T06:18:00.000-07:00

Artist Richard Richardson and his collaborators realize an ambitious vision for outdoor spaces.

BY TOM VANNAH

Richardson and his collaborators used local stone in walls and pathways to create and connect a series of outdoor rooms.

If, like many homeowners, you spend nearly as much or more time thinking about your back yard-your exterior room or rooms-as you do your house or apartment, you owe it to yourself to visit the Three Sisters Sanctuary in Goshen.

Located on Route 112 just past the entrance to the DAR State Forest, the sanctuary is the artistic masterpiece of Richard Richardson, the longtime proprietor of the Good Time Stove Company. You'll know you've found the sanctuary when you spy the giant tin man looming over Richardson's stove shop and adjacent to his home, a beautifully restored farmhouse. The Three Sisters Sanctuary is, literally, Richardson's back yard.

Inspired by his daughters, by the beauty of the land surrounding his home and business, which abuts the state forest, and by the many artists with whom he's collaborated over more than three decades in the Valley, Richardson set out to create a spiritually healing place where visitors might wander in a natural setting lightly touched by artistic hands. Richardson has turned the fields behind his home into a series of outdoor rooms delineated with intricate rock walls, many paved in local Goshen stone and showcasing a variety of art from a variety of local artists.

A wildly ambitious project now realized, the obvious boldness of Richardson's vision is nevertheless carefully subdued.

Clockwise from top left: In Richardson’s bike garden, disused bicycles sprout up like flowers; a dragon head tops the chimney of the sanctuary’s central fireplace; a natural stone amphitheatre.

A few years ago, I had a chance to tour the sanctuary while it was still under construction. Even in its half-finished form, the garden rooms were compelling, drawing my eye from one discovery to the next while allowing me at the same time to feel the whole of the place. As Richardson spoke about spiritual matters and his desire to create a place for healing and quiet contemplation, I quickly realized that his sense of the metaphysical was one that included plenty of whimsy, plenty of fun. There is nothing heavy or foreboding about Richardson's sanctuary, despite his use of enormous slabs of stone or the centerpiece of his garden: an enormous wire and glass dragon, which sat atop the chimney of a huge outdoor fireplace, smoke pouring from its mouth. Everywhere I turned, I saw not only I Richardson's handiwork, but the work of many local artists who contributed to the sanctuary as it came into being.

Now complete and open to the public-by appointment or, as Richardson puts it, "by chance"-the sanctuary is even more than I imagined it would be: more beautiful, more varied, more entertaining, more evocative. A wildly ambitious project now realized, the obvious boldness of Richardson's vision is nevertheless. Carefully subdued, working in concert with rather than overpowering the surrounding natural setting.

For anyone who loves gardens and works to make their own back yard a visually stimulating haven, the Three Sisters Sanctuary may unleash a torrent of new ideas about the balance of natural and artistic elements in outdoor spaces. By returning to the sanctuary throughout the year, one can measure the impact of the natural forces with which Richardson collaborates to amazing effect: seasons, weather and light.

The Three Sisters Sanctuary is an inspiring achievement in landscape design and environmental artistry, demonstrating I what one man, with the help of family and friends, can create in his own back yard.

With a Little Help From His Friends - RICHARD RICHARDS0N & THE THREE SISTERS SANCTUARY

2010-01-04T13:06:00.001-08:00

Written by Mark Karpel

This piece originally appeared in the Folk Art Messenger, the Journal of the Folk Art Society of America, Vol.21, No.2 (Fall/Winter 2009).

Richard Richardson collects old stoves, stones, plants, salvaged material and people. The stoves, which he restores and sells, help to support the creation of a two-acre art environment behind his home in the hills of western Massachusetts. The stones, plants and salvage find their places in a space that comprises roughly a dozen outdoor "rooms." And people are woven into every aspect of the site - from its original inspiration to its physical construction and intended uses. Unlike those visionary builders who labor in solitude or create their environments to retreat from the world, Richardson's environment is profoundly social.

His "Three Sisters Sanctuary" lies behind his house and nearby stove shop. The stove shop is a barn-like building covered with signs, old tools, rusted bicycle frames, stove trivets, bells and birdhouses-all stuck to its outer walls as if yanked there by a giant magnet. In front of the shop stands a two-story-tall tin man sporting a jaunty tin Stetson. Richardson traded for the figure, fashioned in the 1950s by a local contractor to advertise his skill with ductwork. Sara LaBonte. Richardson's daughter, points out that he was drawn to antique stoves for many of the same reasons that fuel his passion for creating the Sanctuary - an appreciation for beauty and artistry, a love of the heaviness of iron, and a delight in breathing life into otherwise forgotten ojects. Owning the business - fittingly named The Good Time Stove Company - has also given him the time and to explore his creative passions.

Between the shop and me house is the Bike Arch, an 18-foot-high rainbow of painted and rusted bicycles, which rises and falls like the frozen spray of some strange subterranean fountain. Richardson spent 15 years building his home here, a whimsical but functional two-story structure with peach-colored siding and moss-green trim. The site behind it documents his passions and preoccupations and the arrivals and departures of those whom he holds dear.

Raised in suburbia, Richardson knew early on that wherever he was meant to be, it wouldn't look like that. He drifted up to western Massachusetts, started the stove business in his early 20s and raised a family. Later, he named his environment after his daughters -Tina Marie, Sara Wenona and Megan Elizabeth - one indication of how central relationships are to his vision of the environment. He says, "The first gifts from the gods in my world were my children, and they're the most precious part of my world."

When he finished building his home, he felt lost until his younger brother Chuck encouraged him to create ornamental gardens. Soon after, however, Chuck became seriously ill. His death inspired Richardson to initiate an annual "garden party'" to celebrate his brother's life and ill help him and others who had lost ones to heal. Guests brought and planted their favorite perennials for nearly a decade, and the gardens grew larger and more varied. Richardson's interest in "softscape" -natural materials such s trees, shrubs and plants-grew after meeting Tammy Lee Graves, an expert gardener who encouraged him and who now continues to tend the gardens.

Graves introduced Richardson to Donnie Lesure, a skilled stone mason who inspired him to work with "hardscape," such as stone and brick. Richardson says. "Like a Bic lighter, he ignited it. He gave me a taste of stone and what stone can do." Over the past ten years, Mike Samson has added another dimension by operating the earth-moving equipment that enables Richardson to excavate and move large stones. One of the unusual aspects of the Sanctuary is how smoothly it integrates hardscape and softscape. Many, if not most, visionary environments tend toward one or the other. In the Sanctuary, pebble, brick and stone paths are edged with butterfly gardens; found objects and sculptures are surrounded by perennial plantings; and borders of large standing stones alternate with tall grasses or arbor vitae. Richardson estimates that there are about 200 large vertical stones and nearly 60 tall arbor vitae.

The next expansion of the site grew from Richardson's need to heal from a more profound loss- the sudden death of his oldest daughter from a ruptured aneurysm. He and Lesure had just begun building the first outdoor "room" that subsequently became the Tina Marie Richardson Sanctuary, with stone walls surrounding a cairn of rounded white river stones, topped by a large white quartz rising like a spirit ascending and supporting a honey-colored, clear glass globe. The Fire Pit and Water Garden lie nearby, and the juxtaposition is no accident. As Richardson says, "I felt you had to have both in order to have balance in your world." Here, a small stream produces the soothing sound of splashing water as it descends over small waterfalls into a pond bordered by river stones, plantings, standing stones, statuary and benches.

Paths of small white pebbles-alternating with inlaid stone, brick, colored glass and found objects-lead to a large area comprising several different "rooms" that Richardson calls the Amphitheater. After Tina Marie's death, he thought, "My daughter loved music, and I'm going to build an amphitheater that's going to bring music to her spirit." He built it adjacent adjacent to her sanctuary. At its lowest elevation, the amphitheater features a wide grass circle, with stone seating around its perimeter, tall vertical stones embedded at irregular intervals, and a slender, spire-shaped stone rising from its center. The Drum Circle lies above this, serving as a natural stage for the seating below.

At the highest point, where the backdrop of a stage would be, stands a feature that for many visitors defines the site as a whole. Hundreds of flat stones piled seven feet high form the sinuous C-shaped body of an immense dragon. Above them, a dragon's head arches upward like that of a howling wolf, its mouth open and long tongue lashing up into the air. The head is positioned over an outdoor hearth that, when lit, produces smoke for the dragon's fiery breath. Seven people worked with Richardson to create a skull of steel and wire mesh covered with cement into which shards of colored glass were embedded. The curve of the dragon's body forms an intimate room - the Dragon's Den - thoughtfully equipped with another stone bench, allowing people to sit facing one another for conversation. The crevices between stones are chockablock with hundreds of small objects - including candlesticks, driftwood, glass globes, colored glass fragments and figurines-like offerings left at a shrine.

Now in his 60s, Richardson's current focus is a labyrinth he calls the Dance of Life- a figure-eight -shaped space bordered by large vertical stones and waving grasses, each space featuring a huge, dazzlingly white quartz in its center. Here, the elements of the overall composition will evoke fundamental life passages from the beginning of a relationship (Dancing with the Ladies) through the End of Life. The narrow passage that marks the End of Life forces a visitor to exit alone but leads to an open space surrounded by butterfly gardens.

Characteristically. Richardson uses this project to engage people, asking them, for example, about experiences with seduction or commitment in their lives and giving him a way to explore areas he finds challenging in his own. "There are so many lessons in this yard. - he says. "The lessons are endless." He clearly relishes the social contact, saying, "It's just way too much fun...They all want to talk about it."

Just as the site began with relationships, it continues to depend on them and to foster them. Richardson's surviving daughters, Sara and Megan, have both contributed to the site. By handling the administrative details of the stove business, Sara ("the Stove Princess) has, in Richardson's words, "made the whole thing possible."

Altogether, he has worked with more than 15 people on the site. Their contributions are creative collaborations and labors of love, but each worker is paid. He plans to bring others into his current project. "The labyrinth," he says, "is going to be the most fun I'll ever have. I'm trying to build a path that is going to be very enlightening, and I'm going to be able to incorporate people into my world." He says, "I've spent every week this spring meeting with somebody new pertaining to the yard, from bus tours, to artists, to gallery owners." The site attracts a steady stream of visitors and, if he's not working, Richardson will usually walk with them and answer the inevitable questions. He recently hosted a third-grade class visit, dressed in a suit that somehow evoked Uncle Sam crossed with a circus clown and a '70s-era Deadhead.

Richardson says, "The things that I do out here have to do with chasing passion and wanting to have that passion in my world. And now that I've created it, it's the greatest place I've ever been, the greatest job I could have, the greatest lifestyle I could have. And it doesn't want to end. It keeps getting better. 'Curious George' - that's what they should call me. And Curious George is building this labyrinth called "The Dance of Life." ...with a little help from his friends.

MARK KARPEL is a psychologist and writer living in Massachusetts.

A website with information and photographs of the Three Sisters Sanctuary can be found at: http://www.threesistersgarden.com.

Home Heating - notes about Insulation and FiberGlas

2010-01-04T13:03:00.000-08:00

Any pursuit of winter heating economies should have insulation first on the list.

Fuel you burn once but insulation will last your life time and that of your children's life times.

If you spend on insulation only what you want your savings on heat to give you back you will miss the problem of the heat your house will lose when your electricity goes out and the inconvenience you will have chopping wood to make up for it.

For your or your contractor's planning for a new heating system one should always require first a plan for the amount of insulation to be used. This is so you can size a new heating system realistically. The more insulation installed the smaller the heating unit needed.

Insulation needed in new home construction is always easier added to before construction than after construction.

At one time an amount of insulation thought to be a "super" amount was one with an R value of 18 or 19. Now, in 2009, that is the minimum required by law for any new construction. The reasons it was changed are largely due to rising costs of fuel.

Now, a super amount of insulation is more likely to be an R value of 30 to 36. (In Europe it is higher still.) To obtain a value of30 to 36 would require 6" of rigid Styrofoam or 6" of polyisocyanurate (aluminum on both sides). This would supply a 3.5” wall and 3" added outside or it would fill a 5 1/2" wall and 1" added outside it.

The insulation about a basement should always be considered, too. Treat it the same as any outer wall.

Attics normally are insulated with FiberGlas to avoid moisture problems between the rafters. That would use about 5.5” of FiberGlas to give an R value of approximately 20. To achieve the same insulating value as the walls 30-36" would call for an additional 2" of rigid insulation, laid across 2"x6" rafters.

Other kinds of insulation may be used and other configurations of framing may be used
but the R values should be kept.

Windows are major sources of heat gain and loss. There is no simple way to limit it. The most modem windows with all their multipanes and tints can hardly be said to be well insulated.

To learn the R value of them simply take the reciprocal of their conductivity.

I know of no commonly used good method of insulating windows. Years ago I custom

fit 2" thick pieces of polyisocyanurate insulation in all our windows that could be put in and taken out easily. It made a significant difference. We have since seen it only once in any other house.

We put the insulation in during cold weather to keep the heat in and again in hot, sunny

days to keep the sun and heat out. It is one of the major reasons for our heating and cooling successes.

Outside or inside swinging insulated blinds are never practical.

Home Heating - Portable Electric Space Heaters

2010-01-04T13:02:00.002-08:00

Portable Electric Heaters

The first thing that comes to mind with portables is concern about fire hazards and there are tree answers to that:

All modem portables have fail-safe thermostats to shut them off if they get overly hot.
All modem portables have tip-over switches to shut them off should they be tipped over.
All modem portables have three-pronged plugs to protect against electrical shorts.

All of these things are worthwhile, but it is true that accidents can happen and, so,

extra caution is always the watch word!

Examples:

There are portable heaters for many purposes. Some of them are:

Heating a room

Heating specific areas in a room-people, for instance

Heating by natural convection or fan forced

Heating by fan-forced action, strong or modest

Heating with power of 1500 watts or less

Heating to keep a room from freezing temperatures

Heaters that are shielded

Heaters that are very quiet

Heaters that are very small

Heaters that can be fan operated only

Heaters filled with liquids

Heaters that swing back and forth

Heaters that are long like normal baseboard ones

All portable heaters have thermostats, --some more accurate than others.

All heaters operating at 1500 watts have the same power regardless of how they are advertised.

All portable heaters are natural convection heaters unless their fans are strong ones.

All portable heaters must have strong fans if they are to have 25% less cost than any natural convective ones.

Even temperatures

Very quick on-off response times

No heat losses

Advantages:
Very low purchase costs
No installation costs (unless house wiring is inadequate for 1500 watts)
Ease of carrying
Full choice of placement in a room if the cord is long enough. NOTE THAT ALL
HEATER CORDS ARE 16GAGE AND NEVER SHOULD BE PLACED UNDER A RUG.
Ease of storage when heating season is over.
Can serve as a very adequate source of home heating with common sense care.
Radiation travels in straight lines and so portable radiation heaters are particularly
good for heating specific things like people.
Portables with strong fans can operate at 25% less cost than natural convection
heaters, either portable or normal ones.
Portables with strong fans can put heat directly where people are, 0-6' above the floor.
No limit for furniture positions.
No baseboard heaters and their cleaning problems.

Disadvantages
Heaters use electricity -ordinarily an expensive source-but initial costs, conveniences, and where they put their heat can easily justify them.
Some fire chiefs do not look favorably on any portable heaters for safety reasons.

Home Heating - Ceiling Fans

2010-01-04T13:02:00.001-08:00

Ceiling Fans

They mix the warm ceiling air with the air where people are.

Advantages:
Very even temperatures.
More quickly brings warm ceiling air down.
Especially useful for natural convention heating.
In overly warm weather the motion of air can be welcomed, too.

Disadvantages:
It must wait for warm air to be delivered to the ceiling.
Constant air motion can be irritating and disruptive.

Home Heating - Radiant Heating Systems

2010-01-04T13:00:00.002-08:00

Radiant Heater Systems

I know of no radiant heaters that are designed to be permanently hard wired in residences, only ones for commercial use. However, there are numerous portable radiant heaters for home use. See them under the title Portable Electric Heaters. Note that all objects radiate, but to be useful radiators they must be at 115 degrees F or higher temperatures.

All open flames and fireplaces are radiators and so are all unshielded stoves.

So-called Floor Radiant Heating Systems

To start with note my reasons why floors are not used as radiators.

1. Useful radiant heat requires temperatures of 115 degrees F or higher.

2. Radiant heat does not heat the gases in air very well. Only solids absorb radiant heat easily and, so, air temperatures would heat very slowly.

3. If floors radiated significantly you would have heat absorbed significantly by ceilings and that's the last thing you want.

Now, the question is how rooms are heated by so-called floor radiation. The answer is simple: The air in contact with the floor is heated by conduction. This warmed air rises and mixes in particular in the first 5-6' above the floor where people are.

The significance of this is that it matters not what you call this system, but everyone that has it loves it!

Examples:

Anything that warms a floor will do.

1. tubes carrying warmed water under a floor will do.

2. electric wires under a floor will do.

Advantages:
WARM FLOORS
No special cleaning
Very even temperatures.
No drafts in any direction.
Savings of 25% compared to any natural convection heater.
No baseboard heaters and their cleaning problems.
No limits on furniture positions.

Disadvantages:
Expensive to install.
Slow on-off response times.
Possible heat loss to basement if' not well insulated.

Home Heating - Down Draft Systems

2010-01-04T13:00:00.001-08:00

Down Draft Systems

This is a fan-forced hot air system. It is noted separately because of its new use in residential heating. It has been in commercial use for a long time.

By venting downward it presents opportunities that are worth considering.

Examples:

This system vents downward from the ceiling that is not more than eight feet high such that it mixes the hot air where the people are, 0-6' above the floor.

Hot air conduits can feed the ceiling vents, or, more simply, a fan and an electric heater can be installed on or in a ceiling pointing downward.

Down discharge should be away from chairs and tables. Walkways and open spaces are ideally suitable places for this discharge.

Advantages:
Little or no cleaning.
No floor dust in vents.
No problem as to where to point horizontally moving air.
No warm air pushed along walls and ceilings.
Electric heaters and fans in the ceiling need no air conduits or central heaters.
The same reduction in cost to operate, 25% less heat used than by natural convection heaters.
No heater or vents along walls.

Disadvantages:
Not conventional.
Heaters may be hard to find.

Home Heating - Fan-Forced Hot Air Systems

2010-01-04T12:59:00.000-08:00

Fan-Forced Hot Air Systems
This system is one where hot air is pumped by a fan. For this reason it has a much quicker response than natural convection and it is better mixed with cool air, too, as it forcibly moves about the room.

Example:
Most often the hot air is vented into the room either through holes in the walls or in the floors. Generally in residences it enters from the floor and it rises quickly to the ceiling, mixing some with cool air along the way and then descends to where people are, 0-6' above the floor.

There are fan-forced electric wall heaters to install in or against the walls that also can put fan-forced heat directly where people are.

There are gas heaters to install in or against the walls that can also put heat directly where people are. They discharge the flue gases directly outdoors. They and their installation are expensive.

Note that there are portable heaters that can also put fan-forced heat directly where people are. See them under the title Portable Electric Heaters.

Advantages:
Quicker and better mixing than natural convection with 25% less heat used possible, especially if deflectors are placed over floor vents or if wall vents are used.
The deflectors and the wall vents insure mixing where people are, 0-6' above the floor.
Floor vents are easier to clean and wall vents the easiest. For the electric wall units and portable units the same 25% advantage will apply.
For the gas units the 25% advantage could be greater than the electric units.
No baseboard heaters and their cleaning problems.
No long baseboard heaters along the wall.
Wall heaters have best response times and no heat losses. Portables the same.

Disadvantages:
Floor vents should not be under furniture unless deflectors are used.
Floor vents limit somewhat the use of space along walls.
Wall vents should discharge where no one sits.

Home Heating - Natural Convection Systems

2010-01-04T12:55:00.000-08:00

Natural Convection Systems
These have warm air rising automatically from heaters because it is less dense than the air
around it. As in a chimney the natural convection draws more cool air into heaters to keep the process going.

Examples:
The warmed air rises to the ceiling with little mixing With cool air. It loses heat to the ceiling somewhat as it fills the upper part of the room. Then it gradually descends as it is replaced by warmer air following it. Eventually it arrives where people are, 0-6' above the floor with little mixing with cool air along the way.
All shielded stoves and baseboard heaters work this way. And if they are not shielded they will lose some heat by radiation continuously and less will be carried by natural convection.

Advantages:
No electricity will be used to raise the warm air.
The whole room is heated eventually by the warm air at the ceiling slowly moving down.
No drafts are created.

Disadvantages:
Slow response when starting and stopping.
Warm air gets to the cool ceiling and it loses some heat to it.
It creates uneven temperatures where people are 0-6' above the floor.
It makes for cold floors.
If baseboard heaters are used they will need regular cleaning and they are successively harder to clean. This makes for increasing inefficiency throughout their lives.
Baseboard heaters should not be under any furniture. For this reason they limit the use of the space along walls.

Among the Branches - For the Love of Tree Houses

2009-11-17T08:10:00.000-08:00

Partial Excerpt from Among the Branches - www.Architectural Digest.com

Among the Branches - An East Hampton Tree House Captures the Fanciful Air of The Lord of the Rings

Tree House Design by David and Jeanie Stiles / Text by Kelly Sanchez / Photography by Billy Cunningham

www.ArchitecturaIDigest.com

For most kids, there is nothing quite like climbing a tree-the thrill of finding that perfect perch from which to survey the world or disappear into the secret reaches of a leafy canopy. David Stiles understands those children. In fact, he and his wife, Jeanie, have spent a pleasurable portion of their careers creating tree houses for them. "To do a tree house you have to think like a child," David Stiles says. "For me that's easy!"

The couple, who divide their time between Manhattan and East Hampton, also design houses and cabins, and they've written 21 how-to books (five on tree houses). Though David Stiles studied industrial design at New York's Pratt Institute and sculpture at Florence's Academy of Fine Arts, he says that as a boy he was always building-"in-ground huts, clubhouses, bent-pole huts."

When New York financier Alan Patricof and his wife, Susan, asked the Stilese's to design a tree house for their granddaughters, Lily and Nina, they leapt at the chance.

"A tree house should never overpower the tree in which it is built. It should sit lightly in the branches,"says Jeanie Stiles, who, with her partner and husband, David, designed an arboreal escape for the grandchildren of clients in East Hampton.

More Information Available - Visit www.ArchitecturalDigest.com

Ruby Tuesday! - Posted by littlebangtheory

2009-11-16T06:47:00.000-08:00

Ruby Tuesday! November 9, 2009
Posted at littlebangtheory.
Link to the Ruby Tuesday! entry directly by Clicking Here.

This is an Accidental Ruby Tuesday, which came my way most unexpectedly this past weekend.

I’d overslept and missed the best part of sunrise, but I nonetheless left the house early enough to see some long shadows and a bit of color.

But the skies were boring compared to the sunrise I’d invisioned, and I drove without a destination, disconsolate yet propelled by my inate wanderlust.

Then, on the edges of Ashfield (it might have been Goshen by then) I passed a rustic building gleaming with chrome detritus of a most unanticipated sort – the Good Time Stove Company:

…yes, a real store, festooned with an interesting array of shiny stuff displayed to the delight of early morning travelers like me. I’d passed it hundreds of times without stopping, but on this particular morning the light was right, and I backed up to snap this shot.

There are several bits of Ruby scattered about this photograph, though I doubt you can see the most impressive one to me: the glowing red heart affixed to the chest of the twenty foot Tin Cowboy at the left of the photo.

Trust me, it’s a trip.

So at this resolution you might just be able to see the Glowing Red Whatever at the foot of the fifteen-foot Bicycle Wheel Arch which frames the entrance to the stove shop. I call Ruby-Dab!

…but then, off to the right, was a sign: “Three Sisters Sanctuary:”

Yeah, I know, “That’s pretty scant Ruby.” Let’s call it “sorta red.”

But I, being curious, wandered out back, the idea of “three sisters” appealing to me in some way or another.

And there I spied Ruby:

Morning Dragon

‘Twas a Morning Dragon, fifty feet at least, basking in the break of day, with two-foot chunks of sea glass guarding its sinuous spine, and a belly where fire lived, and a hideously beautiful mouth where the smoke came out, gnashing its earthbound fangs at the waning half-moon:

This was a truly cool find, and the low light of morning lit it to my liking.

I hope you like it too.

