We lived in a house when I was very young that had a furnace (probably hot water boiler) that was coal converted to gas. I have a very vague, shadowy memory of it--big, with pipes coming out. And I have a vague memory of seeing inside it, and watching the flames. I'm betting that might well date to when it was serviced. Apparently I liked watching service people work.

My mother really liked the heating system, and hated it so much when we moved out of that house. From that day on, it was forced air systems, which she didn't feel were as comfortable.

Saddening thought, but I was curious about that one house, and did some on-line research once, using an address that should have been right. A lot info is now out there, including county public records, and one thing that turned up was a permit that suggested the heating system had been redone. I suppose it may have made sense for saving money...but those old furnaces are neat.

Before posting this, I did a little research on old furnaces... (Something I see on a forum like this may inspire me.) Interestingly, I saw one page talking about a historic home. The owner felt the furnace was important, and even though he changed the heating system, he set the legal paperwork so the original furnace will have to stay in place. Link is to a page discussing this old furnace, the view of it being important historically, and even a video showing it running:

www.oldhouseguy.com/heating-old-o...

It's wintery in my part of WA,too. (I'm roughly Seattle area.) Snow tonight, which will change to rain. Tomorrow a high about 40. 

I am wondering if today there was a huge surge of business at the grocery store. Someone told me once that when snow hits, they see people coming for bread and toilet paper. (I am not making that up!) As she pointed out, she wondered...isn't toilet paper something we should all have a good supply of?

As for winter in general, I am hoping for a reasonably mild winter. The roads where I am are scary when they get icy, and I'm in a place that is all electric, and that adds fear of power failure. One year, we had a massive snow/wind storm, and we were without power for 24+ hours. Fortunately, I have a neighbor I can rely on. But it was so much nicer the winter I was in a better place that had a wood stove and plenty of wood. No worries about power failures (and, of course, that was the winter when there were no significant power failures!). Plus that stove helped on nights it just felt cold. And the main heating system was a heat pump, and when temperatures were too low for that heat pump to work happily, I switched over to using wood at night, which kept the place quite warm. A part me thinks I wouldn't mind heating with wood. I don't have the physical condition to go out chop it myself, but I can handle tossing wood into a stove. I'd rather see my heating dollar go to a local person, rather than a huge energy company whom everyone hates. 

The filter is in therapy. Hopefully, it will change...but it needs to want to change, first...

Well, according to one person who lived in MN, there was a joke that the winters at least kept the riff raff out!

I'm ready. 75 degrees today. I keep both furnaces set to 75 degrees 24/7 and I still get cold. That's what happens when you get very very old.

Joe, it is so nice of you to invite all of us for the winter.  ;-)

The only time I like snow is if it is on the weekend, or a day off and I don't have to be out in it.  It's nice to look out the window and say "Oh-it snowed"  then curl up with a book for the rest of the day.

Oh-just to be perfectly honest, I hate hot weather too.  I like warm weather, not too hot, not too cold.  A gentle breeze, rain on demand.

Greg--hope a warming trend hits your slice of WA soon!

Cold spells that keep snow and ice frozen are not fun. I've lived through an extended period of that in 2008. It was a nightmare, because I was basically "snowed" or "iced"in for what seemed like forever. I imagine main roads were plowed and clean...but it was impossible getting to those roads unless one a SUV.

At least you have lots of good food, libation available, and tunes! 

Has planted it's ass over Minnesota and will be here all week Sunday's high is forecast at -5.  Friday into Saturday major snow.  YUCK!  The Bryant forced air gas furnace is working very nicely as is the MN made Heat-N-Glo gas fireplace. 

We don't have a snow free month at this altitude, so we're always 'ready'.

We keep parts for the furnace (flame sensor) which are easy to swap out and cost a fortune to have done in an emergency.

Wood cut and chopped by the kitchen door.

Inverter and battery ready to power the blowers in the fireplace should the power go out.(I really should make up a name for that, getting tired of people thinking it's an open hearth not a high-tech sealed combustion chamber unit with 70% + efficiency).

