Model Ranges - A Catalog from the Barstow Stove Company

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

Old Time New England Cook Stoves

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.

Gold Medal Glenwood Gas/Wood Combination Range

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”.

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

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.

Good Time Stove Company Archive. © 2006.

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.

Kitchen Safety Critical - Grease Fire Safety Video Available

This is a very brief cautionary message. We all should know this, but sometimes in an emergency we react without thinking. Reading this and viewing the video will cast a permanent impression.

It’s always good to be reminded what to do in case you have a grease fire in the kitchen. This 33 sceond video provides easy to follow instruction.

CLICK TO TO WATCH VIDEO