Ben Franklin, His Stove and Patent Issues

2009-11-11T04:37:00.000-08:00

Last month, Good Time Stove Company was contacted by a student writing a paper about Ben Franklin. Below are the questins posed for that interview and the Stove Princess' responses.

1.When David Rittenhouse improved the Franklin Fireplace, would there have been any jealousy involved from Ben Franklin?

I am not familiar with D. Rittenhouse or his improvements but from my understanding of Ben Franklin, the Franklin stove that he invented was intentionally NOT patented so that it was open to and encouraged the development of antique stove innovations leading me to believe that Franklin would have embraced Rittenhouse's contributions.

2. Should have Benjamin Franklin put a patent on the Franklin Stove?

To each his own. Personally I think that this type of openness encourages innovation and creativity that results in advances and progress that patents and other forms of intellectual property right discourage and hinder. Again, this is only my personal opinion, but it seems to me that in many ways the antique stove industry itself flourished under this model.

3. Was the invention a successful or a bad idea? Hugely successful, generated a huge industry and was absolutely integral to the every day function of domestic life for more than 100 years. The Franklin fireplace beget all other stoves in the American stove industry.

4. What would have happened if there was never a Franklin Stove? I personally believe that someone would have stumbled on this creation in due time, probably sooner than later. Fire technology and heating/cooking appliances had been in existence for some time. In the face of increasingly limited resources (trees and coal), the innovation seems inevitable. Given that there were well over 2,000 manufacturers, each claiming his own designs and innovations it seems evident that once the ball was set in motion its momentum would be nearly unstoppable and so the stove and range industry continues to be a huge market today.

5. Would the pamphlet that Franklin created for the fireplaces help a consumer decide which fireplace to buy?
Yes, although often times the pamphlets themselves focused on how the stove function and operates as opposed to how to select the right stove for the consumer or his home. The relied on the prowess of a sales person for this. To this ends many pamphlets were catered to the sales person touting the merits of the manufacturer, foundry, production, etc with less focus on the product itself.

6. Will there be some other fireplace invention like it, but more advanced? Of course!!!

7. Would life have been different without the Franklin Stove in the 1700s? Can you imagine your like without a means of cooking, baking, making food, heating water, staying warm, etc. Life was in no way absent these amenities before 1700, but Ben Franklin's invention represented tremendous progress towards convenience, efficiency and specialization.

8. Why do people still use them today? Cant people invent better than this or is this all it can get? Nostalgia, ambiance, aesthetic, antique authenticity (as opposed to a reproduction), superior cast iron quality (as opposed to the substandard cast iron used in modern stove production), antique artistry in the castings and designs (as opposed to bland cookie-cutter designs of modern models), using an antique stove is more environmentally friendly reducing landfill waste instead restoring a fine antique appliance to its peak performance and efficiency. Antique stove has a demonstrated capacity to function for generations where modern stoves suffer from built in obsolescence and find themselves irreparably broken down within 10-20 years of regular use.

9. If he were to put a patent on the fireplace, how much would have he made? The industry was one of America's largest at its height. Anyone involved could make money, especially those who made and defended patent claims. PD Beckwidth, inventor of the oak or cylinder stove, spent his entire life in litigation defending his claims to this patent and died in its pursuit. Today Round Oak stoves, among the mot widely recognized name in the antique stove industry bears the phrase "from the estate of P D Beckwidth." Ben Franklin's contributions to America, and the stove industry in particular, cannot be measured in mere dollars alone.

10. Could have this invention influenced others to create their own invention? Yes and it did. It was huge industry. So large in fact that at one time that patent office itself had to close due to the shear volume of patents generated by the stove industry at the height of its production.

Stone by Stone - Garden Sanctuary Rises in Goshen

2009-11-09T11:27:00.000-08:00

Stone by Stone
Garden Sanctuary rises in Goshen

By CHELSEY POLLOCK
Gazette Contributing Writer
Three Sisters Sanctuary - Goshen, ma

The Three Sisters Sanctuary is a garden of sculptural objects created by Richard Richardson.

GOSHEN - Two large stones stand on opposite sides of the grassy landscape. Their white quartz shapes stand in sharp contrast to the countless other darker boulders organized in circular "formations weaving around the yard".

Those two stones are battling sisters fighting it out for attention, says Richard M. Richardson, of Goshen.

Richardson, who has spent the past 15 years carefully developing his ornate backyard garden, said that all stones have a personality of their own. And the dueling sisters are not the only characters in the garden.

A group of tall rocks, which Richardson, 60, calls the Elders, are gathered off to the edge of a drum circle in the backyard.

"They just kind of feel like they have the wisdom of the garden," Richardson said of the group.

A sculpture of a girl made of shells, and other found objects, sits in the Three Sisters Sanctuary in Goshen.

A widely varied collection of large stones are purposefully scattered along the other side of the drum circle. Richardson said that when he stands in the center of the circle and looks out at these stones, he feels like he is at a dance, scanning the potential dance partners. Thus, he calls this formation "Dancing with the Ladies."

Richardson said he is not much of a gardener - and downplays his experience, saying he's just picked things up along the way.

By trade, he restores and sells antique stoves as the owner of Good Time Stove Company in Goshen. But after decorating the interior of his house, he said he decided to move his attention outside.

In the Three Sisters Sanctuary in Goshen brother and sister, Jaime LaBonte and Megan LaBonte stand beneath what Megan says is her favorite part of the garden, the dragon. The garden was created by Richard Richardson, who in an artist in Goshen.

"I started one day when I built one outdoor room and that was fun and there's no restriction," he said. "Outside, you have a room and any other space that abuts it."

Then, one day he was digging a well in his backyard and he found a seemingly unlimited supply of the large rocks buried on the property. As he continued be said the stone just jumped out of the ground.

"They didn’t want to be down there," he said. "They were waiting for me."

Richardson decided to put the stones to good use and began adding new sections to his backyard garden, which he calls the Three Sisters Sanctuary.

"You can really work with what you have and nature can work with you," Richardson said.

Richard Richardson, center, and two of his children, Sara "Stove Princess" LaBonte and Jaime LaBonte, pose with a cylinder stove in the showroom of the Good Time Stove Company on Cape Street in Goshen. At left is a line of parlor stoves (on the floor) and smaller 4 o’clock stoves (above and behind them, along window). The Three Sisters Sanctuary is located behind the store.

The garden now consists of several different elements, like the drum circle, an amphitheater and a sanctuary dedicated to Richardson's late daughter - Tina Marie. The separate "rooms" are connected by winding stone and brick pathways and a series of metal and wood arches.

Here, the natural aid the man-made seamlessly intertwine.

This 16-foot wooden figure representing a woman was built to be burned as a party of Megan E. LaBonte’s "Burning Woman" party, held earlier this month at the Three Sisters Sanctuary.

Rusted bicycles rise from the ground among the grasses and trees. Metal sculptures from various artists are scattered throughout the yard. Colored glass shines from among the rocks of the water garden and from the crevices in some of the stone formations.

Throughout the garden there is a wide variation of plant life. In the spring and summer, the garden is alive with color, Richardson said.

But, he said, "When he plants go away, there's still plenty to look at. It was meant to be a four-season garden."

The yard also incorporates fire with several fire pits, one with a chimney made to look the head of a dragon. The dragon is made of a mosaic of stone, glass and other objects. "When the fire beneath is lit, he appears to breathe smoke into the, and above the garden, Richardson said.

The dragon in the Three Sisters Sanctuary serves as the primary chimney to a fire pit below. Smoke travels out of the dragon’s mouth when a fire is lit.

The hodgepodge of items tucked throughout the yard is a bit overwhelming at first. But, Richardson said, the collection is intended to be an assortment, of interesting forms, rather than a mix of cohesive materials.

"I’m a collector of shapes. If I like a shape, I don't really care what it is," he said. "If at some point it talks to me, I'll do something with it."

It has been Richardson's artistic vision that has sculpted the Three Sisters Sanctuary over the years, with the help of local artisans, stone workers and gardeners, he said.

Richardson said that he sees the garden as his legacy, his gift to the Pioneer Valley.

"Without trying to seem like I'm flattering myself, I do believe that it is of some great substance," Richardson said. "I believe that it is more than just a backyard."

All of this creation hides behind the Good Time Stove Company building on Route 112 in Goshen.

The building is decorated with an array of found objects many of them rusted red or painted with bright colors. Richardson said that an average of 10 people per week used to stumble upon the garden, after stopping to check out the eye-catching building or the two-story tall tin man who stands sentry nearby.

But after recently posting a sign welcoming the public to visit the garden, Richardson said he has seen those numbers jump to 50 to 100 people on the average week While the high traffic has been an adjustment, Richardson said he is excited to see the rising interest in his work. "The only way it can really be used is if I share it," he said. And it teaches people how environmental art works; whether they are children or adults matters not."

Next venture: Richardson's next project will be to develop the furthest edge of the garden, where. the dueling sisters sit, into a labyrinth called "the Dance of Life." The labyrinth will take visitors through different. Rooms, representing courtship, seduction, commitment, conception, childhood and adulthood. The final section of the labyrinth - the Exit of Life- will drop visitors back into the main garden. Richardson says he hopes to complete the labyrinth in two to three years.

And after a hard day's work Richardson only needs to walk a few feet from the garden to his home, where he and his family have lived for almost 35 years. "My favorite part is that I live here," he said. "I live inside of my art."

Antique Stove Information Clearinghouse Under New Direction

2009-11-05T07:31:00.001-08:00

Quite a few years ago, Clifford Boram of Indiana started The Antique Stove Information Clearinghouse, a repository of historic data on early stoves and their makers. Now in his mid-seventies, Cliff has decided to turn the reins over to someone else, so he can have time to pursue other projects. In May, Cliff sold his business to TASA member Dave Petricka of Faribault, Minnesota. Cliff is pleased with the arrangement and says that Dave is an ideal person to take over the task. Cliff says he will be available to offer support during the transition period.

Dave is an antique stove collector and, like many of us, is especially drawn to anything fancy or unusual. He says he plans to continue on with The Antique
Stove Information Clearinghouse much as it has been in the past. Although he is already fielding stove inquiries, he says the volume of information is quite overwhelming and it's going to take some time for him to get up to speed. Eventually, Dave would like to make some of the stove catalogs available online, but "that's a very long-term goal" he says.

Dave says that The Antique Stove Association and its members have done a lot for him over the years, and preserving and continuing the work that Cliff started
years ago is a way for him to "give something back" to the organization.

Dave can be reached at 507-210-4304 or davepetricka@yahoo.com.

Connecting a Wood Stove

2009-05-26T12:36:00.000-07:00

Ofttimes, fashions that once seemed dated or even eccentric have a way of surfacing when they satisfy either whim or necessity. Such is the case for the wood stove today.

Dictated by economics, concern for supplies of fossil fuels, and nostalgia-heating the public consciousness if only as a supplement for one's present heating system or to have as a standby in case of power failure, repeated fuel crises, or steeply rising costs.

Before you catch this fever of self-reliance, however, there are several points worth considering, any of which may quickly dampen your enthusiasm: the availability and cost of a functional, safe stove; a method of installing it in your home; and the labor and/or expense of amassing the wood necessary to make your investment pay for itself.

Many countrymen who properly cull their woodlots have never deserted the stove as the sole source of heating their homes. For them cutting and working up a supply of seasoned, split hardwood each year is an integral part of their life in the country. Others have hung on to a stove as an auxiliary space heater to tide them over before and after it is cold enough to justify turning on the central heating.

Even urbanites today-attracted heat source either from stove or fireplace-are and healthful kind of outdoor recreation (and a lot of hard work) in the process.

If you decide to go this way and heat with wood rather than add another layer or two of clothing and even retire earlier for the night, you must first find an efficient stove in good condition and then take all conceivable precautions to assure its safe installation and operation.

There is a wide variety of wood burning stoves available today as a result of the recent fuel crisis. Established companies that languished as anachronisms for the past quarter century have suddenly been propelled into greater production than ever and others have sprung up to duplicate ancient patterns or design boldly different ones. In addition, Americans have discovered foreign stove makers-principally from the Scandinavian countries. At one time their back orders stretched nearly as far as their distribution lines, but they are readily available now from many dealers in New England and at stiff prices.

For years the Franklin, potbelly, and box were the principal types of home heating stoves available. Some were beautifully simple; others were embellished with every possible type of ornamentation. Carefully tended and maintained, these have lasted for many years and many bear the labels of manufacturers long since passed into oblivion when central heating became fashionable and convenient. Some of the more recently made stoves will be fortunate if they see several seasons of use because they have been hastily designed, poorly constructed, and are made of metal that is questionable in its quality and thickness.
Their only justification is their low price.

Before committing yourself, investigate all possible products. Compare costs, efficiency, and even looks. Then talk with other stove owners.

You may be fortunate to find an antique stove in mint condition. But be prepared to pay for it. Any stove should be free from cracks. It should have all its parts in working order. Replacement parts for old stoves are hard to find, but sometimes you can locate a local welder to restore the stove and manufacture new parts. Consider the color of the metal. A stove that has been operated unwisely by running it at continuously high temperatures will show metal discoloration on the firebox, which may have weakened its seams and composition. Although rust will appear on any stove unless it has been carefully restored, this is usually a minor problem and can be corrected with a wire brush, several coats of stove blacking, and concentrated work.

Prices for new stoves vary although all are higher than they were two years ago. Some may hesitate to spend as much as the $300 to $400 required for some American and many foreign made stoves. This can be translated into a considerable amount of fuel oil even at today's prices. However, buying a wood stove-like arranging for a home mortgage-should not be considered an annual outlay. Both can be depreciated for as long as they are "functioning efficiently. Often the more you spend at this stage to assure safety, the greater the result in savings-possibly including your house and your health.

Fire is always a lurking threat, even more so in the country where help is likely to be farther away. Therefore, safety is the most important consideration in converting to wood stove heating.

After you have decided on the stove to fit your needs, the next step is to see how it is to be vented. All solid fuel stoves must be connected to a chimney or flue to transport the smoke and gases outdoors. The prudent householder will see that this is done in accordance with safety standards cited by stove manufacturers, local fire and building ordinances, and the recommendations of the National Fire Protection Association.

Existing chimneys can often be used to vent a new stove. However, certain precautions must be taken first. Check the condition of the chimney. This can be done by the homeowner visually or by the local fire department. Look for stains on the masonry (these may indicate smoke leaks from former years), and loose or cracked mortar (a possible avenue for sparks that could destroy your house). Any defects should be properly repaired.

Clay mortar was commonly used in unlined chimneys built more than seventy-five years ago. It is questionable whether any of these meet present day safety standards, but the customary sight of smoke rising from a two-hundred-year-old been rebuilt or modernized attests to their continued use.

If the condition of an old chimney dictates it, you can hire a mason to rebuild it or at least insert flue linings in it. This will be a major undertaking and expense. Otherwise, chimneys can be lined with metal linings that are made to specification. Some homeowners have installed sections of regular stovepipe-fastened machine bolts-by inserting them down the chimney to the stove connection.

Chimney tile-mortared together smoothly – or metal liners discourage the accumulation of creosote, which is one of the byproducts of burning wood-particularly woods-mid which may ignite and cause chimney fires. (There are chemicals available that can be burned on the fire to discourage creosote accumulation. A safer way is to clean your chimney each year before the real stove season starts. Do this by wrapping chains in a burlap bag, tying a rope around its neck, and raising and lowering it against the insides of the chimney walls. Be sure you have blocked the hearth and flue openings before you begin. This will prevent soot from permeating the house.) Soot and creosote will be less likely to accumulate if you burn a fire continuously. These by products are usually consumed satisfactorily but a visual inspection should be made.

If you use an existing flue for your wood stove, it should not be the same as that which is used for either the central heating vent or a working fireplace. Gases can be drawn downward and into the house while you sleep. For safety, therefore, you will have to make a list of priorities. Even if you decide to vent the stove through the over mantel of the fireplace, you will be giving up the use of the hearth as many did in the early days of "modernization" when wood stoves became fashionable and. known to be safer and more efficient than fireplace fires. (Even the best fireplaces-while cozy and heart-warming-are only about 10 percent to 20 percent efficient in their conversion of wood to heat; stoves are from 30 percent to more than 80 percent in the case of some of the Scandinavian imports.)

Should you not have a chimney at all through which to vent a stove, or if blocking off an existing fireplace or even using it safely without extensive renovation is considered either hazardous or unwise, you can beat the problem by installing a new chimney altogether. This can either be constructed of masonry (brick, stone, com- position blocks), which would call for the services of a mason and the resulting cost and bother, or a metal, prebuilt chimney. Never try to avoid the expense by venting your stovepipe through a window sash. This merely courts disaster.

Masonry chimneys start from below frost level on a poured concrete foundation and are built up; factory built metal chimneys, long known in the Midwest and introduced here principally for second homes after World War Two, are supported from the roof and
hang down; Money, time, and labor are saved by installing a prebuilt chimney. Several nationally known companies manufacture them and provide specific instructions for installing them. These can be followed accurately by anyone with a feeling for tools and the ability to read directions.

Chimneys can be built either inside a house or made to run up an outside wall. The advantage of housing the flue within a building is that of added choice of where to place the stove and more-even stovepipe temperatures. Unless the prebuilt chimney is inspected periodically during the heating season, the greatest disadvantage is that it brings the possibility of an unleashed fire closer.

Whatever kind of chimney you decide to install, make sure to observe the following points:

1. Stoves are heavy. Before bringing one into the house, check the underpinnings of the floor and strengthen them if necessary.

2. Wood stoves are radiant heaters. They must be kept at recommended distances from all combustible materials. Wood, wallpaper, many kinds of fabric, most kinds of paint, furniture, and even the woodpile itself are all potential fire hazards. A freestanding stove must be 36 inches from the nearest combustible material on sides, front, and back. If gypsum, plaster, asbestos, stone, or brick is used for wall sheathing, most stoves can be brought to within 12 inches from the wall. Some manufacturers state that if the noncombustible wall covering is 4 inches or more thick, their product can be placed as little as 6 inches from the wall. However, use your own discretion.

3. A noncombustible hearth should be provided under the stove and extend 18 inches out from the firing door, 12 inches out on either side. This can be a piece of asbestos encased in tin and can be purchased at a hardware store. Or you can make one of marble chips, shells, crushed gravel, brick, slate, etc., that is laid on a metal or asbestos fires top cut to the proper dimensions. Stoves on legs should have 18 inches or more of open space under them.

4. Common carbon steel or galvanized stovepipe should be 18 inches from walls and ceilings. The Shakers, ever an inventive and practical people, often located their wood stoves toward the center of the room and led a well-supported stovepipe at a slight angle under the ceiling to the chimney vent. This method provides added surface for additional heating.

5. Common flues must never pass through combustible ceilings or walls unless proper precautions are taken and recommended distances observed. Double and triple walled pipe are safe to use and easy to install. Even with a good fire going in the stove, they will only feel slightly warm to the touch. Manufacturers list specifications for clearances. If you do not use this product, cut a hole in the wall or ceiling that provides 18 inches of clearance around the pipe and fill this hole with noncombustible insulating material or brick work.

6. Factory-built chimneys should be 2 feet above the ridge of the house or 2 feet higher than any projection within 10 feet of it. These come with rain caps to prevent water from running down and extinguishing the fire. They can also be enclosed by bricks or brick like metal boxes to simulate a permanent masonry chimney.

7. It will be safe to use single walled stovepipe between sections of double-walled fittings that pass through ceilings if these are in a position to be inspected readily. However, if the chimney is inaccessible, built-in, or remote from frequent inspection, this additional means of heating a loft, for example, should not be considered. It would be better to invest in a full section or two of insulated pipe.

Even with the above points in mind as you contemplate installing a wood stove, it is still prudent to consult with your local fire department, study and follow the directions provided with the stove (if it is a new one), and request more information from the National Fire Protection Association.

Antique Wood Stoves: Heating In Style

2009-04-14T07:46:00.000-07:00

Antique wood stoves are valuable not just because of their age and rarity, but also because they are as relevant today as they were a century ago. A wood stove is a heating device that you can use as a stand-alone heating equipment or use as a fireplace insert. Antique woodstoves are popular because besides adding to the beauty of your home, they keep your house warm and can cook the food as well. Around the world, people have been using wood stoves safely and conveniently, for hundreds of years.

Not Only a Showpiece
Antique woodstoves are certainly a collector's item and would be a treasured item if you were fond of antique collectibles. If you buy an antique stove, then you are not buying just a showpiece to add to the beauty of your house. Most of the antique stoves are still in working order. People use them for heating homes and cooking food. These stoves are very convenient to use and are not bothersome to maintain. There has been no significant change in the basic design of wood stoves over the last century. Therefore, you are not trading in any kind of modern convenience when you buy an antique stove.

Antique wood stoves are a natural choice for historically themed hotels and tourist spots. They add to the authenticity of these places while working as any other heating and cooking appliance. Similarly, they're also perfect to restored homes and museums.

These days you can even buy an antique looking wood stove that has the looks of an old stove and yet has all the features of contemporary stoves. This way you can enjoy the antique looks and yet do not compromise on the features that modern stoves offer.

Safer Heating Devices
Safety is another important factor in favor of antique wood stoves when compared to many fireplaces, cooking stoves and heaters that use gas. If you light a match, there is no risk of igniting the gas in the air and starting a fire. With the appliances that use gas, you have to be careful of leakages. No matter how old antique stoves are, you can always expel any unwanted smoke with the help of a pipe that goes through the ceiling or the wall.

Eco Friendly Stoves
Antique wood stoves are eco friendly and do not use any non-recyclable fuel like coal or gasoline. Inexpensive and easy to find wood can be replenished, unlike many other fuels. Listed below are some popular styles of antique wood stoves:

Victorian Stoves - These stoves are in vogue since the later part of the nineteenth century. These early kitchen stoves were usually made of cast iron. Nickel was used to adorn the stoves.

Country Stoves - These early twentieth century stoves are almost similar to Victorian Stoves except for the nickel highlights and clean, crisp casting.

Retro Stoves - These extremely popular stoves of the 1930s are simple updated version of above-mentioned models.

Cylinder Stoves - Because of their peculiar design, anybody can easily recognize these Antique Wood Stoves. While using very little floor space, they provide extraordinary heat.

Parlor Stoves - These beautiful stoves were the center of interest in Parlor rooms in the Victorian age, artistically designed with cherubs, mythological figures and floral designs. Other than providing heat, they were lovely pieces of decoration as well.

Manufacturers of wood stoves are offering modern wood stoves with all contemporary features that mimic the style and looks of these antique wood stoves.

These are just a few options for antique style wood stoves available. You can select the one matching your personal preference and heat in style. Alternatively, just select an antique looking stove with all the modern features for a perfect confluence of classic elegance and modern comfort.

Source: http://www.alternative-heating.com/antique-wood-stoves.html

Estate Smoke Consumer Hot Blast

2009-03-31T11:52:00.001-07:00

Estate Railroad stoves, for caboose, station and railway mail car heating, have been adopted as standard by over sixty railroad companies in the United States and Canada.

The Santa Fe has over 6,000 Estate Railroad Stoves in use.

The New york Central Lines have over 4,000 Estate Railroad Stoves in use.

The Erie, the Soo Line, the Pennsylvania Lines, the Northern Pacific, the Union Pacific are all big users.

Before Estate Railroad stoves were introduced, practically all of these roads were using a heater of the old-fashioned "cannon" type, either making it in the own shops or buying the castings from a jobbing foundry. Not because that type of heater had anything in particular to recommend it, but because it was plain and cheap, and because nothing better for the purpose had been offered.

The Estate Stove Company was the first stove manufacturer to realize the importance of proper cooking and heating equipment in railroad service, and to build a line of stoves designed to afford the maximum economy, convenience and safety.

The Estate Railroad Stove is made of the same high-grade materials and with the same careful attention to details of fitting that go into the production of the finest parlor stove in our lone. It is a scientifically designed, well-built stove, air-tight in the full sense of the word, extremely economical of fuel, perfect in its fire control.

Being built for business, there are no frills or furbelows, no fancy carving, no nickel trimmings. It is simply thoroughly a high-grade, sir-tight heater, with the addition of features which insure maximum economy, convenience and safety in railroad service, Because its unique features are patented, the Estate Railroad Stove is practically without competition.

The Safety Features
A violent bump or jar, to say nothing of a wreck, causes the ordinary stove to open and sill its contents, a fire often results.