Water lines long since insulated and all rerouted to the core of the house that could be.

79 degrees one day and 31 the next! Even Pyrex would crack. No more comments from me about the current nice desert weather. Give me 6 months and  I'll find plenty to complain about when the temperature hits 120. All you people that are having to endure freezing weather and storms and the accompanying heating bills deserve a badge of courage. Having lived my entire life in California I have never been in zero-degree weather, including having been in Colorado in the winter and many trips to the snow in the Sierras. I used to help defrost my parent's Amana chest freezer...does that count?

Are the bane of our streets. They are too arrogant to learn how to drive in Winter, they don't turn their lights on (I kin C jus' fine, not mah proplum), and actually believe that vehicle stability control, 4-wheel drive and abs will bail them out.

Military base here and all the 'strats from Texass just refuse to learn.

Mother Nature, red of tooth and claw just loves lernin' them all about the laws of Nature. Unfortunately, there's too much collateral damage. If they just killed themselves, it would be a net gain. Sadly, they usually hurt other people in the process of skidding out of control and wrecking.

All-Season tires? How cute. The 'all seasons' they refer to would be those of LA or Tampa Bay, right?

I hear you. Friends back home in Munich used to say to me, Es gibt kein schlectes Wetter, nur schlecht bekleidete Menschen. That is, there's no such thing as bad weather, just poorly dressed people.

That saying died right quick the day a few came to see us here in the Rocky Mountain West and it was -27 F at the airport - and we live 3000 feet higher. Was -32F at our house. Yee-haw. Nobody wanted to go for a walk....

You can't teach things to people who refuse to learn. Mother Nature, red of tooth and claw, just loves to explain her Natural Laws to them. In gruesome detail and with great thoroughness. I imagine she's got some fun lessons up her sleeves for the climate deniers.

I like Big Bertha! Wish I could see more of her (the insulation jacket--while practical--hides most of her. But then I suppose she might be modest.)

As I mentioned above, we had some sort of radiator system in one house, and my mother talked about how comfortable that house was until the end of her life. My mother did not like cold in the least, so she was a bit of a connoisseur of heating systems. (Although she was practically minded. She wouldn't have sat, glued to a computer monitor, watching, say, videos of old furnaces. That's what her crazy son might do, naming no names...)

As for the temperature rise of 5 degrees above the thermostat setting--it seems like a bit of playing should get the temperature where you want it. One aspect: when the boiler isn't running, there is probably a lot of residual heat in the system that will continue heating the house. Point #2: the thermostat may have calibration issues. I have a far newer thermostat, and it's 5 degrees off. You can probably learn to adjust. (Unless the thermostat becomes a problem, I wouldn't replace. A digital thermostat would seem just plain wrong in that house!)

By the way, is the house a true "Craftsman" (Gustav Stickley) or just from that era? My mother absolutely loved Stickley design...if she'd had the money, she'd have had one of his houses, fully furnished with his furniture.

I would put the thermostat on display somewhere and just use a much more accurate one like the one I mentioned. 

A fairly reasonable, practical approach. I have to admit--I hate digital thermostats, but this might be a practical move.

One option occurs to me. I think I've heard the suggestion of having an old fashioned mechanical thermostat wired in parallel in case the digital thermostat malfunctions (such as a battery dying when its freezing out, and one is out of town for the weekend). If that would work for this system, the old thermostat could stay on display, set to some sort of minimum temperature to provide "fail safe" backup, while the digital thermostat does the day to day work.

Our boiler is original to the house 1958 and still working perfectly.  As for efficiency I dunno. All I do know is that we keep our house at around 73 and our gas bill is less than many neighbors with forced air gas who keep their t-stats set lower.  It also keep our basement toasty warm from all the residual  heat. Not very much maintenance is required, once a year, sometimes two years, all I've had to do is go around with a small wrench and bleed some air out of a few baseboards.  I'd be wary of buying a new boiler,, we had one in the small aprtment building we had for a few years.. it had a few issues with the electronics.  