In the Estate Railroad Stove this danger is entirely overcome. Each door and each cover is held shut with a locking device, so that they cannot open under even the most severe strain.

Unusual Fire-Keeping Qualities
"Will it hold a fire overnight?" is usually the test of a good stove. Estate Railroad stoves will not only hold fire over night, but for a much longer period. In a number of scientific tests, fire has been held for longer than fifty hours in stoves that have seen more than ten years of use.

Coal Bills Reduced 33 to 50%
The ordinary "cannon" stove used by railroads us ab extravagant user of fuel, becomes red-hot soon after heating up, and is practically impossible to control. This is because such stoves are not air-tight, Air enters the fire through a dozen cracks and crevices, and flows uncontrolled through the firepot.

The Estate Railroad Stove is made air-tight and stays air-tight. The ash box is cast in one piece - an exclusive, patented feature of Estate construction, and all necessary joints are so carefully fitted that air cannot gain admission into the stove except through the screw-draft registers in the ash-pit door.

Complete and Convenient Cooking Facilities
"An army fights on its stomach," said Napoleon. And it's just as true that a train crew works on its stomach. Hot meals on the road are essential to the health and efficiency of train crews.

The Estate Railroad is a good cook stove as well as a good heater. It has a large two-hole cooking top with a flanged edge. A portable broiling attachment is also furnished.

A pot rail, to keep vessels from falling off the stove in case of a severe bump or jolt, is furnished as extra.

Anchor Rods
Heavy rods anchor the heater firmly to the floor of a caboose can be used, holes for these rods being located the the right and left sides of the undertop and extreme bottom of the stove.

Estate RailRoad Stove Nos. 140-180
Caboose Type
Used regularly by the Santa Fe, Rock Island, C & N. W., New York Central Lines and others.

Below illustration shows the No. 140 Stove. No. 180 has extension top and three screw draft registers in the ash-box door.

The pot rail shown in this photograph is furnished as an extra on Estate Railroad Stoves Nos. 140, 180, 145, 185, and 149.

It consists of two cast-iron ends, bolted to the top of the stove and joined with 3/8th inch wrought iron pipe.

All of the stoves are made with a flanged edge on the cooking top designed to keep vessels from slipping off. The pot rail, however, makes assurance doubly sure.

The broiling attachment shown in this photograph is part of the regular equipment of Nos. 140 and 180 Caboose Type Estate Railroad Stoves.

No Stronger argument in favor of Estate Railroad Stoves could be presented than the letters we receive - almost every day during the season - from conductors and brakemen who are in intimate, daily contact with our stoves in stations and cabooses.

"Estate Stoves heat up good,' they say; "Make cooking a pleasure;" "Burn less fuel;" "Hold fire longer;" "Prevent fires;" etc. And almost every letter winds up by saying that the Estate Stove has proved so satisfactory for use in stations that the writer now wants one for use in his home.

"Will it keep fire over night?" is the first question to ask in determining the fitness of heating stove equipment.

If the stove in your waiting rooms will not keep fire over night, you may be sure that they are wasting fuel and wasting the time of your employees.

Estate Railroad Stoves will not only keep fire over night, but for a much longer period. In a number of scientific tests we have held fire for longer than 50 hours in stoves that had been in service longer than 10 years.

The installation of Estate Railroad Stoves in your stations and cabooses will be a good investment, not only from the standpoint of fuel saving and low upkeep cost, but as welfare work which will pay big dividends in the increased comfort and efficiency of your train crews.

All the comforts of home on the road is the privilege of trainmen on the U.P., whose cabooses are equipped with these stoves.

Hot biscuits, baked potatoes - every kind of baked or roasted food - is easily and quickly prepared in the big, handy bake oven.

Estate Railroad Stove
No. 149
Low Caboose Type
Used regularly by the Erie, Pennsylvania Lines West of Pittsburgh, New York Central Lines and others.

Connecting a Wood Stove, (PLUS GOOD CHIMNEY CONSTRUCTION AND SAFETY RULES)

2009-03-27T11:52:00.000-07:00

Ofttimes, fashions that once seemed dated or even eccentric have a way of surfacing when they satisfy either whim or necessity. Such is the case for the wood stove today.

Dictated by economics, concern for supplies of fossil fuels, and nostalgia-heating with a wood-stove has once again sprung into the public consciousness if only as a supplement for one's present heating system or to have as a standby in case of power failure, repeated fuel crises, or steeply rising costs.

For years the Franklin, potbelly, and box were the principal types of home heating stoves available. Some were beautifully simple; others were embellished with every possible type of ornamentation. Carefully tended and maintained, these have lasted for many years and many bear the labels of manufacturers long since passed into oblivion when central heating became fashionable and convenient. Some of the more recently made stoves will be fortunate if they see several seasons of use because they have been hastily designed, poorly constructed, and are made of metal that is questionable in its quality and thickness. Their only justification is their low price.

Both can be depreciated for as long as they are functioning efficiently. Often the more you spend at this stage to assure safety, the greater the result in savings-possibly including your house and health.

After you have decided on the stove to fit your needs, the next step is to see how it should to be vented. All solid fuel stoves must be connected to a chimney or flue to transport the smoke and gases outdoors. The prudent householder will see that this is done in accordance with safety standards cited by stove manufacturers, local fire and building ordinances, and the recommendations of the National Fire Protection Association.

Existing chimneys can often be used to vent a new stove. However, certain precautions must be taken first. Check the condition of the chimney. This can be done by the homeowner visually or by the local fire department. Look for stains on the masonry (these may indicate smoke leaks from former years), and loose or cracked mortar (a possible avenue for sparks that could destroy your house).

Any defects should be properly repaired. Clay mortar was commonly used in unlined chimneys built more than seventy-five years ago. It is questionable whether any of these meet present day safety standards, but the customary sight of smoke rising from a two-hundred-year-old chimney that has not been rebuilt or modernized attests to their continued use.

If the condition of an old chimney dictates it, you can hire a mason to rebuild it or at least insert flue linings in it. This will be a major undertaking and expense. Otherwise, chimneys can be lined with metal linings that are made to specification. Some homeowners have installed sections of regular stovepipe-fastened securely with machine bolts-by inserting them down the chimney to the stove collection.

Chimney tile-mortared together smoothly-or metal liners discourage the accumulation of creosote, which is one of the byproducts of burning wood-particularly pine, cedar, and green woods-and which may ignite and cause chimney fires. (There are chemicals available that can be burned on the fire to discourage creosote accumulation. A safer way is to clean your chimney each year before the real stove season starts. Do this by wrapping chains in a burlap bag, tying a rope around its neck, and raising and lowering it against the insides of the chimney walls. Be sure you have blocked the hearth and flue openings before you begin. This will prevent soot from permeating the house.) Soot and creosote will be less likely to accumulate if you burn a fire continuously. These byproducts are usually consumed satisfactorily but a visual inspection should be made.

If you use an existing flue for your wood stove, it should not be the same as that which is used for either the central heating vent or a working fireplace. Gases can be drawn downward and into the house while you sleep. For safety, therefore, you will have to make a list of priorities. Even if you decide to vent the stove through the over mantel of the fireplace, you will be giving up the use of the hearth as many did in the early days of "modernization" when wood stoves became fashionable and known to be safer and more efficient than fireplace fires. (Even the best fireplaces-while cozy and heartwarming- are only about 10 percent to 20 percent efficient in their conversion of wood to heat; stoves are from 30 percent to more than 80 percent in the case of some of the Scandinavian imports.)

Should you not have a chimney at all through which to vent a stove, or if blocking off an existing fireplace or even using it safely without extensive renovation is considered either hazardous or unwise, you can beat the problem by installing a new chimney altogether. This can either be constructed of masonry (brick, stone, composition blocks), which would call for the services of a mason and the resulting cost and bother, or a metal, prebuilt chimney. Never try to avoid the expense by venting your stovepipe through a window sash. This merely courts disaster.

Masonry chimneys start from below frost level on a poured concrete foundation and are built up; factory built metal chimneys, long known in the midwest and introduced here principally for second homes after World War Two, are supported from the roof and hang down. Money, time, and labor are saved by installing a prebuilt chimney. Several nationally known companies manufacture them and provide specific instructions for installing them. These can be followed accurately by anyone with a feeling for tools and the ability to read directions.

Chimneys can be built either inside a house or made to run up an outside wall. The advantage of housing the flue within a building is that of added choice of where to place the stove and more-even stovepipe temperatures. Unless the prebuilt chimney is inspected periodically during the heating season, the greatest disadvantage is that it brings the possibility of an unleashed fire closer. Whatever kind of chimney you decide to install, make sure to observe the following points:

1. Stoves are heavy. Before bringing one into the house, check the underpinnings of the floor and strengthen them if necessary.

2. Wood stoves are radiant heaters. They must be kept at recommended distances from all combustible materials. Wood, wallpaper, many kinds of fabric, most kinds of paint, furniture, and even the woodpile itself are all potential fire hazards. A freestanding stove must be 36 inches from the nearest combustible material on 36” on both sides, front, and back. If gypsum, plaster, asbestos, stone, or brick is used for wall sheathing, most stoves can be brought to within 12 inches from the wall. Some manufacturers state that if the noncombustible wall covering is 4 inches or more thick, their product can be placed as little as 6 inches from the wall. However, use your own discretion.

3. A noncombustible hearth should be provided under the stove and extend 18 inches out from the firing door, 12 inches out on either side. This can be a piece of asbestos encased in tin and can be purchased at a hardware store. Or you can make one of marble chips, shells, crushed gravel, brick, slate, etc., that is laid on a metal or asbestos fire top cut to the proper dimensions. Stoves on legs should have 18 inches or more of open space under them.

4. Common carbon steel or galvanized stovepipe should be 18 inches from walls and ceilings. The Shakers, ever an inventive and practical people, often located their wood stoves toward the center of the room and led a well-supported stovepipe at a slight angle under the ceiling to the chimney vent. This method provides added surface for additional heating.

5. Common flues must never pass through combustible ceilings or walls unless proper precautions are taken and recommended distances observed. Double and triple walled pipe are safe to use and easy to install. Even with a good fire going in the stove, they will only feel slightly warm to the touch. Manufacturers list specifications for clearances. If you do not use this product, cut a hole in the wall or ceiling that provides 18 inches of clearance around the pipe and fill this hole with noncombustible insulating material or brickwork.

6. Factory-built chimneys should be 2 feet above the ridge of the house or 2 feet higher than any projection within 10 feet of it. These come with rain caps to prevent water from running down and extinguishing the fire. They can also be enclosed by bricks or brick like metal boxes to simulate a permanent masonry chimney.

7. It will be safe to use single walled stovepipe between sections of double-walled fittings that pass through ceilings if these are in a position to be inspected readily. However, if the chimney is inaccessible, built-in, or remote from frequent inspection, this additional means of heating a loft, for example, should not be considered. It would be better to invest in a full section or two of insulated pipe.

Even with the above points in mind as you contemplate installing a wood stove, it is still prudent to consult with your local fire department, study and follow the directions provided with the stove (if it is a new one), and request more information from the National Fire Protection Association (470 Atlantic Ave., Boston, Mass. 02210).

ADDITIONAL READING
FOR INSTALLING AND OPERATING A WOOD STOVE:
National Fire Protection Association, "A Hazard -Study: Using Coal and Wood
Stoves Safely," 470 Atlantic Ave., Boston, Mass. 02210

Havens, David, "The Woodburner's Handbook," Media House, Box 1770, Portland,
Me. 04104

Cooking on a Wood Stove - Yankke

2009-03-27T07:42:00.000-07:00

Wood cookstoves often have more individual quirks than the cooks who use them. But successful cooking with wood begins in the woodshed. The key to a well-planned and tasty meal is the availability and selection of fuel-split, dried and stacked perhaps a year in advance.

There are innumerable advantages to cooking with one's own wood. A twenty-acre woodlot will supply a family's cooking and heating needs almost indefinitely, if culled and harvested properly. The cost of wood grown on the farm is lower than that of any other fuel. In addition, wood cookstoves continue to function when outside power sources fail. They provide auxiliary heat, and this in turn can make a kitchen thee family social center that modern efficiency has done its best to displace.

It is true that bread can be baked in any oven, but somehow the combined odors of fresh bread and a wood stove is enough to stir a pang of nostalgia in any breast.

However, before installing a wood cookstove in your kitchen-if you are fortunate enough to locate one in working order at a reasonable price-consider some of the disadvantages. Foremost is the amount of wood demanded by the cook to keep meals coming on time. If it is available and at hand, wood stove cooking is economical. But the constant cutting, dragging, splitting, stacking and carting of wood into the kitchen can be a tiresome task in a busy world and has persuaded many a farm boy to leave for the city.

In learning the art of wood stove cooking-even if one is already a capable cook using another fuel-there are bound to be disappointments until the personalities of cook and stove become compatible.

To start with, the fuel must be dry. Although any wood will burn eventually, the fire will be hotter and more easily controlled if seasoned wood is used. Green wood can provoke chimney fires.

Hereabouts, the stove wood most generally used is white or rock maple, beech, white birch, and white or red oak. Ash is a fine wood, easily split and safe to use either green or dry. In the old days, ash was used largely as kindling. It was split into 3/4-inch vertical slabs then these were worked into 3/4-inch square sticks with a hatchet. Small-diameter ash was left in the round.

Countrymen never use pine, even for kindling. This wood can coat your chimney with resin, which in turn could lead to a house burning. Pine is saved for the lumber yard.

Wood that will not split easily because of knots or grain is stacked in another area of the woodshed and eventually finds its way to the parlor stove.

In the days when the wood range was king of the kitchen, country people kept a woodbox next to it, which was filled with a mixed lot of stove-length wood by the boys before they went to bed. From this the cook would select her fuel for the purpose intended: birch for a quick, hot fire with little body; maple and beech for longer lasting dependability; oak (which takes longer to dry) for a slow, hot fire, once a bed of coals had been established. It was an unsplit oak log that was put into the firebox just before bedtime and banked with ashes. Usually the cookstove firebox was too small to hold a fire to last the night (a larger one would make it more difficult to adjust cooking temperatures), but some coals of oak would remain by early morning, which helped keep the chill out of the kitchen. During a spell of cold weather, the cookstove and parlor stoves would have to be tended periodically throughout the night to keep the water pipes from freezing.

To kindle a fire, the housewife took a piece of newspaper, tore it down the center crease, and crumpled and twisted each half separately. She laid about eight twists on the grate, lighting both ends of one of them as she put it in then loosely covered these with eight to ten ¾-inch square sticks of split ash. Within minutes her fire had started. Now according to what she was to cook, she selected fuel for her fire bed-often white birch and maple to get her chores off to a good start. (Any birch more than 2 inches in diameter should be split to dry in the shed; otherwise, the center will rot in a year's time and its usefulness will be lost. This is especially true of gray birch.)

Once the fire bed is established, the attentive cook spends her time regulating the drafts until the stove lids and oven are heated enough for her to proceed.

Most cookstoves have four different dampers. The front damper is located to the left and below the firebox. This is the primary source of draft, which allows controlled combustion. Ashes drop through the grate into the ashpit below. (It is here you can bake potatoes. Coat them with either grease or aluminum foil and turn occasionally until done.) The adjustable upper damper is called the "check." By closing the front damper and opening the check, you can cool the fire and save fuel. The regulation of the check is one way to keep a more even temperature in the oven while baking.

The stovepipe damper is the chief device for getting your fire going and, later, stopping it from burning too quickly and allowing an excessive loss of heat up the flue.

One other damper is important. This is the oven damper and is located either to the left or right of the stovepipe-depending upon the make-at the back of the stove. When this is open (as for starting a fire or cutting down the surface heat of the stove), the heat goes directly to the stovepipe; when closed, it allows heat to circulate across the top and around the oven walls before escaping through the flue. An open oven damper, therefore, spreads the heat more evenly under the surface of the lid covers.

The hottest spot on the cookstove lies between the left and center back lids in a six-lidded cookstove. When the oven damper is open, this generally shifts forward along the right ridge of the firebox. One of the great advantages of cooking on the surface of a cookstove is the cook's choice of temperature range. Results can be had instantly merely by shifting the pots backward and forward from hot to medium heat, far off to the right or left for warming or simmering. If the stove is equipped with a pair of warming ovens or movable trivets attached to the metal casing around the stovepipe, the cook has handy places to set her breads to rise, keep platters and food warm, dispel the dampness from salt, and hang dishtowels and mittens to dry.

Many cookstoves also boast a holding tank for water on the right. Not only is warm water available whenever the stove is going, but the added humidity is healthful and seems to temper the room's cold corners.

It is oven cooking that is the hardest to learn and the most challenging. The art of wood stove cooking is centered around the successful maintenance of oven temperature. Most stoves have a gauge set into the oven door. This should be treated only as an indicator of the interior temperature on most old-model stoves. Even if the needle is in working order, invest in a hanging oven thermometer if your experience as a cook demands more accuracy. However, by trial and error and without cost you can learn to assess the oven temperature-provided the proper kinds of wood are used in the firebox-by putting your hand in the oven temporarily. This should indicate to you whether the oven is warm, hot, or very hot (which essentially is what both the oven-door thermometer and old cookbooks will tell you anyway). Another method is to lay scraps of white paper in the oven and to judge its temperature according to the amount of time the paper took to turn brown and scorch. There are no written directions for this kind of experience.

From the stories of feasts in the days before electricity, there seems nothing that a wood stove oven cannot do, although it takes more careful watching than modern ovens with automatic controls. Bread should be baked in a hot oven that is allowed to cool by shutting down the front damper, the chimney damper, and cracking open the check. To assure evenness (the firebox wall of the oven is the hottest side), the loaf pans should be watched and turned occasionally. If the top crust starts to brown too quickly, lay a piece of brown paper bag over the loaf. Even a souffle-although a product of France originally and probably cooked in the more steady heat of a coal fire-can be attempted in a wood stove oven, provided the trick of maintaining a steady temperature through the selection of wood and manipulation of the dampers is learned.

Another way of using the potential of your wood stove is to take advantage of the firebox. When the wood has burned down to coals, chop them up with a poker and level the bed. Then throw on a steak or lamb chops. Sear them on both sides and cook quickly. If apple. wood has been used for the fire, the results will satisfy the most discriminating taste.

Old-fashioned baked beans-costly for the modern electric stove cook-can be prepared economically in a wood stove. Leave the pot in the oven, heated by a steady-burning red oak log, and let it fend for itself all day with an occasional addition of liquid. By dinner time the beans will be ready. Meanwhile, on the stove top start soup simmering in a cast-iron pot. Add scraps of meat and vegetables from time to time for a nourishing and convenient pot-au-feu meal.

There are several important things to bear in mind if wood stove cooking is to be both worthwhile and enjoyable. Keep a neat and orderly wood pile where dry stove wood is available as needed.
Clean out the ashpit and soot from around the oven frequently to reduce possible fire hazard and. allow the dampers and stovepipe to function efficiently. Ashes should be kept in metal buckets or ashcans
at a safe distance from the house, for wood coals have surprising longevity. If kept dry, these ashes can later be used for making lye-the first step in home soap production (see Chapter 26)-or
spread on the garden to increase the potash content. Wood ashes are not much good for sprinkling on the icy walk in winter; they find their way back into the house too quickly!

Three more points should be mentioned to increase the enjoyment of using a wood cookstove. If your children are still young enough to be malleable, train them early to the onerous daily task of keeping the woodbox filled. This is a tedious but necessary process, and its neglect may result in a trip to the woodshed for a reason other than the gathering of wood. Never use the oven as a storage closet for dirty dishes when unexpected company knocks, or for hiding valuables if you should leave the house. Human memory may not warn you to look in the oven before lighting the next fire.

Finally, if the results of cooking are to benefit both the family and the cook, clearly establish a basic rule: only the cook regulates the dampers while a meal is being prepared. Many a dish has been ruined and many a temper roused by a seemingly innocent fiddling with the drafts when the cook's back is turned. The best place for the noncook-and one of the most enviable in the house-is in the rocking chair next to the stove where one can be near enough to be warm and appreciative but not get in the way.

REFERENCE
Havens, David, "The Woodburners Handbook," Media House, Box 1770, Portland,
Me. 04104

Antique Stove Plate - a rare piece of antique stove ephemera

2009-03-24T08:16:00.000-07:00

Yesteryear's stove industry employed many marketing techniques to sell their stoves including the use of collectible trade cards, calendars, rulers, miniature and salesman sample stoves and much more. I recently came on this unique find on Ebay: Click Here for Ebay Information

Staffordshire England
Walker & Pratt MFG of Boston Mass
Flow Blue
Plate measures 9 1/8 inches across

One Great Plate: Watermelon Soup With Crab and Wildflower Honey

2009-03-23T11:36:00.001-07:00

Forge, the new American restaurant in the Tribeca space once occupied by Dekk, has the rustic throwback decor of an earthy cabin in the mountains: Lots of old woods dominate the space, decorated with an antique stove, butcher block tables and old cookbooks, but filtered through a glossy, youthful energy. Interesting? Proceed here.

The antique stove came from the Good Time Stove Company in Goshen, MA.

Glenwood C manufactured by the Weir Stove Company in Taunton, MA c. 1910

Professionally converted for modern fuel: electric burners and electric oven

Fully Insulated Ovens: Zero-Clearance Installation

Good Time Stove Welcomes Spring - What a Party!

2009-03-23T09:16:00.001-07:00

On Saturday night Stove Black Richardson hosted a great party to welcome spring and acknowledge St. Patrick's Day.

Guests were many and food plentiful!

Stove Black Richardson and Grand Colleen Kathleen Kenneally

Stove Black Richardson and daughter Megan E. LaBonte (Hoop Master Sass) sports her "Not Your Mamma's Leprechaun" costume.

Stove Black Richardson and good friend Jessica.

Phyllis LaTaille provided an amazing musical accompaniment and did a great job of giving us real Irish feel we were hoping for.

The Gourd Birdhouse contest garnered more contestants than we could have imaged spanning a wide variety of genres and styles. Each more amazing and more impressive than the next.

Prizes were awarded as follows:
1. Most Bird Hospitable
2. Most Gourd-eous
3. Most Changed Since Gourd School
4. Gourds That Make You Come Hmmmm...
5. Best in Show

Below are just a few of Gourd Entries

We were sad to lose one friend early in the party - but you can see below Jessica had important puppy business to attend to - what a way to welcome in spring with a new litter!

A Sincere and Heart-felt Thanks to All Who Joined Us, in person, in spirit, or otherwise!

European Reproduction Heating Stove Uses American Franklin as Model

2009-03-18T08:40:00.000-07:00

Below is a catalog from a European company that is manufacturing reproduction stoves.

A close examination reveals that two of the models are knocks offs of original American Antique Stoves. I have enclosed pictures so you can decided for yourself...

Dudley Wood Burning Stoves

2009-03-18T08:34:00.001-07:00

Dudley Wood Burning Box Stove
Below are details about the Dudley Wood Burning Box Stove for Heating manufactured by the Washington Stoves and Ranges in Nashville, TN circa 1941 and distributed by the Gray & Dudley Company. Washington Stoves & Ranges was established in 1862. The materials were taken from a 1941 Catalogue #15.

These materials and photos were generously provided by Sue Conerly for your enjoyment. After researching other resources, Sue found this historical information with the assistance of Cliff Boram of the Antique Stove Information Clearinghouse in IN, phone: 574-583-6465.

Below are details about the Dudley Wood Burning Cook Stove manufactured by the Washington Stoves and Ranges in Nashville, TN circa 1941 and distributed by the Gray & Dudley Company. Washington Stoves & Ranges was established in 1862.

Atlanta #828 Challenger Wood Burning Kitchen Stove

2009-03-18T08:18:00.000-07:00

Below are details about the Atlanta Challenger #828 Wood Burning Kitchen Cook Stove manufactured by the Atlanta Stove Works in Atlanta, GA circa 1929. These materials and photos were generously provided by Sue Conerly for your enjoyment. After researching other reseources, Sue found this historical information with the assistance of Cliff Boram of the Antique Stove Information Clearinghouse in IN, phone: 574-583-6465.

Antique Stoves are the Best Available Anywhere

2009-03-16T16:55:00.001-07:00

We believe that antique stoves are the best available anywhere, The box stoves are constructed of cast iron, some with an enameled finish for easy cleaning and attractiveness. Above all else, a wood stove must burn efficiently to be used as a practical heater, since the cutting, stacking and carrying of large quantities of wood is so time consuming. The antique stoves are superior to any other we know of in this regard. The fire box is tight and designed to burn the wood slowly and completely. Even the hot gases are ignited in this stove rather than being lost up the chimney. Heavy cast iron baffles surround the firebox and a top baffle directs the heat into a chamber for more complete heat transfer.

We have used three sizes of these stoves at our home for many winters. Although the antique do not have the thermostatic controls or catalytic converters of other models, the antique stove us a more efficient heating stove requiring less wood and giving much more even heat.

The are models which combine the advantages of an open fireplace and an efficient wood heater. These have doors which slide over the open fire and clamp shut tightly. A vent on the door can be adjusted for efficient wood burning. Unlike the Franklin fireplace, these stoves efficient heaters.

An antique stove is a lifetime investment but it will actually pay for itself in a season or two by the quantity of wood fuel saved. The stoves are also handsome and rugged.

Beamish Museum is on the Hunt for an English Coal Stove...

2009-03-06T18:30:00.000-08:00

So here's a tough one...

Mr. Smallman of the Beamish Museum is looking for something pretty specific. I don't have any leads on something like this so I thought I would see if this blog could help fill this unique need...

"The stove I am looking for is straight, round and in three to four sections, and stands around 4 to 4½ foot.

"It has a lid on the top, and it would be in work mans railway cabins or as this one was in a colliery workshop called the engine wrights..."

"Thanks for your help, now and in the future, who knows it just may be you that's finds my stove first...

"I miss dressing up in costume and talking to people coming into Beamish for a visit.
"Kind Regards
"Robert"

Any ideas, suggestions or leads???

The Beamish is a world famous open air museum. It tells the story of the people of North East England at two important points of their history - 1825 and 1913 .

Beamish is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the North East of England. More than 300,000 people each year visit Beamish to experience what life was really like in this great region in the early 1800s and 1900s.

What sets Beamish apart from traditional museums is that objects are shown, not in glass cases, but in context. Whole buildings have been dismantled, brought to Beamish, rebuilt and furnished as they once were. But most importantly, costumed staff are on hand to bring the past alive.

Excellent Retro Renovation Resource: RetroRenovation.com

2009-03-01T17:16:00.000-08:00

Whether you own a mid century home or simply love the retro look, you’ve found your place for: New product recommendations for your home renovation projects … inspirational vintage images … stories of other readers’ homes … quirky info about the 40s, 50s, 60s & 70s design ethic… and a community of homeowners dedicated to cherishing their postwar ranch, cape, colonial, contemporary, split-level and bungalow homes. Welcome — and here’s a roadmap to help you get started.

RetroRenovation.com

Civil War Re-enactments

2009-02-25T17:31:00.000-08:00

Memorial Day. Pembroke Ma. Center Cemetery. Saluting our veterans.

I was recently contacted by a customer seeking a stove for use in his Civil War Re-enactment work. He kindly provided me with a great education in this "sport". But rather than try and paraphrase, I'll let Rob tell you himself...

"We are the 22nd Mass. Infantry. If you look at the coming events you will see the events we will be attending.

"I love re-enacting. It's a major step back in time. Especially at night. When all of the campfires are lit and the tents and streets are lit up by candles. I can't wait. Right now we cook over an open fire. The trick is to get your food somewhere between cold and burnt. Or just have it fall in the fire. That's why I'm looking for a small stove.

"We have a bunch civilian re-enactors. Every now and then some of these women dress in blue and join us in the field. (at Battles) They dress the kids up it's a good time.

"There is a village that is called 'Serenity' or something like that. They are all civilians. They are at all of the weekend re-enactments. If you are interested I will get you this information.

"Be prepared though! We do camp and live just like it is 1864. Obviously there are coolers but they are covered up. All cooking is done over an open fire. It is primitive camping. Some find a hotel near by and come for the day and sleep a hole lot better than we do. Although I am getting used to this. You can use cots to sleep on. Some of the really professional civilians actually bring beds.

"It's great to walk around and see the different setups. I'm purchasing a cot for this year.

"We are a great family orientated, professional group. We really do a great job when we talk to the public. We have a couple of families that come from out in your direction (Goshen, MA)."

Borderland State Park, Ma.

Forbes Museum Milton Ma. The big guy in the middle is me, Rob

Lincoln Day, Old Ship Church, Hingham Ma.

Sunrise on the civilian Camp. Groton, Ma.

Our youngest recruit. Groton, Ma.

Groton, Ma. Sunrise on the Union Camp

Group of civilians that I met at Cedar Creek, Va.

Breakfast

How will I know if I have fired my stove beyond its heat tolerance?

2009-02-24T16:58:00.000-08:00

How will I know if I have fired my stove beyond its heat tolerance? First you will find hairline cracks after repeated such firings bubbles occur, then peeling. If need not happen if you hear with wood or coals as directed. These stoves are not incinerators.

Can Glass Dishes Be Used with a Wood Cook Stove?

2009-02-17T18:47:00.000-08:00

Question: Can glass dishes be used with a wood cook stove? Like casserole dishes or pie plates?

Answer: Pyrex glass dishes are OK.
Cast Iron OK.
All others OK, subject to test.

Read This before Stoking Up your Antique Stove

2009-02-10T17:00:00.000-08:00

Read this before Stoking Up your Box Stove

Protect the stove's bottom. Protect the bottom with a two inch layer of ashes or sand. This is absolutely necessary in the box stoves - to prevent loss of heat and protect the bottom plate.

Protect the enamel finish = Urgent!
The first few times you build a fire in a stove or fireplace that has been enameled, some condensate will be formed. This condesate contains sulfuric acid. Open the top plate slightly to allow the condesate to escape. In th event that some comes in contact with the enamel finish, the surface should be cleaned immediately, or the condesate leave a permanent stain. Clean the enamel surface with any scouring cleanser or metal polish. As soon as the stove is thoroughly warmed, the condesate stops forming and the top plate can be closed.

How To Build your First Fire:

1. Make a small fire with kindling near the door in the front of the stove.
2. Then place full length logs on top.
3. Allow for ample draft in the beginning. Later regulate the vent down to the desired burning rate.
4. The fire will now spread slowly backward toward the rear of the stove.
5. Not until the wood is completely burned up, and there are only embers left, is it necessary to reload.
6. Rake the embers up to the front and reload.

If you like Pot Belly Stoves then You Will Enjoy this Blog!

2009-02-09T18:50:00.000-08:00

If you like Pot Belly Stoves then you will enjoy this Blog!
Pot Belly Tales
The pot belly strove becomes a dear friend during the cold winter months in the mountains of West Virginia. Its belly radiates a soul warming heat which has a magnetism drawing folks to gather in The Smith General Store to gossip, spin tales, or perhaps join in on a friendly game of checkers. Pot Belly Tales is about stories I recall from growing up in my parent's store in French Creek, West Virginia. Some are true and some are not...you'll have to decide! THANK YOU for visiting!

Why no thermostatic controls in antique stoves?

2009-02-07T09:00:00.000-08:00

Why no thermostatic controls in antique stoves? Various forms of thermostatic controls have been tested periodically over the last 50 years. It has been determined that such controls are unreliable and unnecessary.

Monkey Stoves?

2009-02-06T18:53:00.000-08:00

Maybe you know something I don't know...Ever heard of a "Monkey Stove"? I have not, but maybe this blog will help get some answers.

Richard writes, "My Grandmother used to talk about a "Monkey Stove" that they used in their covered wagon. I think she said it had two holes (not sure, could have been only one hole). Do you have any idea or have your ever heard of such a stove? I need a picture of it for my Genealogy project.

"She said it had two holes and if you wanted to bake you could set a little oven on top of it. It sat in the back of the wagon surrounded by tin to keep the heat away from the wooden sides of the wagon.

"One quote I found was 'A stove such as was formerly used in railway depot,
having a long slender top section and a bulging round base.' Another quote, 'An old
monkey heater with room for two small pots. one beans, one coffee.'

"Sounds like a pot belly stove to me."

After looking through pot belly stoves, laundry stoves and other small models, we zeroed in on the Shoo Fly. But if anybody has more information about this spefic terminology, "Monkey Stove", your input would be deeply appreciated.

How many stoves can be hooked up to one chimney?

2009-02-05T11:00:00.000-08:00

How many stoves can be hooked up to one chimney? For every 12 square inches of chimney opening, you can hook up one stove, For example, a 9 inch by 9 inch chimney opening (81 square inches) you can hook up seven box stoves. Never hook up two stoves to the same chimney at the same level.

How about fireplaces? Preferably only one per chimney. 7 inch by 7 inch is minimum size smoke outlet. It should never be smaller than the one half of the fireplace opening.

Enameling and the Antique Stove?

2009-02-02T16:56:00.000-08:00

What about enamel finishes? It is a melted glass baked in two layers in high temperature kilns. The shiny finish has a heat tolerance of about 1100 degrees.

The Efficiency of Matchless Heating

2009-02-01T16:56:00.000-08:00

Most antique stoves are specifically designed to burn wood slowly with only an occasional replenishment required. This mean that the stove can be loaded at night before going to be and if the vent is turned down, the room will be warm in the morning.

Besides the obvious conveniences in not having to rekindle the fire, round-the-clock burning saves wood and give a more even temperature.

The reason for the fuel saving is that when a room is warmed. the first things that are heated are the walls, floor and ceiling. If you rekindle your fire everyday, you must wait until these are heated before the air tin the room becomes warm. Also, it is tempting to cause the stove to burn the stove very hot. When you do this, you are burning up more fuel. The extra fuel you use in this way is often equal to the amount you save during the night by letting the fire go out.

If you let the fire go round-the-clock, you retain the heat in the walls and floor and cause the heat distribution around the room to be more even and complete.

Products More Dangerous than Wood Stoves

2009-01-12T15:00:00.000-08:00

According to Washington's newest regulatory commission the following products are more dangerous than wood stoves:

The Twenty Most Dangerous
1. Bicycles and bicycle equipment.
2. Stairs, ramps and landings
3. Non glass doors
4. Cleaning caustic compounds
5. Non glass tables
6. Beds
7. Football
8. Playground apparatus
9. Liquid fuels
10. Architectural glass
11. Power lawn mowers
12. Baseballs
13. Nails, tacks and screws
14. Bathtubs and showers
15. Space heaters and heating stoves
16. Swimming pools
17. Cooking ranges and ovens
18. Basketball
19. Non upholstered chairs
20. Storage furniture

New York Times: Great Homes and Destinations - Features Good Time Stove Company

2009-01-09T19:02:00.000-08:00

New York Times: Great Homes and Destinations
More Than a Warm Memory
By Billie Cohen
Published January 8, 2009.

THERE are some old things you wouldn’t want anywhere near your vacation home, like an ancient furnace or an aging refrigerator. But a wood-burning stove from the late 1800s, now that’s something different.

Patty Reece, who lives in Mission Hills, Kan., and who with her husband, Jerry, often escapes to a second home about 150 miles west in the Flint Hills region, recently recalled how she was converted to that blast of heat from the past.

“Years ago, when we were fairly newly married, we had been visiting my husband’s parents in Oregon, and we came across a little shop that had a wood stove,” she said. “We fell in love with it.” That same potbelly stove now heats one of the outbuildings at their country home. In fact, they enjoyed it so much, they installed three others. “I love to light a fire in the morning when we get up,” she said. “It’s a very cozy warmth.”

Click Here to Read the Whole Article

On Stove Pipe

2009-01-07T16:53:00.000-08:00

A number of different kinds of stove pipe are available. All of them are primarily, of course, in passing the smoke to the outside. However, stove pipe can supplement the heat transfer process itself. In colonial New England, stove pipe was commonly strung the length of the room under the ceiling to give maximum heating. A word of caution however - this will also cook the smoke and, particularly in a cold room will often cause the smoke to draft back through the stove into the room.

Generally there are two major types of stove pipes insulated and uninsulated. Insulated stove pipe is a prefabricated chimney. This pipe may safely be passed through floors, partitions, and roof by relatively simple construction methods. There are several different qualities of uninsulated stove pipe. The least expensive and least desirable is the galvanized or galvanized and blue sheet metal pipe. We have found that this type will usually last only a couple of years. Sulfuric acid which forms in the smoke condensate will rust out the pipe, resulting in holes which may be dangerous if undetected.

Heavier grades of sheet metal stove pipe can be made on special order. We recommend a heavy gauge stove pipe which is spray painted with a heat resistant flat black. Reducers, thimbles, elbows and other lengths of stove pipe are available.

On Installing a Wood Stove

2009-01-02T16:52:00.000-08:00

Wood stoves and free-standing fireplaces can either be attached to existing chimneys or used with prefabricated chimneys installed through the ceiling or wall. Before installing any stove to an existing chimney, care should be taken that the chimney is sound and that there are no cracks or holes for sparks to enter into partitions. Also, the chimney should be cleaned occasionally since accumulations of creosote and soot can ignite and create chimney fires. When planning to attach a stove or fireplace to an old chimney where there are cracks and loose mortar, the chimney should be inspected by an expert, relined or rebuilt.

Stoves and fireplaces should not be installed closed than about 30 inches from an uninsulated combustible wall. Asbestos or insulated sheet metal panels are available to permit a stove to be placed much closer to the wall. Al asbestos or sheet metal plate should be under the stove if the stove is not placed on a brick set or stone hearth.

Stove Types and Keys to Efficient Heating

2008-12-28T16:50:00.000-08:00

Wood burning stoves can be classified generally into three kinds:
1. free-standing fireplaces in which the atmosphere of an open fireplace is the most important feature,
2. enclosed fireboxes which are used primarily for heaters, and
3. cook stoves which are used for some heating as well.
Some stoves are combination fireplaces and heaters. In the US, the well-known Franklin fireplace is he best known example of this type.

The free-standing fireplace that is sold as decorative furniture and for warmth and atmosphere is usually not chosen for utilitarian reasons. However, a room can be warmed b these fireplaces especially if the fireplace is constructed of metal which will radiate heat into the room. The Franklin fireplace can be closed to improve somewhat the heating capacity. Unfortunately the firebox of the Franklin stove is not tight enough to control the flow of air for efficient wood operation.

For efficient and economical heating, three design criteria are important:
1. the stove should have a tight firebox with an adjustable draft to ensure the wood to burn slowly.
2. there should be a large mass of cast iron to collect the heat and radiate it into the room, and
3. the stove should be designed so that baffles and heating chambers direct smoke through the stove to achieve as much heat transfer to the stove surfaces as possible rather than have most the heat lost up the chimney.

The quality of wood burning stoves in an important criterion.Cast iron stoves are not only better than sheet metal stoves because they give a more even heat, but also because the sheet metal suffers from metal fatigue if stressed by repeated opening and closing of doors and vents. Some stoves are available which are enamel on top of cast iron. The enameling is much easier to clean than is cast iron and it is not necessary to use stove black to keep the stove attractive.

2008-12-20T00:00:00.000-08:00

“Up flew the bright sparks in myriads as the logs were stirred. The deep red blaze sent forth a rich glow that penetrated into the furthest corner of the room, and cast its cheerful tint on every face.” From Christmas at Dingley Dell, By Charles Dickens

We agree with Dickens in the sentiment that there is no more enchanting time of year to enjoy a fire in an antique stove than at Christmastime. Christmastime is one of our most beloved times of the year here at the Good Time Stove Company and we cherish the holiday moments shared with family, friends and customers.

We love baking Christmas cookies in an old Glenwood and sharing holiday memories with friends and family around the Round Oak Cylinder Stove. Reading a good book like “The Christmas Carol” by the parlor stove in the den, roasting chestnuts in the open hearth of a Franklin stove, or heating hot cocoa on the cooklid on the box stove in the bedroom before snuggling up and watching a classic Christmas movie on TV are some of our favorite holiday traditions.

From our family at the Good Time Stove Company to you and your loved ones, we wish you a very happy holiday season with much comfort, joy and good will in the new year.

Favorite Base Burner Stoves - The Finest Heating Stove in the Wprld

2008-12-11T14:44:00.000-08:00

Favorite BASE BURNERS

The highest order of workmanship and materials are used in the manufacturing of Favorite Base Burners.The Favorite manufacturers are pioneers in flue construction and increasing heating capacity of Base Burners. Favorite craftsmen used skill, originality and science in constructing the Base Burner. This construction makes the largest circulating flue capacity ever built into a heating stove – and the hottest. The Favorite Base Burner is a beautiful stove with exquisite decoration and ornamentation.

The Favorite Base Burner was one of the most economical and powerful heating stoves of the day. It had the greatest sale of any heating stove manufactured at the time, because it brought comfort and satisfaction into the home and saved folks up to one half the cost on fuel bills. A Favorite Base Burner features the most amount of surface space radiating heat into the room, which provides great heating efficiency at the minimum cost of fuel.

The Favorite is the only Base Burner with a three flue construction, a series of three flues on the back and on the bottom, which allows for the most amount of heat to radiate into the room. An original feature of a Favorite Base Burner is the separation of the bottom flues from the main body of the stove. This separation provides more square inches of hot surface bared to the air, and allows for more space for the ash pan.

The Favorite Base Burner not only has more radiating surface, it is also more carefully and tighty fitted. Favorite manufacturers constructed patented planing machines, the only kind in use by stove manufacturers at the time, to make the stove parts to fit perfectly true and tight. The perfect fitting enables the Favorite Base Burner to produce an even, equal temperature throughout the house. With a perfect fitting, control of the draft allows for a swift heat up or cool down as desired. The Favorite Stove Company’s thorough inspection insures that every single Base Burner manufactured is guaranteed to be absolutely paper tight.

The Favorite Base Burner features a deep fire pot that insures perfect combustion and does not crack. An ample sized space for the ash pan ensures that the draft from the register is free to flow. Bottom flues where built into Favorite Base Burners so that the floor region could be heated more completely. The doors, registers and mica frames on the Favorite Base Burner are fitted paper tight.

The Favorite Base Burner features a valuable tea-kettle arrangement and a one piece, perfectly constructed elbow that does not clink and prevents the accumulation of ashes on the outside.

The Favorite craftsmen use a special polish and burnish, which makes the beautiful carved ground work in the nickeling glitter as brilliantly as the smooth nickel. All the nickel parts, the foot rail, hearth and jacket, lift on and off without bolts so that the nickel parts can be easily cleaned and replaced.

The four nickel wings found on every Favorite Base Burner aid in the circulation and output of heat into the room.

Nothing Like Christmas in New England - Make a Trip of It!

2008-12-02T09:32:00.000-08:00

Christmastime is a wonderful time to visit the Goodtime Stove Company. You’ll witness the function of our stoves in action and feel just how warm and welcomed a stove can make you feel.

While in the area, there is much to do and see in honor of the holidays…

Our neighborhood features Christmas tree farms where you can pick your own tree from an enchanting field or forest of trees. pickyourownchristmastree.org/MAxmastrees.php, www.christmas-trees.org/retailers-county.htm

General stores, small town Main Streets and mom and pop mercantiles are ideal locations for picking up unique, one of a kind presents and handicrafts while supporting local merchants. www.wgstore.com, www.shelburnefalls.com, www.explorenorthampton.com/visitor/whattodo/shopping.htm, www.christmasloft.com

One of the top visitor locations in the area is Yankee Candle, featuring a Christmas village and an unlimited variety of candles and fragrances. www.yankeecandle.com,

The quintessential small-town Christmas Norman Rockwell made famous in his Saturday Evening Post illustrations is alive and thriving in Stockbridge, home to the Rockwell museum and to the artist’s inspirations. See Main Street as Norman Rockwell did when he painted the famous “Stockbridge Main Street at Christmas.” www.stockbridgechamber.org,
www.nrm.org

A memorable family event is the annual production of the Nutcracker Suite by the Pioneer Valley Ballet in Northampton at the historic Academy of Music Theatre. www.pioneervalleyballet.tix.com,

We hope you will enjoy this special time of year. We look forward to hearing from you, and seeing you.

Season’s Greetings,
Stove Black and Sara the Stove Princess

Share Your Christmas Memories with the Stove Princess

2008-12-02T09:27:00.000-08:00

No other time of year conjures up romance, magic, and enchantment the way Christmastime does. There may be a chill in the air in most areas of the country, but the holiday warms our hearts and souls. We all have our favorites movies, memories and traditions that are at their best when shared and celebrated.

One customer told us how she first kissed her yet to be husband under a ball of mistletoe that hung in the parlor not far from their baseburner stove. Another customer shared her mother’s favorite gingerbread recipe - she can still smell the baking bread coming from the old cast iron wood burning kitchen range. We heard from a movie buff customer when he caught a glimpse of an antique stove in the movie “Meet Me In St. Louis.”

We invite you to share your special holiday memories and traditions with us. Do you have a photo of a stove in a decorated living room? A tasty fruitcake recipe? Do you remember holiday preparations happening in the kitchen with the old range the heart of the event? We’d love to hear from you, stove enthusiasts, history enthusiasts and holiday enthusiasts, and we’lll post the submissions on our blog before Christmas for all to share and enjoy. Please feel free to contact us by email, snail mail or phone. We’d love to hear from you.

We sometimes daydream about our antique stoves and kitchen ranges, wondering what special times and fond memories that they have witnessed. And we always hope that the stoves in our care will find new homes where they can be a part of new traditions and share again in family celebrations.

Model Ranges - A Catalog from the Barstow Stove Company

2008-11-20T07:44:00.000-08:00

The following is a stove catalog from the Barstow Stove Company, circa 1915. Founded in 1836 by Amos Chaffee Barstow in Providence, RI, the Barstow Stove Company manufactured fifty different kinds of stoves. The original Barstow building still stands in Providence, RI.

This catalog features Barstow’s Model Ranges - both wood heated ranges and gas/wood combination ranges. Every single Barstow range features a kick pedal that opens the oven door with, as stated in the catalog, a “slight pressure from the foot.”

Click Here to Read the Entire Catalog

Thanksgiving Stove Stories and Photos

2008-11-18T10:16:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is the time for gathering around the hearth with loved ones, enjoying harvest-time meals and giving thanks for our many blessings.

Do you have any favorite Thanksgiving recipes ideal for cooking on an antique stove or family holiday photos featuring your antique stove that you’d like to share with us? We’d love your contributions, via email or snail mail, and will post them in honor and celebration of the holiday.

It’s not too late for a drive in the country and a visit to the Good Time Stove company showroom to check out our collection of antique stoves – the treasured heirlooms are ideal for enjoying the holidays and would make a warm and inviting addition to the home.

There are still a few leaves on some trees and a drive in our neck of the woods in November will conjure up images of going over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house. There are numerous Saturday church craft fairs and bake sales all around the area this month, and some roadside stands are still open and selling homegrown turnips, pumpkins and squash.

We welcome you visit, stories, pictures and recipes and greatly appreciate your contributions. We count our customers and stove enthusiasts as some the many blessings in our lives.

Grandma’s Recipe Book

2008-11-11T10:24:00.000-08:00

GRANDMA’S RECIPE BOOK

THERE is nothing so dear to memory as the days of long ago. The passing years and the parade of daily events that crowd our lives may dim their scenes, but the sweetness of memory lingers on. All of us, at some time or other with a sigh, have summed it up in the oft-spoken words: “Ah, those were the good old days!”

Yes— the snows were always deeper, the summers hotter, the corn grew taller, and the food tasted better . . in those “good old days”

And the grandmothers too —they had a way that was different, in those good old days. They were always “the best cooks in the county!” It seems those old time grandmothers knew how to cook things just a little bit better than anyone else, how to give their foods that dash of flavor that makes a body remember for a long time how good it tasted. Well, the truth is that most of those old time grandmothers were good cooks because they knew just the right things to do to prepare a delightful dish.

THANKSGIVING SECRETS FROM AN OLD TIME KITCHEN

Push open the door a mite and peek in! There is grandma bending over the old wood range. Smell the fragrant tang of

spices— ginger, cinnamon, cloves. She stirs with her long handled spoon. Then she stops and takes a taste—smacks her lips and says: “Just right!” That was grandma in her old time kitchen cooking in the good old way, practicing an art that is almost lost.

But grandma, with all her traditional sweetness, comes to life again in the pages of this little book to tell you how she prepared those grand old dishes that were a delight to all who tasted them.

TURKEY STUFFING

Take stale or very dry bread and cut off brown crusts (to make about a pound). Place in pan and pour lukewarm water over crusts. Allow to soak for a few minutes; then with hands squeeze out water and place moist crusts in a large bowl. Add a teaspoonful of salt, and pepper to taste, and about a teaspoonful each of savory, ground sage and minced herbs; then add a half cup of melted butter and a beaten egg. Stir thoroughly and stuff turkey. (For an 8 to 10 lb. bird.)

STUFFED EGG PLANT

Select a medium large egg plant and cut in half. Remove insides and put them in a pan with a cup of minced veal; add water and boil until egg plant is soft. Then drain off water and mix with a half cup of cracker crumbs, a tablespoonful of butter, a small chopped onion, salt and pepper to taste. Put the stuffing back into the egg plant halves; place a pat of butter on top of each and bake 15 to 20 minutes. Garnish with parsley and lemon slices if you prefer.

NEW ENGLAND INDIAN PUDDING

Take two heaping tablespoonfuls of Indian meal (corn meal), and one quart of milk, 4 tablespoonfuls of sugar and one of butter; 3 eggs, one teaspoonful of salt. Boil the milk in double boiler, and sprinkle the corn meal into it, stirring lowly. Cook for 12 minutes, stir often. Beat together the eggs, salt, sugar and one-half teaspoonful of ginger. Stir the butter into the meal and milk. Pour this gradually over the egg mixture. Bake for one hour in a slow oven. Should be served with a heated syrup sauce and butter. Delicious with cream.

PUMPKIN PIE

Press one quart of cooked pumpkin through a sieve; beat yolks and whites of 9 eggs separately; mix together with 2 quarts of milk; stir in one teaspoonful each of mace, cinnamon and ground nutmeg, and 1 1/2 cups of light brown sugar and a tablespoonful of brandy. Bake in an open crust until firm. Excellent served with a coating of whipped cream. This is a real old-fashioned pumpkin pie.

HOWLING HOWARD

2008-10-31T10:39:00.000-07:00

If you happen to be out walking near the outskirts of the quiet village of Buckland Vermont on a dark night, legend has it, you can smell the smoke from the potbelly wood stove and hear the howling. The potbelly stove belonged to Howard Twittleford, and so did the howling.

Howard was a hermit who lived in a ram shackled cabin in the middle of the woods. His closest neighbor, well, human neighbor, lived over five miles away, and that neighbor, Pete Culver, said on a still night he could hear the howling as if it were right outside his window.

Howard at one time lived in town, but was such an odd duck, scared his neighbors. He’d never speak to any humans, but would bark at the neighborhood dogs and caw at the crows. One day, to the relief of all, Howard packed up some clothes, his potbelly stove and a big bag of bird seed and headed out to the forest outside of town.

Howard lived happily for many years, never venturing back into town. Pete Culver would bring Howard some supplies and food now and again. Pete never saw any animals close by, but said the cabin was covered in black feathers and gnawed on bones.

In the warmer months, Howard kept a bowl of seed on his potbelly stove top next to an open window. The window sill was carved up with claw marks. “In all my days, I’ve never seen claw marks that big.” Pete marveled. “Must have been some pretty darn big birds.”

One October moonlit night the air was dead quiet. And that’s when the howling began. The howling was so loud and ominous it sent shivers down Pete’s spine. “I knew something must be wrong.” Pete figured.

The next morning Pete headed over to Howard’s cabin. There he found a sight which he won’t soon forget. Howard was dead on the floor, covered with wolf hair and surrounded by black crows. Pete buried Howard next to his cabin and sprinkled seed over the grave.

Pete went back home, got his mules and wagon, and then went back to Howard’s cabin and got the wood stove. Years later, Pete, who by then was an old-timer, sold the potbelly to Stove Black Richardson.

“I still hear the howling at night.” Pete told Stove Black. “And I know it’s Howard, it sounds too human, or maybe, not human enough.”

Howling Howard became a legend in the county. You ask any school kid about Howard Twittleford and they’re likely to tell you…

Howling Howard howled at night.

Howling Howard was a fright,

Howling Howard’s now dead and out of sight,

But Howard’s howling still packs a bite.

Family Halloween

2008-10-28T11:07:00.000-07:00

Would you believe that the lovely little girl in this photo is our beloved Sara the Stove Princess? I’m the witch and the darling Lil’ Gypsy is my sister Meg.We are ready to go trick-or-treating with older brother Jaime, the Grim Reaper. We are standing in front of Glenwood Oak heating stove. This stove has been heating my mother’s 12,000 square foot house of their mother for twenty-five years. (We do have the powerful heater in stock for anyone looking to warm trick-or-treaters for next Halloween.)

Notice the small red broom Sara is holding is the actual broom use to sweep up the stove’s ashes.

Also notice the turn-of-the century Hoosier Cabinet in the background.

Jaime used to scare the liver out of us before trick-or-treating.

We would march in the Williamsburg Shag Rag Parade. This is a smalltown, New England tradition. Costume-adorned children parade down the Main Street of town, often to the local firehouse for halloween games, races and other fun. And of course from there, we trick-or-treat the town.

With full bags of candy, we would return home where we would sort and trade candies. The Glenwood Oak would warm us up after our Hallow’s Eve adventure.

We here at the Good Time Stove Company wish you and your loved ones a safe and Happy Halloween filled with special treats and treasured memories.

Happy Treats,

Sara the Stove Princess

& Stove Black Richardson

Celebrate Pumpkins: A New England Tradition

2008-10-17T11:22:00.000-07:00

It’s that time of year, at least here in western Massachusetts, when “the frost is on the pumpkin.” The days are still fairly warm, but the nights are getting mighty cool. Cool enough to start the wood stove.

There’s still plenty of time to get a wood stove for the winter and a couple of cords of wood. There’s also still time to come and enjoy the fall foliage in western, Massachusetts and to pick up pumpkins for Halloween.

Our neck of the woods knows pumpkins. If you take a drive down the scenic route 5&10 from Northampton to Greenfield, you’ll pass by numerous roadside stands selling pumpkins, apples, cider, maple sugar, and Autumn produce like squash and turnips.

We not only know pumpkins, we CELEBRATE PUMPKINS. Our good pals in Whately, near the scenic route 5&10, will be hosting their 21st annual festive pumpkin carving party this month.

And on Columbus Day weekend we here at the Good Time Stove Company hosted our annual pumpkin party, complete with a delicious potluck supper, live music, and dozens of carved, candled-filled pumpkins that lit up the gardens.
See some photos of the fun below. Click Here for Pictures of the Party!

So why not come on by for a visit, pick out an antique stove to keep you warm this winter, and a couple of pumpkins to celebrate the season. We’d certainly love to show you our collection of stoves – and carved pumpkins.

Cheers,
Stove Black Richardson
& Sara the Stove Princess

4th Annual Pumpkin Party - Good Time Stove Celebrates Autumn’s Arrival!

2008-10-17T11:21:00.000-07:00

On Columbus Day weekend we here at the Good Time Stove Company hosted our annual pumpkin party, complete with a delicious potluck supper, live music, and dozens of carved, candled-filled pumpkins that lit up the gardens.
See some photos of the fun below.

Halloween’s Haunted Stoves

2008-10-14T11:23:00.000-07:00

Halloween is just around the corner. And it’s the perfect time to share ghost stories. There are many inns, museums, taverns, bed & breakfasts, old houses and homesteads that are steeped in history – and hauntings.

Many of these locations also feature antique wood stoves and antique kitchen ranges.
Visit:http://www.oddinns.com/index.php/pages/hauntedbedandbreakfast.html to find one list of top ten B&B’s in America. (We’re betting most have an antique stove in their establishment.)

The Spy House in New Jersey is a great example of a haunted house that features a wood stove. Check out, http://www.angelsghosts.com/spy_house_museum_haunted_place_story.html to learn about the ghost of Thomas Whitlock who could be heard “banging and clanging around the old pot-belly stove.”

Do you have a good ghost story involving a location with a wood stove? Have you ever been to a historic place that’s not only haunted but has a wood stove?

If so, we’d love to hear from you. We invite you to submit your ghost story, and any links to locations that are haunted and have antique wood stoves and kitchen ranges. The week of Halloween we’ll post the tales on our blog.

Please send the items to stoveprincess@goodtimestove.com and put in the subject line GHOST STORY.

Happy Hauntings!
Stove Black Richardson

letterheads 2

2008-10-07T11:25:00.000-07:00

Antique Stove

Letter Heads & Bill Heads

Good Time Stove Company has a huge archive of stove related literature, ephemera and paraphernalia. My father has assembled an amazing collection of antique stove letterheads.

These elaborate drawings depict factories and foundries where stoves were produced by the tens of thousands. Skilled artists drew factories, portraits of the founders, logos and illustrations of the stoves with perfect accuracy, size and detail down to the minutest detail. These drawing were incorporated into letterheads, billheads, catalogs and trade cards to promote the industry.

We are sure you will be taken with the breadth and depth of this collection. We are always looking to expand our archive and invite any comments or contributions you might be able to make to this collection.

CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE

Albert Noyes Stoves
Manufacturers of Stoves, Iron Hollow ware & Tin Ware
A General Finding Store For Kitchen Utensils
Bangor, ME. September 17, 1814.

···

The Art Stove Company
Manufacturer of Laurel Stoves and Ranges
Detroit, MI. Jan 28, 1896.

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The Auto Stove Works
Manufacturer of Auto Stoves and Ranges
New Atehns, IL. March 18, 1922.

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The Bellaire Stove Company
Ranges, Cooking & Heating Stoves
Manufactures of the Star Stove
June 23, 1902.

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Belleville Stove & Range Co.
Manufacturers of Malleable Ranges, Steel Ranges, Gas Ranges, Cook and Heating Stoves, Gas Stoves, Hollow Ware
St. Clair Stoves & Ranges
Belleville, IL. December 12, 1911.

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E. Bement & Sons
Manufacturers of Heating & Cooking Stoves, Agriculatral Implements and Bob Sleds
Lansing, MI. January 10, 1896.

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Broadway Foundry Company
Successors of Pohlmann & Kohlmann.
Sole Manufacturers of the Walter Ranges and Stoves with Walter Rotary Grate
Also manufacturers of General Gray Castings.
Buffalo, NY. December 29, 1896.

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W. H. Buckius & Company
Manufacturers of and Dealers in Stoves, Grates, Furnaces, Mantels, Tin, Copper and Sheet Iron Ware, Furnaces and House Furninshing Goods
Canton, OH.

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Butler & Diel
Wholesale and Retail Dealers in Stoves, Furnaces, Ranges, General House Furning Goods and Specialties
Syracuse, NY. May 2, 1888.

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P.A. Canfield
Manufacturer and Dealer in Stoves, Tin, and Sheet Ironware
Rondout, Ulster County, NY. 1872

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Chamberlain Stove Company
Manufacturers of Stoves and Hollow Ware
Anchor Iron Works.
Cincinatti, OH. October 14, 1892.

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Cole Manufacturing Company
Manufacturers of Cole Hot Blast Stoves and Ranges and Cole’s Air Tight Wood Stoves
Chicago, IL. June 13, 1913.

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Cribben, Sexton & Company
Manufacturer of Universal stoves and Ranges
Minneapolois, MN. April 15, 1897.

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Crown Air Tight Stove Company
Louisianna, MO. October 13, 1897.

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Culter and Procler Stove Company
Manufacturers of Stoves, Ranges, Hollow Ware & SinksPeoria, IL. April 1, 1903.

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Detroit Stove Works
Manufacturers of Jewel Stoves and Ranges
Chicago, IL. June 16, 1913.

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Chas L. Willard
Manufacturer and Dealer In The Empire Wrought Iron Furnaces, Stoves Agricultural Implements, and all kinds of textiles
Hartford, CT.

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Florence Stove Company
Stock Certificate. Apirl 26, 1940.

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Gold Coin Stove Company
Gold CoinStoves and Ranges
Troy, NY. Jan 30, 1910.

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Great Western Stove Company
Manufacturer of Banquet Cooks and Ranges
Leavenworth, KY. December 16, 1895.

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H.E. Hessler Company
Manufacturers of General Hardware, Stove Range and Furnace Repairs, Water Fronts
Syracuse, NY. January 24, 1914.

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The Home Stove Company Stove Makers
Indianapolis, IN. April 10, 1918.

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Hudson Stove Works
Manufacturer of Hudson and Alaska Stoves and Ranges
Hudson, NY. Nov 5, 1900.

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The Huenfeld Copmany
Manufacturer of Boss Ovens, Steel and Cast Ranges
Heating Stoves, Gas Ranges, Gas Heaters, Mecca Lustre Stove Pipe and Elbows
Cincinatti, OH. October 1, 1924.

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Joliet Stove Works
Manufacturers of Moore’s Stoves
Joliet, IL. December 7, 1906.

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Marvin Smith Company
Manufacturers of Stoves and Ranges
Chicago, IL. January 5, 1910.

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The may-Fiebger Furnace Company
Formerly May-Fieberger Company
Manufacturers of Ath-A-Nor and Akron Airblast Furnaces
Successors to the May Fieberger Company of Akron
Manufacturers of “Akron Airblast” since 1867, Athanor and Solid Comfort.
Newark, OH. August 31, 1921.

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The Michign Stove Company
Manufacturers of Garland Stoves and Ranges.
Detroit, MI. July 1, 1889.

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The Michign Stove Company
Manufacturers of Garland Stoves and Ranges.
Detroit, MI. July 1, 1889.

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Monitor Stove Company
Manufacturers of the Pipeless Caloric Furnace
Cincinatti, OH. December 27, 1920.

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North Dighton Stove Company
Makers of Oakland Stoves and Ranges
North Dighton, MA. June 6, 1924.

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Oakland Foundry Company
Manufacturers of Ranges, Heaters, Gas, Coal and OilBellville, IL. January 12, 1948.

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Peninsular Stove Company
Manufacturers of Peninsular Furnaces, Stoves adn RangesChicago, IL. November 1, 1892.

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Peninsular Stove Company
Manufacturers of Peninsular Furnaces, Stoves adn RangesChicago, IL. August 4, 1920.

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Perry Stove Company
Manufacturers of Stoves, Hollow Ware, Etc.
Albany, NY. October 31, 1865.

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Perry Stove Company
Manufacturers of Stoves, Hollow Ware, Etc.
Argand, NY. June 31, 1890.

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Phillips and Clark Stove Company
Manufacturers of Andes Stoves and Ranges
Geneva, NY. January 29, 1900.

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J Pinten & Brothers
Dealers in Harware, Iron and Steel. Manufacturers of Tin, Copper, Sheet Iron WaresHancock, MI. June 1, 1883.

38th Annual Ashfield Fall Festival

2008-10-06T11:34:00.000-07:00

Welcome to October! One of the prettiest times of year to visit the Good Time Stove Company. The leaves are changing colors and there are all sorts of fairs, festivals and events to attend in the area.

The Ashfield Fall Festival, takes place only a couple of miles down the road from us. Main Street (RT116) comes alive with crafts, food and small town culture. Activities take place from 10:00am – 5:00pm on the Saturday and Sunday of Columbus Day weekend. Click here to read a local review of this event.
The festival began in 1969 and has been a popular event ever since, attracting thousands of people every year. Ashield’s Fall Festival features tag sales, live entertainment, and children’s games. It showcases artwork and handcrafts from area artisans including jewelry, ceramics, fabric items, paintings, baskets, and even furniture. And it’s all for sale. As are pumpkins and locally produced Click here to visit the official Ashfield Fall Festival web site.

Activities are many and the Pumpkingames are unique to this festival. Teams of volunteer participants are recruited on the spot to race against each other in games that use pumpkins as props.

The variety of food will make any mouth water: sausage grinders sold by the snowmobile club, cider doughnuts sold by the Boy Scouts, homemade soups in the Congregational Church. The Ashfield Lake House, situated on its namesake body of water, is a casual and comfortable tavern. Cajun flavored treats are available at Elmer’s Store. This is a very popular breakfast joint/whole food grocer/art gallery/lunch and dinner place. Click here to watch the video titled The Ashfield Fall Festival: What Did you Eat There?.

Crafters and exhibitors include jewelers, wood workers, glass blowers, potters, yarn and fabric artists, basket makers, metalworkers, leather workers, instrument makers, furniture makers, photographers and painters.

The festival is family friendly and there is no admission charge.

So we hope you’ll plan a trip to visit the Good Time Stove Company and the Ashfield Fall Festival this October.

Happy Trails,

Stove Black Richardson

& Sara the Stove Princess

Old Time New England Cook Stoves

2008-10-01T11:46:00.000-07:00

Old Time New England Cook Stoves
Early American Cooking Stoves By William J. Keep
FROM earliest times wood has been used as a fuel and charcoal might easily have been made by accident. In ancient times smiths used fossil coal and peat was also known. Explorations in Pompeii show that the Roman method of heating a room in the first century was by burning charcoal in a brazier, the vapor escaping through windows and doors. In 1290 A.D., “and-irons,” also called “handirons,” firedogs and cobirons, for hearths, on which wood was burned, are mentioned in an assessment made at Colchester, England. Coal might have been obtained in abundance in England but the prejudice against its use was so great, it being thought the fumes of combustion contaminated the air and injured the health, that in 1306 a law was passed prohibiting its use in London, making it a capital offence. In the reign of Edward I a man was executed for violating this law. It was not until the latter part of the sixteenth century that coal began to be used in open grates. Its value commercially, however, was appreciated long before by smiths, brewers, and other occupations requiring large quantities of fuel. The earliest mention of chimneys in England seems to be in the year 1347. The first stoves were made of clay or brick and were without chimney connection or ventilation from the inside. They were fired with wood through the outside walls of the house. These were succeeded by iron stoves, but how early is not known, but iron stoves certainly were cast at Alsace in 1475. In the Mid- Ages iron was hammered but not cast until after 1400. Stoves were in use in Northern and Central Europe long before they appeared in England. The first settlers in New England found here a colder climate than in England, and the extensive woodlands supplying ample fuel large fireplaces in their dwellings were a natural consequence. An eight-foot fireplace was common in the early days, and the back log was a huge stick, usually hauled to the kitchen door by horses or oxen. Once kindled the fire was rarely allowed to go out especially during the winter season. Although these large fireplaces contained hot fires, most of the heat passed up the chimney, and the parts of the room most removed from the fire would be far from comfortable on a cold winter’s day. One household economy resulted, however, in that the light from the flames in fireplaces was generally so bright that candles were not required for the ordinary work of the family. This hearth-fire was not only used for heating, but for cooking, by placing the food to be cooked on the hearth in front of the fire or by skewering it to spits resting on brackets attached to the backs of the andirons. The huge kettles suspended over the fire were used to boil meats and vegetables and to heat water for the needs of the household, and the brick oven, with its opening in the brick wall, in a back corner of the fireplace, was used to bake bread, beans, pies, cakes, etc., etc. With some reduction in the size and the improvement of bringing the opening to the brick oven outside the fireplace and supplying it with a separate flue connecting with the chimney, these early conditions existed very generally in New England until well after the year 1800.
The first departure in America from the open fireplace, built of stone or brick, was the castiron fireplace invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1742. These were cast at Warwick blast furnace, in Chester County, Pennsylvania. This fireplace was sold in New England soon after its invention, and its use became common. In appearance it resembled a modified fireplace projecting somewhat into the room and because of that the castiron radiated more heat and thereby was a great improvement over the common recessed fireplace. Later. this type of fireplace was set out into tile room and by means of a funnel was connected with the smoke flue on the chimney. The portable place then became a stove.
The Germans, who settled in Pennsylvania in the first half of the eighteenth century, soon set up charcoal blast furnaces and made the kind of castiron stoves they had made in Germany. They were called “Five-Plate” or “Jamb Stoves,” and were made tip of two sides, a back, a bottom, and a top, the whole bolted together. Three sizes were made, the largest weighing about 450 pounds and selling at about $5 each. These stoves were built into the wall of the brick or stone house or placed against the back of the fireplace in the chimney. They were about two feet high, two feet wide and projected into the room about two feet. There were no legs. They were generally called “German Stoves” and were made until about 1768. These Pennsylvania Germans were also making six-plate, castiron box stoves as early as 1760. These were constructed in principle like all modern American house-heating stoves, standing free from the wall, on iron legs, with fuel door, and stove pipe attached at the top. They were not invented in America as they had been in use in Europe for a long time.
Doctor Mercer, in his Bible in Iron, expresses the opinion that this type of stove was introduced into America “by way of English ownership of American furnaces, through England, where the six-plate stove had been introduced probably by the middle of the 18th century.” As early as 1761, they were known as “Six-plate English Stoves,” at the Warwick, Pa., furnace and elsewhere. Franklin, however, calls them “Holland stoves” in the pamphlet described his fireplace which was printed in 1744.
The six-plate stove was soon superseded by the ten-plate stove which contained an oven and could be used for cooking as well as heating. It had a large oven door on one or both sides. This stove appeared about 1765. The internal, rectangular oven was inserted in the stove box, over the fire, so as to permit the heat to pass entirely around it and leave the stove through the smoke pipe set in the front end of the top plate. The front plate had a fuel door at the bottom and a small door, near the top, for clearing the soot from the top of the oven. The stove was bolted together generally with three, sometimes with five, vertical outside bolts, in the fashion of the older stoves. This type of cooking and heating stove was made at a number of Pennsylvania iron furnaces and soon had a wide distribution. Castiron stoves, round and square, were in use in New York as early as 1752.* The Thomas Maybury ten-plate stove of 1767, so far as known, is the most perfect specimen of this kind of stove now in existence. This type of stove was used as an auxiliary to the open fireplace and the brick oven and we have no information indicating that it was improved upon for nearly fifty years. It was cast by Thomas Maybury at Hereford, Bucks County, Pa. The oven in this stove was 5 3/4 inches high, 10 1/4 inches wide and 17 1/2 inches depth. This was the small size as larger stoves were made. As no cement was used where the iron plates jointed together there must have been much leakage of smoke. Later, when rolled sheet iron came into use and stoves made from it, they were called “air-tight stoves.” The ten-plate stove did not provide for frying or boiling by means of direct contact of utensils with the fire through openings in the top, provided with removable covers, but it could bake meat, bread, pies, etc., on a small scale and so replaced, in part, the brick oven in the fireplace. Few greater changes took place in the American household than when the open kitchen fire was replaced by wood and coal burning cooking stoves.
The first satisfactory cooking stove in the United States was the James stove, made and sold in Troy, N. Y., patented April 26, 1815, by William T. James of Union Village, N. Y., near the Vermont line. This apparently was the stove known as the “Baltimore cook stove,” with the hearth and firedoors placed on the side. Seven years later he patented the sunk hearth for the reception of ashes, which has been in general use ever since. When the lower doors of his stove were opened and swung back, the fire was as open as in many small Franklin stoves and when the oven doors were thrown open the heat from the open plates heated the room. The jogs at the sides and into the oven allowed boiling to be done in small kettles which rested by their rims. The open fire was used for the heavy boiling. By swinging out the crane, with its dangling pot hooks and trammels, pots could be hung on and taken off without much lifting. The women of the kitchen did all of the lifting of kettles, on and off the fire. The James stove was afterwards made in various towns in New England, also in New York City and in Philadelphia and this stove continued to be the leading cook stove for nearly a quarter of a century and later still was used on board small coasting schooners and sloops.
There was a general effort made among stove makers to produce a cooking stove with low-down boiling holes that would take the pots which hung in the fireplace. In 1823, John Conant of Brandon, Vt., lowered the jogs so as to bring the pots lower down. Conant had invented a stove in 1819 and made the first one from castings obtained at a furnace located at Pittford, Vt. The next year he erected a furnace at Brandon and here was cast the first stove made in the state—the wonder of the farmers’ kitchen. The pleasant old fireplace with its swinging crane of well-filled pots and kettles, hearth spiders with legs, and bake kettles and tin bakers to stand before the blazing logs and bake custard pies in, all went down at once and disappeared before this stove without so much as a passing struggle. Stoves with ovens, but without boilers, had been made previously, to some extent, and supplied by the Troy, N. Y., maker who had his castings made in Philadelphia.
The Conant stove had an oven over the fire, with a door at both ends, the front one being over the fire door. This stove was an imitation, though an improvement, of the James stove made in Troy. In those days inventors worked independently of each other. Means of communication were so poor that one invention may not have been known outside the immediate neighborhood where it was used. Unfortunately more than half of the records of inventions of this period are lost and we must content ourselves with what we have of record together with traditionary information.
The increasing demand for low-down boiling holes resulted in the Premium or step stove, invented in 1829 by David White of Philadelphia. He must have obtained his idea from the trundle bed used for children, which rolled under the parents’ bed during the daytime. The stove was a square box containing an open grate with a high ash pit. By turning down the front an open fire was obtained. The whole top of the stove seems to have been given over to boiling on the two tops and on the back top baking also could be done in a tin portable oven behind or by a reflector in front. The final development of the Premium stove contained an oven, with flues under and over it, but all smoke went directly upward. These stoves, without any change, have had a continued sale and thousands are now sold each year in the South and used in shacks for the reason that they will always draw and require no particular skill to use.
In 1831, Thomas Woolson of Claremont, N. H., patented another type of cooking stove known as the Elevated Oven Stove. It was a flat-top stove with the oven at the side of the fire box. The heat was supposed to pass over and around the oven. The castings for these stoves were made at a furnace in Brandon, Vt. More than six thousand of them were sold. At the time they were introduced the farmers said they didn’t burn half wood enough, but when they were superseded by an improved stove, the complaint was that they burned too much wood.
A sheet iron stove, with an elevated oven, was made about 1832-1833 by Thomas Woolson, which he called “The Yankee Notion,” and which led the way for all elevated oven stoves. In 1832, Henry Stanley of Poultney, Vt., invented a stove with a rotary lowdown top which was popular for many years. It was called a “Revolving Cook Stove” and different parts of the circular top could be turned so as to rest immediately over the fire box. A number of similar stoves were patented after that by others.
The stoves thus far considered have been wood burners. The large fire box of the ten-plate stove and of the James stove required a considerable fire to burn well as the sticks of wood had a tendency to fall apart as they burned. Any stove with a fire directly under the oven was a poor baker and a poor boiler, therefore the fire box received early attention. Various experiments and improvements were developed until P. P. Stewart manufactured at Troy, N.Y., in 1838, his well-known stoves. The rolling apart of the sticks of wood, as they burned, suggested to him inclining the sides of the fire box so that the sticks would automatically roll to the bottom. By keeping these sticks together he could not only cook well but obtain more heat. He made a grate and a shallow ash pit and also made hinges for the sides of the fire box to be used when coal was burned, all of which proved so satisfactory that the method and construction evolved by him has been the standard ever since that time.
It was not until 1851 that Mr. Stewart adopted a shaking grate which seems to indicate that coal was not generally in use as a fuel for cooking much before that time. Previous to that his grate was stationary and in burning coal it was then necessary to lift all clinkers out through the covers when the fire was out. As the ash pit was only three inches deep ashes accumulated rapidly and the grate burned out very often but the stove held its own in the market for many years. The period, however when the greatest improvements were made in cooking and heating stoves was between 1853 and 1873.
The fireplaces and stoves that have been described seem crude and imperfect when compared with the coal, gas, oil and electric systems of today—the product of Yankee invention of the last seventy-five years—but they served the needs of a less critical time and who shall say that New Englanders were then less satisfied with their homes than in these days of modern improvements. List of American Patents on Cooking Stoves 1790-1836 A fire in the United States Patent Office, in July, 1836, destroyed nearly all the records of the Office, from 1790 to 1836, but it was able to publish in one volume, the names of inventors and the titles and dates of their patents. William T. James Union Village. N. Y., April 26. 1815 Charles Posley , New York. April 26. 1815 Christopher Hoxie, Hudson, N. Y.- May 3, 1816 John Conant, Brandon, Vt., 1819 N. Winslow, Portland Me. May 23, 1820 John Conant, Brandon, Vt. Dec. 13. 1823 David Little, Hagerstown, Md., Feb. 1, 1826 Peregren Williamson, Philadelphia, Feb. 16, 1829 Joseph Hurd Jr., Boston, Nov. 10, 1829 (With reflector) William Davis and R. W. Lord, New York, Nov. 23, 1829 (for coal) James Jennings, New York, May 14, 1830 Lewis and Peter Peterson, Pittsburgh Pa., May 29, 1830 Thomas Woolson, Claremont, N. H., July 20, 1831 William Goddard, Portsmouth, N. H., Oct. 12, 1831 (portable oven) Powell Stackhouse, Philadelphia, Dec. 22, 1831 Horace Bartlett, Bridgeport, Conn., May 12. 1832 David Gastner, New York, July 11, 1832 (coal) Henry Stanley, Poultney, Vt., Dec. 17, 1832 (revolving) Elisha Town, Montpelier, Vt., Dec. 16, 1833 Abram D. Spoor, Coxackie, N. Y., March 15, 1834 John Harriman, Haverhill. Mass., March 31, 1834 Elisha Town, Montpelier, Vt., May 16, 1834 (rotary) Horace Bartlett, Carmel, N. Y., Aug. 1, 1834 Carrington Wilson, New York, Oct. 10, 1834 Henry W. Camp, Oswego, N. Y., Oct. 14. 1834 Whitson & I Hayne, Roxbury, Mass., Nov. 19, 1834 (a tin baker) Sylvester Parker, Troy, N.Y., Jan. 16, 1835 Joel Rathbone, Albany, N. Y., March 6, 1835 Isaac McNavy, Stafford, Conn., March 24, 1835 (Franklin cook) Eliphalet Nott, Schenectady, N. Y., April 22, 1835 (range for coal) Bean & Skinner, Sandwich, N. H., June 12, 1835 (Fireplace cook) Joseph Snyder, Philadelphia, June 12, 1835 (Franklin cook) Whiting & Means, Boston, Sept. 9, 1835 (Ventilated oven) Ezekiel Dabol, N. Canaan, Conn., Sept. 26, 1835 Elnathan Samson, Pierpont, N. Y., Oct. 10, 1835 ( Parlor cook) Denison Olmstead, New Haven, Conn., Oct. 14, 1835 (fireplace) Daniel Southerland, Lisbon, Me. Oct. 31, 1835 ( fireplace ) Benninigton Gill, New York, Dec. 9, 1835 (rotary) R. G. Cochran, Francestown, N. H., Feb. 3, 1836 W. A. Arnold, Northampton, Mass., June 16, 1836 P. F. Perry, Rockingham, Vt., June 28, 1836 Nathan Winslow, Portland, Me., July 2, 1836 Editorial NOTE. Much of the information concerning cast-iron stoves to be found in this article, has been taken from a History of Castiron Stoves, written by William J. Keep, still in manuscript and now preserved in the library of the Business Historical Society in Cambridge, Mass. It is here printed through the courteous permission of that Society.

Antique Cylinder Stoves: Facets and Features

2008-08-15T11:53:00.001-07:00

ANTIQUE CYLINDER STOVE POINTS

Antique Cylinder Stoves come in three sizes small, medium and large. A small Cylinder Stove was often found warming a woman’s boudoir while the larger Cylinder Stove could comfortably heat a greatroom all night long.

Antique cylinder stoves, intricately crafted from cast iron and rolled steel, burn wood or coal and can be converted to gas.

The stately stove uses a minimal amount of floor space while providing the ultimate in heat distribution.

With its air-tight design, Cylinder Stoves were considered to be the superior heating stove of the day (in the early 1900’s.)

The antique Cylinder Stove defines elegance and beauty. The hand-crafted stoves display rich detailing in nickel trimming, intricate cast iron designs, and beautifully framed mica windows. With its efficient heat output the vintage Cylinder Stove is a premier example of functional art.

Many antique cylinder stoves feature large convenient loading doors, ash pit doors for easy cleanout, smoke door to assure less soot in the room and hidden cook lids.

Nickel skirts gracefully direct heat down towards the floor.

Good Times in Goshen

2008-08-15T11:53:00.000-07:00

Good Times in Goshen

Sunday, August 10, 2008

yesterday i hit a photographic jackpot — the good time stove company in nearby goshen, ma. not only is good time stove the place to find beautifully restored antique stoves of every size and shape (including stunning, vintage 1930’s gas kitchen stoves) but it’s also a landmark, thanks to the enormous tin man of goshen who welcomes visitors to the shop. built in 1955 to advertise a local fuel company, the tin man has been featured in the boston globe, the daily hampshire gazette, the berkshire eagle, and yankee magazine, as well as being a subject for bill griffith’s comic zippy the pinhead. you can read all about the towering tin man, including the story of how he got his sizable heart here on the good time stove company’s blog.

he’s awesome.

fascinating, random objects of rusty metal and painted wood embellish the outside of the shop - signs, tools, iron gates, wagon wheels, bikes, an old pair of wooden crutches, hand made bird feeders, defunct lawn mowers - melding together in a sculptural assemblage. beyond an arbor of rusty bicycles and swaying lady’s mantle, the three sisters garden stretches out from the shop and behind owner richard richardson’s home. not wanting to impose, i didn’t tour the gardens (this time) but they include windowed arbors, a stone and metal dragon, a 16×32′ water garden, a stone amphitheater, a sanctuary for meditation. you can tour all of them here.

i may never recycle another tin can.

after stopping here and looking around, i didn’t feel the need to travel farther (did i mention i was on my bike?) i was so creatively refreshed and inspired by the imaginative assemblages and joy de vive evident in the spotless shop full of carefully restored stoves and the surrounding artful gardens. i only wish i lived next door!

Can’t Visit Good Time Stove? Take a Scroll Through our Showroom

2008-08-15T11:48:00.000-07:00

Take a scroll through our Showroom…

For those of you who don’t live close enough to visit, enjoy these photos of our showroom.

Good Time Stove Co. Musuem and Showroom located on Route 112 in Goshen, MA

Franklin Fireplace Stoves

Four O’Clock Stoves

Pot Belly Stoves

Cylinder Stoves

Parlor Stoves

Dual-Fuel Gas/Wood Combination Kitchen Stoves

Gas Cook Stoves

Wood Kitchen Ranges

Enamel Kitchen stoves

Cast Iron Cook Stoves

Wood Stoves for Cooking and Heating

Coal Ranges for Heating and Cooking

Ways of Putting Hot Air Where People Are

2008-08-07T12:02:00.000-07:00

Ways of Putting Heated Air Where People Are

by Irwin L. Goodchild
24 September 2007

The most common ways of heating air are by passing it by hot pipes, baseboard heaters, convectors, or so-called radiators. In each case the air being heated becomes lighter and slowly rises naturally to the ceiling.

The heated air then fills the top of a room. It does not descend to where people are until it cools and is replaced by more warmer air. As can be seen this is a slow way of moving heated air to where people are. In addition this way places the warmest air where it is most likely to lose heat through the ceiling and the surrounding upper walls.

Now, there are two ways to move the warm air at the ceiling more quickly down to where people are. One way is to have a forced hot air system and the other is to have a ceiling fan. The drawback to each of these ways is that the warmest air is still going to the ceiling first. It just does not stay there as long.

But note that there is a still better way to get the warmed air to people. That is to have a fan blow it horizontally toward the area where people are, — one to three feet above the floor. It does this most quickly and most cheaply with fan forced warm air.

Fan Forced Warm Air
There are several ways for fans to be used to blow warmed air horizontally one to three feet above the floor. The simplest, easiest, and cheapest would be for homeowners with forced hot air systems. They have only to buy deflectors for each of their hot air vents. The only caution is to be sure the blower system is not overloaded and for this one can check with their heater serviceman.

The next simplest, easiest, and cheapest is to invest in fan forced portable electric heaters. The economy of purchase, installation and operation and the convenience of portability go a long way toward making up for the cost of electricity. The cautions obviously are to be sure your electric outlets will supply 1500 watts safely. Use no more than one heater per outlet. Be sure no fire hazards exist, and be sure that local regulations are met. The method does have its adherents.

For homes using steam, hot water, or electric baseboard heaters the idea is simple. Have an electric fan blow air across, along, or through the heater when the heat comes on. The way to do it is not simple. Placing a fan at each heater is no problem. What is a problem is how to have the fan run when, and only when, the heater is on. Two methods best duplicate the advantages of fan forced portable electric heaters. One uses fan forced propane or natural gas heaters which are permanently installed along one or more walls of each room. The other method is to use electric fan forced heaters installed in or on room walls. The only change is to swap the practicality of fixed installation for the convenience of portable heaters.

Propane or natural gas fan forced heaters have the advantages of piping in for combustion air from outside and piping the spent gases back to the outside. This eliminates outside air mixing with inside air and cooling it. It eliminates the need for a chimney and the chimney’s construction and maintenance costs. Their drawback is that their purchase and installation costs are not cheap.

Electric fan forced wall heaters are most similar to fan forced electric portable heaters. Their purchase costs are low and their installation costs are, too. The particular economy of fan forced electric heat far outways the cost of electricity as a heat source.

Simply Put

A. Fan forced heat is the most direct heat distribution system.

B. Fan forced heat has the most positive “on” control with minimal delay in starting. In the case of electrical heat there is no significant overshooting when the thermostat calls for shut off.

Because of A. and B. above there is no need to heat rooms not in use for it takes only minutes to make a room comfortable. The significance of the economy and the comfort of fan forced heat outweighs all other ways for distributing heat.

Addendum

Radiant heat has the particular advantage of warm floors but it is not a distribution system where time is important for starting - or where overheating can be stopped quickly. The amount of flooring controls these things and economy of operation can be diminished. Conduction of heat through floors and air is a limiting factor and with any significant temperature rise in a floor the heat loss to the ceiling by true radiation can become a factor.

Plans for any new heating system should have as a priority careful attention to the amount of insulation planned for or in place already. If there is any question of what to do first, always insulate first and then install an appropriately sized heating system.

With sufficient insulation in the walls, modem windows of modest size, and the distribution of heat by fan forced heaters there should be little concern about the former practice of having heaters placed along outer walls to limit cold drafts from these walls. This is not to say that window insulation would not be advantageous.

Warm Up Complete - Heating Systems in Old Houses

2008-08-05T12:09:00.000-07:00

Warm Up Complete
by Mary Ellen Polson
Old House Interiors, Jan. Feb. 2008. Pp. 36-38.

Heating an old house is a balancing act. May early homes were built without any type of central heating system (unless you count central chimney) and other are faced with aging, sometimes inefficient systems.

Unless you are planning to gut the house, you probably have to work with what you have: existing steam or hydronic radiators powered by a broiler, or forced air ducts fueled by a furnace. Even if you don’t intend to rip out the floor, there are ways to incorporate new technology that will make your system more efficient, but more comfortable to live with.

Homeowners have long supplemented central heating systems with wood- or gas-burning fireplaces, stoves and inserts. These often efficient units can boost warmth in a gathering room or even heat a small house at prices that make sense to most homeowners (see “Warmth for Winter,” December 2007, pp. 86-90). But there are plenty of other choices that can resolve certain dilemmas or boost comfort in traditionally chilly spots like entries, porches and bathrooms.

Got a steam or hot water system with balky radiators? No need to throw out the boiler with the bath water when you replace the most troublesome with new ones. Choices include almost silent baseboard units that melt into the wall, flat-fins units that tuck under windows, or streamlined tubular radiators that resemble the originals you may already have, like the ones from Steam Radiators Runtal North America even offers flat-fin units that can curve underneath a bowfront window!

Another option for bump-out windows or large expanses of glass is a narrow radiant register that recesses into the floor. Reggio Registers offers a stylish version that measures 8 feet long by 8 inches wide. The unit draws in cold air, warms it with a hydronic heating element, then re-circulates the warmed air. Kitchens built at the perimeter (like porch conversions) can benefit from the installation of kick-plate registers that direct warmth to your feet, like those from HeatRegisters.com and I.A.P. Sales.

Radiators that work fine but look homely can get a cosmetic makeover with the addition of a radiator cover. The metal ones, like those from Beautiful Radiators or (for baseboard units) Radiant Wraps, often feature traditional grille patterns familiar from the early 29th century. These units can help direct heat away from walls and windows out into the room. If you have a forced hot air system, give vents and returns a more polished look with registers grilles in patterns and materials that are more in keeping with date of the house, like those from Acorn Manufacturing and others.

Remodeling a bath, kitchen or mudroom is a great time to lay down a new radiant floor. Hannel Radiant Direct offers full radiant heating packages from state-of-the-art boilers to PEX tubing and thermostats – good news for homeowners who want the efficiency of an entirely new system, Electric radiant systems are so easy to install that they go down in an afternoon and link to the existing electrical box with a thermostat to control the setting. They even go outdoors: low-voltage electric radiant systems like those from Heatizon can de-ice roofs and melt ice and snow on driveways and walks.

What System Works Best For You?
Forced Air
Pros: Ducts can be used for both heating and cooling.
Cons: Inefficient for heat delivery (especially with heat pumps), Hot and Cold spots; variations in temperature, Retrofitting on installing a new system can cost thousands.
Works Best For: Regions with more cooling days than heating days.
Comfort/Cost Savings Alternatives: Distribute warmed air more efficiently with a ceiling fan, Supplement with radiant floors, wood stoves or inserts, Systems with built-in humidifiers.

Steam/Hot Water
Pros: Efficient, comfortable whole house heating.
Cons: Does not address cooling needs, Older radiators can be balky or noisy.
Works Best For: Colder climates with many heating days.
Comfort/Cost Savings Alternatives: Retrofit noisy, balky, or broken radiators with almost silent new ones (at about $500 each), Disguise ugly radiator with covers.

Heating Stoves/Inserts
Pros: Easy to install (except masonry stoves), a quality stove costs $25 or less, Highly fuel efficient, Masonry and catalytics capable of whole-house heating, Passive cooling in warm months (masonry stoves).
Cons: Effectiveness diminishes in relation to distance from heat source, Wood and masonry stoves require regular feeding and maintenance, Masonry stoves best suited for new construction or major remodels.
Works Best For: Smaller homes, As supplement to whole-house heating, especially forced air.
Comfort/Cost Savings Alternatives: Humidifiers, Distribute warm air more efficiently with ceiling fans.

Radiant (floor, wall, etc.)
Pros: Even, cost-effective heating ($8-12 square foot installed), Cost effective in retrofits (i.e. replacing old wall radiators with new), Spot applications (baths, mudrooms, etc), new construction (additions, whole house remodels).
Cons: Requires hot water for team boiler except spot (electric) units, As whole-house heating ca be expensive and difficult to install in houses without existing radiators, Does not address cooling needs.
Works Best For: Homes in cooler climates; new homes and homes being extensively remodeled; retrofits with existing hot water systems, spot heating.
Comfort/Cost Savings Alternatives: Use as spot-comfort zones where possible (wall and floor radiators).

Heating Things Up

Hannel Radiant Direct: 1-888-298-6036
Heatizon Systems: 1-888-239-1232
I.A.P. Sales: 1-800-416-1298
Myson: 1-800-698-9690
Radiant Floor Co.: 1-866-927-6863
Reggio Registers: 1-800-88-3090
Rinnai: 1-866-RINNAI
Runtal North America: 1-800-526-2621
Steam Radiators: 1-800-966-587
Weil McLain: 1-219-876-6561
Windy Ridge Group/VEHA: 1-800-639-2021
Viega: 1-877-843-4262
Radiators Covers and Registers
Acorn Manufacturing: 1-800-835-0121
Arsco/Beautiful Radiators: 1-800-543-7040
HeatRegisters.com: 1-509-535-5098
Mission Woodworking: 1-877-848-5697
Radiant Wraps: 973-857-6480
Reggio Registers: 1-800-880-3090
Wooden Radiator Cabinet Company: 1-800-817-9110

The Line on Liners: Chimney Liners - All You Need to Know

2008-08-03T12:11:00.000-07:00

Metal Chimney Liners
Micheal Chotiner Old-House Journal November/December 2007 pg. 41

Most old-house owners savor the warmth of fireplaces or heating stoves, so they know it’s important to routinely inspect and clean a working masonry chimney. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) recommends that chimneys burning solid fuel-wood, coal, or pellets-be inspected yearly and cleaned as often as needed. Such upkeep helps to ensure structural integrity, identify defects that might allow deadly combustion gases to vent into living spaces, and prevent chimney fires caused by the buildup of creosote, a natural byproduct of burning wood.

However, few homeowners who use their chimneys merely to vent gas or oil-fired furnaces and boilers are aware that maintenance and sound conditions apply to them, too. That’s a problem because the byproducts of burning gas and oil are just as insidious as those from solid fuels. Chimneys-or more specifically, the flues within them-must be clean and sound to carry heat and gases safely up and away from the chimney d top, but these combustion byproducts can also deteriorate a flue’s inner surface over time. So let’s say that you get your chimney inspected, and let’s say that the report recommends that your flue d needs to be relined. We’ll explore what that means, as well as the best way to go about correcting the problem for your particular chimney and house.

The Line on Liners
Among the best reasons for relining a masonry chimney is that it wasn’t built right in the first place-that is, without a flue liner, a material that provides a smooth, relatively seamless surface as well as insulation. Historically, well-built chimneys were parged with mortar to line the flue, and clay tiles have been standard liners since the 1900s. Nonetheless, linerless chimneys remain very common in old houses as well as newer ones. Builders and heating equipment installers don’t always keep up with recommended practices, and even if they do, they may not take the trouble to observe them. If your chimney does have a liner, another reason you may need to reline is because it is defective. Age and use can open cracks in tiles, and combustion gases combined with rain will erode parging and masonry joints between bricks or stones. If the preponderance of evidence points to relining, you’ve got some choices to consider. You can 1) reconstruct clay tile flues with new clay tile liners, 2) reinforce the chimney and create new flues with poured-cement liners, or 3) reline existing flues and run new ones with metal flue liners. Each method has its benefits, limitations, and challenges. The approach you ultimately choose should be the one that’s best suited to the problems of the particular chimney and the appliances vented through it.

1. Clay Flue tiles are rectangualr or round cermic units 24″ - tall that are stacked with mortared joints to make a liner. 2. While highly durable, tiles can crack due to age or damage and their weight and rigidity make them complicated to retrofit.	Clay Tile Liners Clay tile flues are the traditional favorite. Flue tiles are virtually impervious to the heat and corrosive byproducts of burning any and all fuels. With refractory mortar joints properly finished, a clay tile flue’s service life can be projected at 50 years or more with very little Flue tiles can be square, maintenance other than regular cleaning. But square and rectangular flue tiles are not the most efficient shape for venting smoke. By nature, smoke spirals upward through a flue in a helical pattern, leaving incongruous air spaces at the margins. At best, these air spaces simply take up extra room within the chimney that may be needed for additional flues; at worst, they reduce draft. Round flues are much more efficient.
Clay liner tiles are relatively inexpensive-about $10 for a typical 24″ -tall unit. But what you save on materials will most likely exceed the cost of installation labor. Clay flue liners are hard to retrofit in an existing chimney, especially if it isn’t straight. Even for a straight run, it’s necessary to break through chimney walls every few vertical feet to gain access for removing the old flue tile and laying up the new tile. For chimneys with offsets (bends), flue tiles need to be cut at precise angles for acceptable joints. In some areas, it’s difficult to find anyone who has the skills for this kind of installation, and it’s definitely not an owner-restorer job.

A Clay Tile Alternative
If careful inspection of a clay flue liner indicates that the mortar joints have gaps but the tiles themselves are more or less intact and in alignment, you may wish to consider a relatively new approach. Through a network of local contractors, Firesafe Industries (www.firesafeinc.com) offers a product called FireGuard and an application method for refilling defective joints, and patching and smoothing existing clay flues.

FireGuard is a ceramic sealant said to have a service temperature of up to 3,200 degrees F. When applying FireGuard, technicians first thoroughly clean the flue, then lower an applicato (which looks something like a rocket nosecone congruent in size and shape to the inside of the flue) using a cable from the top of the chimney. FireGuard of a mud-like consistency is pumped into the chimney, and the vibrating applicator is slowly drawn upward, forcing the sealant into gaps at the joints and defects in the liner.

The promise of the FireGuard system is that it effectively reseals clay flue liners with a fraction of the labor for replacement. The process doesn’t appreciably reduce the size of the flue, which means that any fireplace or stove that it serves should show no changes in performance.

Cast-in-Place Liners Where new clay tiles are not an option, it’s possible to create a new flue within a damaged masonry chimney by using one of several poured-cement processes. Generally speaking, this approach offers all the advantages of clay flues, plus a couple more. Cast-in-place flues are virtually impervious to the harmful effects of heat, acids, and condensation, regardless of the type of fuel that is burned. Temperatures inside cast-in-place flues are generally high because of their insulation properties, so they bum cleaner and reduce creosote accumulation. Expect poured-cement flues to last at least as long as clay tile-50 years or more. Some companies claim that cast-in-place flues can stabilize unsOlmd clay flues and chimneys, since they’re poured inside either the ex~sting flue or the chimney walls.

While a cast-in-place process can be less laborious and invasive than reconstructing clay flues, there are a number of different proprietary metbods for casting. In some projects, the cost of labor required can equal or exceed that for relining with clay tile. As always, the best approach depends on conditions specific to th.e particular job. In no case is casting flue liner in place a do-it-yourself job. The materials and equipment for casting flues in place are supplied by a number of different manufacturers to distributor/technicians who perform the installations.

If the problem chimney has one or more clay flues within it, the installer will determine whether the tile can be left in place or needs to be removed. Determining factors include the structural condition of the existing flue and chimney, and how much space is needed based on the size and number of flues required.

In the first of the two prevalent flue-casting methods-market.ed variously under the brand names Golden Flue (www. goldenflue.com), SolidfFlue Chimney Systems (www.solidflue. com) and Supaflu Chimney Systems (www.supaflu.com)-relining starts with a preparatory flue cleaning. Then, technicians insert one or more inflat.able bladders from the heating appliance outlet to the top of the chimney. Next, they install formwork at the base of the chimney and place spacers around the bladders to separate them from chimney. At this point, they pump a mudlike mixture of lightweight refractory cement. and insulating aggregate is into the chimney until it fills to the chimney top (see drawing at left). Once the cement hardens, the bladders are deflated, the form work is removed, and any necessary finish work is performed. The result: one or more structurally rigid, smooth, continuous, amply insulated flues.

In a second flue-casting method-marketed under the brand names Ahrens Chimney Systems (www.ahrenschimney.com) and Guardian Chimney Systems (guardianinc.com)-technicians slowly pump mud-consistency lining mat.erial into the chimney as they draw a vibrating bell (a pointy fonning tool) up through the cement to form the flue opening. In the Ahrens method, there’s a second step where the technician sprays a slurry topcoat onto the flue channel to provide a smoother, non-absorbent urface said to increase draft and facilitate cleaning. Both casting methods have been used in Europe for more than 70 years, and in the U.S. for more than 30.

1. Cast-in-place liners are proprietary processes that pump mortar within the chimney to form a new flue. One method, illustrated here, employs an inflatable bladder to form the flue.
2. Instead of a bladder, an alternate cast-in-place process draws a pointed bell up the chimney to form the flue.

1. Stainless steel flue liners come in rigid and flexible forms and a variety of designs and alloys, making them among the most versatile liers.

2. One of the advantages of flexible metal liners is their ability to accommodate offsets and other old flue surprises.

Flexible Liners

Stainless Steel Flue Liners Alloy Selection Guide by Fuel Type
Fuel Type	Recommended Alloy
Coal	316L or T1
Gas	AL29-4C
Oil	316L or T1
Wood	AL29-4C

Pragmatists, including many installers and fire-protection specialists were consulted, tend to like stainless steel flue liners. They generally require less labor to install than other types of liners, and they’re readily available in types and sizes for all common heating appliances, including fireplaces and wood stoves. Installed by a pro, a metal liner costs about $100 per foot.

The trouble for old-house restorers is that there are so many different metal flue types and sizes that can be hard to sort out which is best for a given application. The good news is that commonly used flue liners are available in kits, complete with insulation wraps and fittings to hook up to fireplaces, stoves, furnaces, and broilers.

Stainless steel flue liners come in rigid and flexible formats. Rigid flue pipes are available in diameters ranging from three inches to ten inches, while flexible corrugated metal tube runs from two inch to ten inch in diameter. Rigid flue liners shouldn’t be confused with double- or triple-wall chimney pipe, which is designed unenclosed chimneys and shouldn’t be used as flue liner. Rigid liners are best for straight chimneys with no offset or bends.

There is some discussion about whether rigid flue liners are easier to clean than flexible liners, which have a corrugated surface. Our most trusted expert says that flexible liners tend to collect less creosote when used to vent wood fireplaces and stoves because they flex as they expand and contract with temperature fluctuations, causing buildups to loosen and fall away.

For venting a fireplace, choose the diameter that provides a vent opening equal to one-eighth of the total area of the fireplace opening. For wood stoves and other heating appliances, consult the manufacturer’s recommendation for flue diameter. The trickiest aspect of selecting an appropriate stainless steel liner is choosing the correct alloy based on the type of fuel being burned. Careful selection prevents corrosion, which is the main cause of premature failure in stainless steel liners.

It is also good practice to insulate metal flues with wraps or jackets designed specifically for the purpose. Insulation is particularly important around vents for high-efficiency heaters and stoves, since their flue temperatures are lower than conventional models. Insulation not only helps maintain higher temperatures within the flue to reduce corrosive condensation, but it also prevents heat transfer from flue pipes to the home’s structure - an added measure of safety, which is what flue liners are all about in the first place.

Michael Chotiner is the author of Building Crafts and a longtime writer and editor on the building construction industry.

Top Twenty Reason for Relinings Chimneys
Sympton/Condition	Notes
Exisiting Chimney/All Flue Types
Chimney appears to be collapsing	Where deterioration is visible from the outside, deterioration on the inside is likely.
Chimney contains no flue liner	Not ucommon for chimneys built prior to 1906.
Creosote staining/accumulation on chimey walls or between existing line and chimey walls	Iniciation that existing flue is leaking.
Recent fire	Exposure to excessively high temperature can damage all types of flues.
Recent lightning strike	Same as above.
Inadequate clearance between chimey/flue liner and combustible materials	In old houses, framing was sometimes attached to chimneys.
Smoke from fireplace or stove wafts into living space	May be caused by incorrecct flue size.
Sooty or oily deposits collect in living space	Indicates inadequate draft.
More than one appliance vented with a single flue	Very common.
Flue sized incorrectly	Often a problem when an exisiting flue is converted for use with an appliance of a different fuel type of efficiency level.
Smoke alarm/carbon monoxide detectors trigger	Indicates inadequate drafy, leaky flue.
Home occupants suffer from frequent headaches	Indicates inadequate drafy, leaky flue.
An existing fuel-burning appliance served by the flue is replaced with a different model of type	Different applainces have different needs with respect to size and other features; check wtih appliance manufacturer for recommended flue specs.
A new fuel-burning applaince is added	Each appliance present should be vented through a seperate flue.
Clay Tile Flues
Gaps between flue tiles at mortar joints	Age and use can cause mortar joints to deteriorate, but this problem is most often caused in newer chimneys by failure to use refractory cement in flue tile joints.
Flue tiles misaligned	The inside of flue should be smooth with no spots for creosote and/or soot to accumulate.
Flue tiles cracked or spalling	Clay tile normally resists heat and corrosive byproducts in smoke, so if defects are present, something is wrong. Flue must be sound to contain heat and smoke.
Metal Flues
Creosote leaking out through joints	Indication of improper fastening, inadequate cleaning, or damaged caused by expansion and contraction.
Visible Corrosion	Evidence of improper alloy selection with respect to fuel type and/or flue operating at a too-low temperature.
Appliance changed from conventional to high-efficiency model	High-efficiency appliances produce lower flue temperatures; flue size may need to be reduced and insulation improved to prevent condensation, corrosion.

Burning Love: Richard Richardson’s Passion for Pot Bellies and Parlor Stoves

2008-08-01T12:14:00.000-07:00

Burning Love: Richard Richardson’s Passion for Potbellies and Parlor Stoves
Hampshire Life - March 7-13, 2008.

By Sean Reagan. Photos by Kevin Gutting

Above, Richard Richardson, center, and two of his children, Sara Labonte and Jaime Labonte, stand beside a cylinder stove in the showroom of the Good Time Stove Co. in Goshen, where they sell antique stoves. At the left, onthe floor, is a line of parlor stoves and behind them are the smaller four o’clock stoves.

On Left is a Scorcher potbelly stove, circa 1880-1910.

Richardson has made the outside of his Good Time Stove Co. building on Route 112 in Goshen a work of art. In the back yard is a sculpture garden.

There are two ways to find the Goshen headquarters of the Good Time Stove Co. First - and perhaps most obviously - you can be in the market for a painstakingly refurbished antique heating stove or kitchen range.

It’s a niche market, but after more than 30 years in the business, the Richardson family enjoys a global reputation. For stove connoisseurs and newcomers alike, their business tends to be both your first and only stop.

The other way to discover the Good Time Stove Co. is simply to drive by the Route 112 museum and showroom and say, “Whoa! What the heck is that?”

At first glance, the building - adjacent to the Richardson family home - is an explosion of color, quirky sculpture and rehabilitated refuse. It looks like an antique shop run by Willy Wonka, with all the curios tacked to the exterior walls.

“I collect sizes and shapes,” says Richard “Stove Black” Richardson, while showing a visitor around recently. He wears a cowboy hat over thick silver hair. His sneakers are handpainted bright red, yellow and blue, and the back of his jacket proclaims that “Happiness is a warm stove and a cold beer.”

“People really seem to like the buildings. I didn’t know they were going to be such a draw,” he says.

Richardson loves offering outside tours, boasting that you can spend hours studying a few square feet of wall, always turning up some new piece - a bead, a knotted rope, a square of burnished metal. Last summer, a woman pulled in around lunchtime and was still shooting photographs at dusk.

There are hand-painted saw blades, antique bed frames with plastic toys dangling from them, kaleidoscopic maple syrup buckets, masks that run the gamut from comic to frightening.

The front door of this Glenwood parlor stove in Ricahrdson’s showroom is decorated with cherubs

Crisscrossed machetes reflect the bright winter
sun. Mailboxes recline beside birdhouses which are propped against oven racks adjacent to discarded road signs.

And if all that doesn’t get your attention, there’s always the 20-foot-tall tin man with the gleaming red heart who stands front and center waving to passersby. A local farmer, using the tin man as a gargantuan scarecrow, offered to trade it to Richardson for stove parts.

Richardson, who has since acquired a costume that allows him to resemble the two-story statue: couldn’t say no.

Today, tin man costume in the closet, Richardson takes a step back and considers the building that has been home to his stove business since the early ’70s.

“I like to see old things - stuff that’s been discarded and given up on - come back to life,” he says. Then he smiles and offers what might be the Good Time Stove Co.’s corporate motto - “plus, we’re just having way too much fun with it.”

When Richardson takes the tour inside the museum and showroom, the effect is like the difference between night and day. If the outside is flair and flash, ‘then the interior, where the stoves are, is quiet, darker, anchored by iron.

The stoves - most over a century old - have been
Meticulously restored. There are squat potbelly stoves, sprawling kitchen ranges the size of small cottages, and ornate stoves with nickel trim and gleaming windows.

Richardson stokes a stove that heats his showwom. “I like to see old things - stuff that’s been discarded and given up on - some back to life,” he says.

“The stoves ground me,” says Richardson, explaining the difference between what’s outside and what’s inside. He heads to the comer where a Vale Oak stove fills the room with warmth and the pleasant smell of a small cozy fire. The art, he says, feeds his spirit. The stoves, on the other hand, “keep food in the fridge.”

Old photographs decorate the walls. There’s the first time Richardson was photographed for the Daily Hampshire Gazette. There are framed advertisements from stove manufacturers dating back more than century. There are pictures of family and friends.

Richardson stands with his back to the stove while he talks. His daughter Sara LaBonte, otherwise known as the “Stove Princess,” enters the room.

LaBonte, 31, was born at home -literally in the office where she now works each day fielding customer queries, coordinating the shipment of stoves back and forth to
clients.

If you want to understand the nuts and bolts of the operation, LaBonte’s the one to talk to. Like her father, she is devoted to stoves, and their compatibility is palpable.

When Richardson is trying to find just the right word to end a sentence, she’ll supply it. Richardson introduces a subject - the challenge of restoring glass to antique stoves, say - and LaBonte launches a mini seminar.

Indeed, watching them work together and playoff one
another lends credence to Richardson’s notion that they were business partners in a past life. In this one, apparently, they’ve perfected the art of having fun while running a successful company.

Richardson, who is divorced, has another daughter
Megan LaBonte, known as Stove Parts Girl, who also works for the company, and a son, Jaime LaBonte, no nickname, who does finishing work on the stoves and also handles a 10l of the photography for the company. Another daughter, TinaMarie, died in 2004.

Stoves have always been central to the family. When Sara was born. Richardson refinished an 1894 Highland Grand Cook and gave it to her as a gift. There’s a photo in the showroom of that stove. Sara, in booties and kiddie sweater is perched atop it while her father - the beard and long black hair h as the stoves around him then - beams at her.

Those were in the early days of the business - back when Richardson had just become “Stove Black,” purveyor of refurbished stoves, self-proclaimed custodian of the lost art of stove. Though he has since farmed out the bulk of the restoration work, in those days he was doing it all by hand himself, going so far as to apprentice himself to a local blacksmith learning to forge, shape and weld on his own.

Asked to share the story of how the Good Time Stove Co. came to be, he and Sara chuckle. It can be summed up in one word says Richardson: destiny.

“I was meant to live right here in Goshen and do this,” he says. “This is what the Gods wanted.”

Richardson, 59, grew up in New Jersey. In 1971, he was selling women’s shoes and his boss offered him a promotion. Richardson had no clue what was on the horizon, but he was reasonably sure it wasn’t a corporate career in the footwear industry.

So he passed on the promotion and quit the job. A few days later, a friend announced he was heading to a craft fair in Haydenville and suggested that Richardson, who had never been to Massachusetts, come along for the ride.

“I didn’t have anything else to do so I said sure, I’ll go to Massachusetts. Within 24 hours, I drove through Goshen for the first time and I said, ‘If I could live anywhere in the world this would be it,’ ” says Richardson.

Within a year, he had moved to town. And soon thereafter, he bought a pair of stoves from a hotel in the Berkshires that was happy to have them off the premises.

“Basically, I’m a collector,” he says of the decision. “I had a chance to buy some cool-looking stoves and I did. I liked them and I bought a few more. Suddenly I’ve got eight stoves and I’m broke so I had to sell a couple to pay the bills.”

After a bit of restoring and repairing, selling the stoves was easier than he’d expected. He sought out the fine points of stove history - where they were made, the detail in the cast iron, the challenges in restoration.

He learned the art of iron work. He would break the stoves apart and refinish each piece - sometimes welding

Richardson, whose nicekname is “Stove Black,” says his daughter and business partner, Sara “Stove Princess” Labonte, was born in the stove company office. Left, they pose with the “Tin Man of Goshen,” which Ricahrdson says he acquired from a farmer by trading stove parts.

To listen to Stove Black and the Stove Princess tell it is to understand that the history of stoves is a uniquely American story. You can’t tell it without touching the country’s political, social and cultural history. And you can’t understand it without an appreciation for the way the country transitioned from a rural backwater to a thriving global super giant.

It is also, as they are both fond of pointing out, the story of how some of what makes the American character both idealistic and indefatigable has been lost by the wayside in pursuit of money and convenience.

“Every stove that we restore and every piece of stove literature that we archive is a piece of America’s history that would literally be lost otherwise,” says LaBonte. “I feel a great desire to be active in the preservation of all of that.”

The predecessor to stoves was the open fire - notoriously dangerous and inefficient. Fires consumed fuel at a rapid pace in exchange for relatively low levels of heat that were all but impossible to contain.

In 1742, Benjamin Franklin is believed to have invented what is called the Franklin Stove. It utilized metal to contain the fire and thus control the flow of heat. Rather than losing warmth up the chimney, the stove redirected the heat into the room where it stood.

Still, it wasn’t until the middle of the 19th century that stoves became relatively commonplace for both heating and cooking. Most of the stoves and ranges that the Good Time Stove Company sells date to the period between 1840 and 1930.

In those days, stoves were the center of domestic life says Richardson. Every home had at least one. They were used to heat water for bathing, keep the outside cold at bay and cook meals.

There were stoves at local stores, at restaurants, in hotel rooms. There were stoves on trains. They were starting points for social gatherings and became stock images of the American past, idealized by artists like Norman Rockwell: two old men playing checkers and smoking in front of a hard-working potbelly stove.

At the turn of the 19th century, there were over 2,000 stove manufacturers working 24/7 to satisfy the American need for stoves. Salesmen for The Wrought Iron Range Co. of St. Louis, Mo., used to go door to door, hawking Home Comfort stoves off the back of a horse-drawn wagon.

And the stoves they produced weren’t bland or uniform.
There were, literally, hundreds of variations out there. Some were small while others took up half a room. Some were ornate to the point of fine art, while others were designed to be workhorses.

There was the Modern Glenwood Parlor Stove, the Ivy Franklin, the Atlantic Silver Moon, the New Era Caboose.

But when interest in alternatives to fossil-based heating fuels spiked in the early 1970s, many people in this country looked to Scandinavia for their model wood-burning stoves. They’d been in use there for decades and the presumption – somewhat inaccurate in Richardson’s view – was that Scandinavian stove technology was superior to anything closer to home.

“Nobody chose to look back at an industry that was as huge as our appliance industry is today,” he says. “They didn’t want to hear about it. They just wanted to move forward.”

A lot of those odl American stoves - maybe most of them - were destroyed in World War II, when the war effort’s need for iron outweighed the need for stoves that had become, in light of technological developments, essentially antiques.

The Good Time Stove Co. deals in almost all of what remains. Some sellers approach the Richardsons, and they find others· by prowling the Internet, keeping
an eye on auctions throughout the Northeast. They are, says LaBonte, experts in finding lost stoves.

Richardson’s latest acquisition is an Othello stove that dates back to the 1880. Some seams need to be welded, the doors need to be reset to ensure a tight fit and a new ash pan and lid lifter will be needed.

Walking through the showroom, he gives a loving pat to a Red Cloud potbelly stove - “This was the workhorse,” says Richardson. The stove threw out great clouds of heat churning steadily through fuel. Inelegant, perhaps - hence the potbelly - but a steady, reliable performer. These were the stoves that were used in public areas - country stores, hotel lobbies, restaurants.

There’s also a sky-blue Harold enamel range there that has already been sold to a California investor.

Richardson’s stoves are not merely decorative antiques.
All of the stoves are functional and can be used for their original purpose. Their aesthetic beauty, he says, is essentially icing on the cake.

Good Time Stove Co. has sold stoves to movie sets looking to up their historical authenticity quotient. There’s pair of potbelly stoves in the upcoming “Hell Boy II” and one in “Amistad” that once stood on the showroom floor.

The company gets calls and internet requests from all across the country and other parts of the world. Richardson’s stoves have been shipped as far away as the United Kingdom and France.

These days, much of the restoration is done off site in Nashua, NH. Stove Black and the Stove Princess do the buying and selling – a full-time occupation for her, and close to the same for him.

It takes approximately 30 days to restore a beat up stove to a museum quality that functions safely. The company currently has a 6-month back up so great is the demand.

Asked if he has a favorite stove – to look at, to work on, to talk about – Richardson scoffs. It’s literally the only time his brow can be said to furrow. How, he asks, could you possibly have a favorite one?

“I deal in some of the most beautiful stoves imaginable,” says Richardson. “I look at all of them as art.”

Left, two-level, dual-fuel (wood and gas) stoves at the Good Time Stove Co. Colored enamel, like taht on the light-blue Barstow, second from left, from the 1920s or 1930s, wsa one of the last visual changes before stoves went all to gas.

Over lunch in his kitchen, Richardson points out the yard – several acres of open field on the Goshen/Ashfield town line that lie behind the Richardson home and the Good Time Stove museum and showroom.

In recent years, Richardson has begun pulling back from the stove business – handing the reigns to Sara – and devoting himself to what he describes as “landscape art.”

“I was really taken by all the different media you could play with outside,” he says. He ticks them off – stone, vegetables, flowers, buildings.

He created small walks, sculpted bushes, piles of stones ill direct walkers here and there. The project fed his artistic side - he felt called to it the same way he felt called to stoves - but it lacked a coherent theme. While he worked, he wondered: Was this a hobby or something bigger?

When Tina Marie died, Richardson realized that what he was creating was a space that could be devoted to healing. “It really became a place where I could release my grief,” he says. “That was a real turning point in the garden.”

These days, even covered in snow, the garden is a captivating space. There’s a small stone amphitheater in the works. There’s an enormous ceramic dragon atop a long wall that doubles as - you guessed it - a stove. When the stove is lit, smoke comes out of the dragon’s mouth. The garden has a name, Three Sisters Garden, for Richardson’s daughters, and a Web site, www.threesistersgarden.com.

Ultimately, says Richardson, he hopes that it can be a place for anyone to visit. “When you walk through the gates, it’s like walking into another world,” he says. “I want it to be there for anyone who needs it.”

The garden hardly supplants his stoves - nor would Richardson want it to. Yet gazing at it helps solidify one’s sense that what makes the Good Time Stove Co. successful is not so much that Richardson and his family have cornered a niche market or are exceptional salespeople. It has to do with being aware of how you live and what you leave behind.

So they sell beautiful stoves, preserving a critical piece of America’s past. They decorate the outside of the showroom in such a way that people can spend hours delighting in it. They turn a yard into a garden of healing and peace and open it up to the world.

And you always keep your eyes open for what might come next. “I’m 59,” says Richardson. “And I’m far from done.”

Sean Reagan is a Gazette reporter. He can be reached at sreagan@gazettenet.com.

Gold Medal Glenwood Gas/Wood Combination Range

2008-07-26T12:17:00.000-07:00

A wonderful new range, so named to commemorate the bestowal upon all Glenwoods of the Gold Medal Award at both the San Francisco and San Diego Expositions - 1915.

Weir Stove Company,
Taunton, MA

Makers of the Celebrated Glenwood Ranges for Coal, Wood or Gas, Heating Stoves and Furnaces.

The Gold Medal Glenwood is a new, distinct type of combination range, in fact, two complete modern ranges using different fuels, skillfully built into one compact stove for greater convenience.

There is absolutely no danger in this combination, as the gas section is as entirely seperate from the coal section as if placed in another part of the kitchen.

Although it is less than four feet long, it can do every kind of cooking for any ordinary family by gas in warm weather, by coal or wood when the kitchen needs heating and by a combination of the two in emergencies.

The coal section burns either hard or soft coal, coke or wood, and the gas section either manufactured or natural gas.

Cast Iron is used wholly in the construction of the coal section, as this the most durablt material known for a coal rage.

The Gas Section oves are made of White Aluminized Sheets. This metal is highly desirable for a gas range as it heats quickly, is rust resisting and keeps the kitchen cook in summer.

The Gas Broler Oven, above at the right, is the same length as the gas baking oven - eighteen inches wide, sixteen inches deep and twelve inches high. It is fitted with a cast iron shelf adjustable to any height, and a jointless sanitary drip pan containing a neat, wire rack.

The Broiler Burner is rectangular in shape with six arms each with two lines of flame. It has one hundred and fifty squares inches of direct heating surface and is removable.

The Gas Baking and Broiling Ovens are lined with white rust-resisting aluminized sheet, that do not chip off, but keep smooth and last with the rest of the rage.

The Heat is under complete control and can be regulated by means or burner cocks at the side.

The Back above the cooking top is protected by white enameled splashers, easily kept spotless, and the gas broiler door is panneled with the same material.

The Capacity of a range is an important consideration when buying. Many combination ranges have one rather small baking oven. A feature of the Gold Medal Glenwood is two very room baking ovens as shown in these pictures.

Pastry Baking is being done in the gas oven, where it is progress is always in sight. The most delicate cake can be perfectly baked and watched through glass paneled door.

The Heat in the gas oven is so uniform that two shelves are provided, and two batches of bread or pastry can be baked at one time.

A Large Roast and other baking can be done at the same time in the coal oven. Thhe advantage is plain - two ovens give double capacity, and allow the cook to complete the baking in one-half the usual time.

Just see the cooking surface at hand if want to rush things.

By using both the coal and the gas sections of the top, nine large cookin guntensils may be quickly heated at the same time, or the coal section may be used for boiling and the gas section with burners turned low may be used for simmering or keeping warm the dishes already cooked.

A Push Button Lighter for lighting all cooking burners is can be furnished at slight additional cost.

The Oven Burners are the one-piece type, easily removed for cleaning and cannot be put back wrong. The end of each burner is machine faced ad carefully fitted with a steel air shutter, which can be accurately adjusted to give the proper combustion.

The Tight Joints and tight-fitting doors of the gas section are an important feature, as less gas is needed than in ordinary ranges.

The Glenwood oscillating shelf under the coal oven door is a great convenience when basting meats or removing food as it is ingeniously arranged to move up exactly level with the bottom of the oven when the door is opened. The Swing Oven Door is acknowledged the most satisfactory in preserving heat and in baking.

The Glenwood Swing Door is always tight when closed, no springs to get out of order, and allow door to become loose and waste heat.

The Lower Oven is roomy and can be heated by either wood or coal. It is fitted with an adjustable shelf, and will bake evenly its full capacity at one time.

The Nickel Edge Band is not bolted but held by a patent spring latch which one finger will unsnap when it is to be taken off. This feature will be appreciated when it is necessary to clean the range.

All Gas Cocks have adjustable orafices, allowing just the right amount of gas ro be supplied to burners for perfect combustion.

The Glenwood Pedal Oven Door Opener unlatches and opens the door by a slight pressure of the foot with both hands are occupied.

The Grate can be drawn out from beneath the firbox linings without their being disturbed. so that a new grate can be replaced and still keep in use the odl linings.

The Sectional Top over the Coal Section prevents warping and is so planned that by changing the cross-shaped castings that hold the covers a wash boiler may be placed at the back of the range, leaving the fron two holes free for cooking.

At a glance the Glenwood Patent Indicator on the oven door tells the degree of heat required for boiling, baking pies, plain or sponge cake, bread and biscuits and the indicator point registers the degree of heat already in the oven. It is so plain and simple you just can’t make a mistake.

Any one of the three different Coal Grates may be used in this range according to the choice of the purchaser. Firebox linings made of fire clay are recommended for burning hard coal; and east iron linings for soft coal. When burning wood only, the Glenwood Wood Grate, with cast iron side linings to match, increases the fuel space and is most efficient.

The Fuel Recommended is a good grade of hard coal, in either nut or stove size. The better grades of soft coal, however, may be used with good results.

This Range is Most Attractie looking and its appearance of efficiency is fully sustained by its performance.

Coal Range Flues ahould not be allowed to fill with ashed and soot, as no ranges can do good work if the flue spaces are obstructed.

Doors of easy access have been provided in the Gold Medal Glenwood Range for properly cleaning all flues. See plate A and B in diagram below.

Instructions for Cleaning Flue Spaces

To Clean the Top Oven Flue
Remove the four lids in coal range top and scrape all ashes on oven top directly into fire box as indicated by arrow number one.
To Clean Oven Side Flue
Remove Plate A located beneath pan under gas cooking burners and scrape all ashes to bottom as indicated by arrow number two.
To Clean Oven Bottom Flues
Remove Plate B under shelf below oven door and scrape all ashed out through opening B into a pan placed on kitchen floor. Arrows number three and four indicate direction to scrape. Be careful to replace plates A and B securely.

A Glenwood in pearl gray porcelain enamel adds a new charm to cooking. No more soiled hands, no more dust and smut.

Picture and Comfort of being able to clean you range perfectly in less than two minutes.

Polishing the stove, once one of the most hated task in household work is now the easiet, - simply wipe a Glenwood with a damp cloth and in no time you have a sparkling clean surface.

Resolve never to polish the old stove until you see the Glenwood dealer about a new pearl grey porcelain enameled Gold Medal Glenwood - the range that “Makes Cooking Easy”.

Get to Know the Antique Parlor Stove Better!

2008-07-14T12:20:00.000-07:00

Facets & Features of the Parlor Stove

Loading, Cleaning and Controlling the Parlor Stove

LOADING

The parlor stove is a great of heating stoves and can warm anywhere from 2-6 rooms. It has a large loading area on the side where a built-in smoke shelf prevents smoke from rolling out as the stove is loaded. The stove can comfortably hold a 16-24″ stick of wood. The wood is placed on top of a grate inside of the stove. The fire can burn an average of 8-12 hours. The length of stick and burn time, and the amount of rooms warmed, will depend on the size of the cylinder stove.

DRAFT CONTROLS

Parlor stoves have both primary draft controls located in the front of the stove below the front door. When starting the fire, open up the primary controls. This allows for the air to come in directly under the grate causing the fire to ignite and burn from the bottom up. Once the fire is well established, adjust the primary controls as needed to regulate the fire.

CLEAN OUT

Cleaning out the stove is very convenient with a cylinder stove. Every parlor stoves come with a handy ash pan that sits directly under the grates inside the stove. To clean out the ashes simply remove the ash pan and dump the ashes in a safe location. Please use caution when discarding the ashes so to prevent starting a fire in any other location other than inside your cylinder stove. The ash pan allows you to clean out your stove even when the fire is still burning. And the good news for folks who don’t like to dust, the ash pan keeps the fly ash to a minimum.

COOK LID

All parlor stoves have at least one cook lid located beneath the dome at the top of the stove. Most of the lids are about 8 inches in diameter. The cook lid is ideal for holding a pot of water that acts as a humidifier. And it is a wonderful location to warm a pot of tea. So while the tea’s steeping, lets pull up a chair and enjoy the cuddly warmth from the stove with a cup of wild berry zinger herbal tea.

Franklin Fireplace Stove - An Ingenious Invention

2008-07-11T12:22:00.000-07:00

Ben Franklin’s Ingenious Stove

Circa 1744

No More Coughs or Fevers

Among the educated and enlightened men of 18th-century America, none was more influential or gifted than Benjamin Franklin. He had few peers who could match his intellect and versatility as author, scientist, inventor, printer, philosopher, and popular moralizer. Being essentially a provincial American, Franklin’s mind turned on practical matters, including the problem of how to heat a room evenly and inexpensively. From these musings came his remarkable Franklin Stoves, the first of which were manufactured in 1744 by Franklin’s friend Robert Grace.They were originally called “Pennsylvania Fire-Places,” and Franklin himself wrote the first advertisement to publicize the stove, in which he claimed, “If you sit near the Fire, you have not that cold Draught of uncomfortable Air nipping your Back and Heels, as when before common Fires…being scorcht before, and, as it were, froze behind.”

Franklin’s stove was essentially a free-standing iron fireplace. It contained an air box below the hearth into which fresh, cold air was drawn by the heat of the fire over the box. Behind the fire stood an air column - actually an extension of the air box - the whole unit being L-shaped. At the top of the air column, the fresh air, now warmed by the fire, was allowed to escape back into the room; but the smoke was forced over, around, down, then up and out through the chimney. In short, the fire heated a separate volume of air from that which was mixed with smoke from the fire - an ingenious recycling system that constantly forced warm air down from above and back into the room where it was needed. According to Franklin, this method was healthier than warm air produced by common fireplaces “by which many catch cold, whence proceed Coughs, Catarrhs, Toothache, Fevers, Pleurisies, and many other Diseases.”

Franklin also claimed his product was more efficient than other stoves and fireplaces because it burned less wood, a great advantage indeed for those who lived where wood was in short supply. Since Franklin lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, not far from one of the world’s great coal regions, one can only be amused by his statement in 1744 that, by the use of his Pennsylvania Fire-Place, ” . . . our Wood may grow as fast as we consume it, and our Posterity may warm themselves at a moderate Rate, without being oblig’d to fetch their Fuel over the Atlantick…”

Building and Managing a Fire in a Wood-Burning Kitchen Stove

2008-07-09T12:24:00.000-07:00

THE SECRET OF BETTER BAKING

By Mary D. Chambers, B.S., A.M.
Portland Stove Foundry
Associate Editor of American Cookery
Author of Principles of Food Preparation, One-Piece Dinners, Etc., Etc., Etc.
PORTLAND STOVE FOUNDRY CO.
PORTLAND, MAINE
Original 1925 Edition

In one of the comedies of a generation ago there is a love scene in which the hero picks up a leathery looking object and makes a show of trying to bend it over his knee.

“What is it?” he asks.

The maid hangs her head in embarrassment, but replies courageously, “It’s a pie, I made it.”

“I’ll eat it!” exclaims the delighted lover.

But the lady, with an eye to the future, recovers the pie and persuades the youth to prove his valor in less hazardous ways.

Baking a crisp, juicy pie or a deftly browned loaf of bread or managing a Thanksgiving dinner is a worthwhile accomplishment. The kitchen range is close to the center of the home. It not only provides the main sustenance of life, but needed warmth for winter’s cold and plentiful hot water to encourage the highly regarded virtue of cleanliness.

Victorian Home Magazine.
June 2006. p 59.

Hundreds of cookbooks and collections of recipes of famous chefs witness the desire for variety in palatable and wholesome dishes. The implements of cooking have made equally rapid strides until they approach close to perfection. But a recipe book and the finest equipped kitchen in the world do not make a cook. A good cook has learned how to handle her range so that it does her bidding without effort or “off days.” And the cookbooks do not tell her. There seems to be very little help for those who are making their first acquaintance with a modern range. This booklet is an introduction to your stove-just a few hints to make the acquaintance ripen more rapidly and help you to a fuller enjoyment of the hours spent in the kitchen.

BUILDING THE FIRE

A good modern range is designed to get the greatest cooking and heating value out of the flue used. When the range and chimney draft are right, a properly controlled fire wiIl do all the work required, without wasting fuel.

It is therefore necessary to bear in mind that the first problem of better baking is an understanding of the fire. If a match is lighted, the flame shoots upward. The hot blaze causes a DRAFT, drawing fresh air from below and supplying the oxygen necessary for combustion. The range simply makes use of this basic principle on a large scale.

To start the fire, then, have on hand plenty of free-burning fuel-dry paper and woodcut small. A folded newspaper will not burn freely, but a few sheets lightly twisted make a good first layer. Then a moderate supply of kindling wood, lay in loosely.

Before lighting, open the door or slide under the fire, also the direct draft to the chimney (over the oven) and the check slide at the base of smoke pipe and also the damper in the smoke pipe. The purpose is to promote a free passage of air up through the firebox to the chimney by the most direct route.

Remember that no stove has a draft of itself. The draft is furnished by the chimney through the stovepipe, which obviously must be tight in all its joints. Light the fire from below and allow it to get a good start. If it burns too slowly, it needs more oxygen, supplied by opening the door wide under the fire. If it burns too fast, it wiII produce more smoke than the chimney can draw off and the excess wiII be thrown out into the room. Partly closing the door under the fire will retard it. (The first fire in a new range usually causes a little surface smoke and oily odor. This is harmless and soon passes off).

Before applying coal, add a little more kindling. The grate should be well covered with a brisk fire, both to support and ignite the coal evenly and to prevent waste through the grate.

Never use kerosene to quicken a slow fire.

When the coal fire has a good start the oven damper may be closed.

The process of keeping up a good coal fire is merely one of adding more fuel, and occasionally “shaking down” to remove the ashes under the coal.

Do not allow ashes to collect close up under the grate. In fact, this is about the only way a grate is damaged in ordinary use.

Some housekeepers, who depend upon the kitchen heating adjoining rooms or for continuous hot water, maintain the same coal fire for months at a time.

When not in use for cooking, the oven door may to help heat the adjoining rooms.

CHECKING THE FIRE.

If the draft of air through the firebox continues unchecked, the fuel soon burns out, and the top of the range gets red hot-a bad thing for the stove.

This may be accomplished in various ways-by closing tight the door and slide under the fire-by partially closing the damper in the stovepipe or pushing in the slide near the stove pipe collar on top of the range-by opening the slide in the broiler door at the end of the range over the fire- or by tipping the lids or covers over the fire. The chimney keeps pulling for air and reducing the amount of chimney allowing the air to rush in over the fire, instead of through it checks the fire.

Closing the damper over the oven also checks the degree, but the real purpose of this damper is to send the heat around the oven on its way to the chimney.

ADVANTAGE OF A LARGE FIREBOX

The range should have a firebox large enough to keep a coal fire over night. Under proper damper control it will smolder all night and have sufficient life to rekindle quickly in the morning. Then, too, it requires far more fuel to start new fore frequently keep and old fire. If it is found that the fire does not keep over night, the trouble is due to one of two things. Either the draft is too strong, causing the fire to burn out, or too weak, causing the fire to die for lack of air.

No directions can be given in advance to cover every case, because chimney drafts vary so much, but there is some happy medium that can be determined by a little experiment. Generally speaking, the slide in the broiler door should be open at night and the slide under the smoke collar should be pushed to the left to some extent.

In any case, it is essential in the morning to get rid of quite a large body of ashes that has accumulated in the firebox. At least one-half and perhaps two-thirds of the contents of the fire box usually consists of ashes and coals which give no heat, and must be removed every morning to re-establish a good fire for baking. A half revolution of the dock ash grate wiII usually do this very nicely, and in fact this grate is designed for this particular purpose. If a stove is equipped with a plain grate, considerable shaking is necessary. The triangular grate may be handled similarly to the dock ash grate, turning one-third or two-thirds or even sometimes a full revolution.

The ashes should be removed from the ash pit or pan, both to improve the draft and to prevent injury to the grate.

It would be difficult to over-emphasize the trouble that can be avoided by a regular and systematic cleaning out of ashes and dying embers under the coal. A fire may look bright on top and yet be almost out. Its body of clinkers and ashes has little heating value and unless there are enough live coals on top to rekindle easily, it is better judgment to dump the fire and start new.

Naturally a deep coal fire will do more work than a shallow fire. Once well built up, a deep fire can be maintained more easily and with less fuel than a fire that half fills the firebox. However, the box should not be filled above the top of the bricks, as there is danger of overheating and warping the lids.

Learn All About Antique Pot Belly Stoves

2008-07-08T12:26:00.000-07:00

POTBELLY STOVES

Antique and Vintage Potbelly Stoves

Hmmm. Can’t you just smell the aroma as the coffee pot simmers on the cook-lid on top of the antique potbelly stove?

I’m ready to pull up a chair and pour myself a cup. It’s time to rest for a spell and reminisce.

Would you like to join me as I travel back in time to visit one of the most beloved and recognizable heirlooms in the country - the vintage potbelly stove?

This article contains the following sections:

1. Good Time Stove Co.
Potbelly Inventory

2. Potbelly points

3. Potbelly Stoves in Setting

General Stores
School Houses
Trains and Stations
Frontier Establishments
American Art
Hollywood Movies

4. Happy Customers

5. Old Stove Catalogs

6. Vintage Trade Cards

7. Factory information

8. Founder information

9. General Stores

POTBELLY POINTS

The Skinny On The Portly

All of our potbelly stoves are antique, vintage, functional pieces of art.

Antique potbelly stoves are made entirely from solid cast iron.

Their shape of a potbelly stove resembles the midriff of an aging fellow, gaining the stove, which was once referred to as a Cannon Stove, the affectionate name, potbelly.

Potbelly stoves are tremendous heaters. These vintage stoves burn both wood or coal and can be converted to gas.

Potbelly stoves come in three sizes:LARGE, MEDIUM and SMALL with burn times ranging from 6 to 8 hours for the small, up to 8 to 14 hours in a large potbelly stove.

A LARGE potbelly stove could comfortably warm a dance hall in Tombstone from dusk til dawn.

A MEDIUM stove could keep the conversation cozy in a general store starting with lunch and going through dinner.

A SMALL potbelly stove kept a station agent snugly in his railroad office for an entire work day, plus overtime.

Many potbelly stoves feature cooktops for simmering coffee, scrambling eggs, or making chili.
The ring around the middle of a potbelly stove was designed to prevent folks from bumping into the bulge of the stove and burning themselves.
Other features found on potbelly stoves include: swing feed doors, large ash pits, cast iron foot rails, and draft controls.

An antique potbelly stove in an “old west” hotel

Although the function of a potbelly stove has made it a popular heater, it is the aesthetics that have made the stove legendary.

Potbelly stoves embody history and tradition. They are superbly crafted American artifacts that warm both the body and the spirit.

A potbelly stove beckons you to come and warm yourself by it. To share stories and a hot cup of coffee. To listen for the whistle of the train, or a boisterous tune on the upright piano in the saloon.

Cowboys enjoying the saloon and vintage potbelly stove

POTBELLY STOVES IN SETTINGS

Potbelly stoves have been serving as centerpieces for America’s social activities for well over a hundred years.

The portly stove has warmed many historic places including: general stores, schoolhouses, railroad stations, frontier establishments and have been featured in paintings, Americana art and Hollywood westerns.

VINTAGE POTBELLY STOVES IN GENERAL STORES

“Come and sit for a spell,” the potbelly stove beckoned. And folks did. Potbelly stoves were the hearth and heart of not only the general store, but the community as well.

Sitting by the potbelly stove, sharing a cup of coffee and the news and gossip of the town was how information was gathered and shared throughout the community.

Politics, gossip, the weather. Standard conversational topics shared and debated about, all around the potbelly stove in the general store. Imagine the stories these welcome warmers could share.

CLASSIC POTBELLY STOVES IN OLD SCHOOL HOUSES

Walking to school, sometimes for miles, like our grandfolks often told us, could be a tad chilly and wintery

Thankfully, the youngin’s had a potbelly stove waiting in the schoolhouse ready to keep them warm during their studies.

As they wrote about the three R’s on their small chalkboards, the good ole potbelly stove blanketed the room with warmth.

At lunchtime, the teacher would often cook soups and stews on the potbelly stove providing nourishing lunches for the students. After lunch, schoolboys would split wood for the stove.

If the teacher was more charm and less “marm” the boys would give an extra hearty effort in their wood duties.

VINTAGE POTBELLY STOVES IN HISTORIC RAILROAD STATIONS

Travelers found warmth and comfort sitting by the potbelly stove waiting for a train to arrive to take them to new and exciting places or for a loved one to return home. Potbelly stoves warmed railroad stations, depots, and station agent offices all around the country.

Relaxing at the end of the day by the potbelly stove.

POTBELLY STOVES IN TRADITIONAL FRONTIER ESTABLISHMENTS

Vintage potbelly stove in watch and clock maker’s shop

Antique potbelly stove in an old west Newspaper Office

Daydreaming in a bookstore by a warm potbelly stove

Antique potbelly stove warming a vintage mercantile store

AMERICAN ART FEATURING POTBELLY STOVES

Original Frank and Johnnie drawing by Thomas Benton

Frankie and Johnnie Were Sweethearts
“Frankie went to the Dance Hall, she rang the Dance Hall bell,
She said, “Clear out, you people, I’m going to blow this man to hell: He was my man - and he done me wrong.”

“Frankie shot Johnnie the first time, Frankie shot Johnnie twice; Frankie shot Johnnie the third time, and she took that gambler’s life. He was her man - but he done her wrong.”

Line drawing by D. Marga of a general store

A vintage potbelly stove keeping a calendar girl cozy

Grooving by a potbelly stove in a custom-made hippy van, Hot Rod Magazine 1974

NORMAN ROCKWELL

Norman Rockwell is about as American as apple pie, baseball, Sears Roebuck and a potbelly stove.

He illustrated numerous scenes that featured a potbelly stove, with many of those illustrations gracing the cover of the Saturday Evening Post.

Whether it was a couple registering to get married or a grandpa playing checkers with his grandson, Norman Rockwell knew that the potbelly stove was an important and sentimental part of American life.

To learn more about Norman Rockwell, please visit the Norman Rockwell Museum, www.nrm.org

HOLLYWOOD WESTERNS STARRING VINTAGE POTBELLY STOVES

Potbelly stoves have often appeared in Hollywood movies warming up jailhouses, saloons or simmering Tom Selleck’s coffee in a Louis L’Amour remake, or his own personal bunkhouse.

In this scene, from the John Ford classic, Cheyenne Autumn, Richard Widmark whispers sweet nothings to Carrorl Baker in her classroom.

In the 1968 movie Bandolero, starring Jimmy Stewart, Dean Martin, and Raquel Welch, Raquel “plows beautifully backwards into a potbelly stove.” It’s a classic scene where the potbelly stove often gets credit in the movie reviews.

Below is a scene from the 1936 20th Century Fox film,
“The Country Doctor”.

“Wash your own clothes, doc, the water’s on the potbelly stove.”

HAPPY GOOD TIME STOVE CUSTOMERS

Satisfied Good Time Stove Co. customers proudly displaying their antique potbelly stove

Our classic potbelly stove keeps this lighthouse warm

CATALOGS

Potbelly stoves were featured in various stove manufacturer’s catalogs as well as other consumer catalogs including Montgomery Ward, Henry Clark’s General Supply Catalog, Glenwood, Crawford and by far the most popular, the Sears and Roebuck catalog.

The catalogs provided images of the potbelly stoves and descriptions that highlighted the function, operation and aesthetics of the stove.

SAMPLE CATALOG TEXT:

“Potbelly stoves are ruggedly built heating stoves with a solid cast iron body that is closely fitted, braced and bolted making the stove incredibly strong, sturdy, reliable and durable.”

Click here to view more catalog pages

VINTAGE TRADE CARDS

Trade cards were used like business cards in selling products. Enchanting, romantic, humorous, nostalgic and pleasing images appeared on the front of the card with sales and contact information found on the flip side.

FACTORY INFORMATION

Potbelly stoves were manufactured by a wide variety of companies including Glenwood, Crawford, Jewel, Kalamazoo, Red Cross, Winter, Acme and Sears.

The Boston and Maine Railroad Company crafted their own potbelly stoves and used them to warm their railroad stations, train depots, box cars and even in the caboose.

The ACME Stove Company was one of the premiere manufacturers of potbelly stoves. They sold their stoves in the Sears Roebuck mail order catalogs.

The Sears Roebuck Company sold a variety of potbelly stoves in their catalogs, which they referred to as Cannon Stoves.

In addition to the regular Sears Roebuck catalogs that sold everything from clothes to farm equipment, Sears Roebuck distributed catalogs dedicated entirely to heating stoves and kitchen ranges.

Sears also sold their own stoves, the Wehrle stoves, as well as the Acme stoves.

Sears Roebuck purchased, what they claimed to be, “the largest stove factory in the world,” in Newark, Ohio.

The mammoth stove foundry was operated by the Wehrle brothers, William and August. The Wehrle brothers had an exemplary reputation for crafting quality heating stoves and ranges.

Sears and Roebuck firmly believed that every home in the country should have a heating stove and kitchen range and they were just the company to accomplish it.

Sears, which in the early 1900’s was strictly a mail order company, distributed their stove catalogs to every community in the country that had access to the postal system or railroad.

They had a distribution of product system unrivaled by any other that could get the stoves to the consumer in a timely fashion.

In addition to the Wehrle stoves, the Sears and Roebuck Company highlighted a couple of potbelly stoves in their catalogs, the Acme Cannon Heating Stove and the Acme Giant.

Both potbelly stoves lived up to their name, Acme, which means “the peak or top of something.”

Acme was a generic brand name used for a wide variety of products back in the first half of the 1900’s. The word was used like a proper name much like “American” and “National” are used today.

Perhaps the most famous consumer of Acme products was Wile E. Coyote. He tirelessly purchased Acme products to use in his deadly pursuit of the Road Runner. Maybe if he had purchased an Acme Cannon Heating Stove his goals would have been realized.

FOUNDER INFORMATION

Richard Warren Sears was the founder of the Sears Roebuck Company and served as president from 1886 to 1908.

Born in Stewartville, Minnesota in 1863, Richard Warren Sears’ first job was as a station agent for the railroad in North Redwood, Minnesota.

His station agent’s office was kept cozy and warm on bitter cold Minnesota days by a potbelly stove.

Vintage potbelly stove in Richard W. Sears’ railroad office

At the tender age of 26, in the late 1800’s, Richard Sears became the president of the Sears Roebuck company, a company that he nurtured into the most popular and enduring mail order catalog company in the history of the country.

As president, Sears made it his mission to provide the American public with just about every product they could possibly need or want.

He turned his focus on stoves, knowing full well, that every home and every business in the growing nation needed a stove to keep warm and cook food.

He created catalogs dedicated to selling heating stoves and kitchen ranges, astutely purchased his own stove manufacturing foundry and proudly marketed his stoves…

including the beloved potbelly stove which had once kept him warm during the blustery Minnesota winters when he was a station agent.

Thank you for traveling back in time with us and visiting the potbelly stove – a true American icon.

We hope you’ll continue to explore our site and get to know the diverse, vintage and exquisitely crafted stoves we have in our collection.

Like the potbelly stoves, they’re all gems, functional pieces of art that will warm and enhance any room.

My beautiful daughter, Sara, the stove princess, will be delighted to assist you in any way.
stoveprincess@goodtimestove.com