I think we are starting a new trend for Christmas in TN.  Last year and this one too we had the AC on for Christmas day!  Then the next day storms came through and the heat kicked on!  I wish I had a house with hydronic heating in the floors...I hate cold floors.  My 16 year old Amana (Goodman) gas package still going strong, knock wood.

I've even heard of people specifically heating their basement (past waste heat from the heating system) with at least a partial goal of keeping the 1st floor warmer.

I was in a house last weekend that uses radiator system built into floors. One day is hard to judge such a system...but I can say I was quite comfortable there. I NEVER drink anything with ice in it during winter because it's too cold, and yet had at least a couple of drinks with ice there, and thought nothing of it.

You can sure tell that house is not in my neighborhood...there isn't another home three feet away. That's real luxury.

Stunning house! Thanks for sharing the photos!

I like houses with interior woodwork like that. That house had the radiator system I've mentioned before in this thread apparently had good woodwork. I don't known when that house was built--much later than 1903; I'm thinking about 1920. I've wondered if I like houses from that era because I remember that one house on a deep level, and it was fairly good time in my family's history.

Clarification--my post above wasn't crafted too well (sorry!). I was in a hurry to get out to do some errands. The house I referred to being later than 1903 was one my family had (ca. 1920), not yours. 

It's neat that you've been able to get historical information...even if meant tiresome hours of going through microfilm!

SNOW in TN!!!  I had the (dis)pleasure of having to drive home on it yesterday morning.  It took me almost 4 hours to drive what normally is only 1.  My 4x4 Jimmy did great though...slow and steady and got me home safe.  The Escalade is also handling very well in it.  It's 13F in Nashville this morning.

12F right now.  The roads cleared off mostly when the sun came out yesterday but in shady areas still solid ice.  Replaced the battery in my Jimmy as it was warning me that it was getting low on starting oomph.

I can only wish my bill was that low and that I could keep the house at 70. We keep the house at 65, and 62 at night or when no one is home.  (programmable tstat)  We heat with oil so it's whatever the price is when I order it. Some years its downright painfull.  So far this year, i got 100 gallons the end of October which lasted Nov and December, that was $250, so $125 a month, not terrible.  Got another 150 gal the end of Dec, that was $300.  Will probably need another 150 gal the beginning of Feb which hopefully will be it for the rest of the season, depends of the weather.  

We dress warmly in the house. 

Mike,

It's oil fired forced air.  Furnace was new as of last year and is much more efficient than the old one, which was 30+ years old.  Although I'm not 100% happy with it.  Its much louder than the old one and we sized it a little more powerful than the old one because the 2nd floor is always cold.  It helped some but not quite.  We have to have some duct work done to fix that.  The master bedroom needs another supply line and the whole house needs more cold air returns.  

My mom's house in Allen Park had the original gravity heat furnace from 1948 to 1990 when she put in forced air.

Like Mike, we don't have natural gas in the neighborhood.  Its an old lake community that was originally summer cottages.  They never ran gas mains in.  Everyone heats with oil or propane, but propane is really expensive so its oil for most.

I really do feel sorry for those people who end up going without electricity for periods of time. The very few instances when my power has gone off was when Southern California Edison said that they had maintenance to do. They gave you a 2 week heads-up and then the off period was short and never in the summer. As it was I would get so upset that friends said I needed to be sedated. 

Thanks for asking Mike,  we actually just had a really bad week.  She's been in the hospital this week due to a really bad UTI and a fall on monday.  Thank God, nothing broken.  The UTI was pretty serious, 3 days of IV anti biotics and fluids and she was released on Thursday and is back home.  Thank God for my sister, who has to deal with 

December's gas usage for us was 5900 cu ft.  with the thermostat set on 72-73 and a gas water heater, dryer, and kitchen stove in a 1956 ranch with the original drafty wood windows (to be changed out this year)! My actual cost was $57 total for the gas, monthly service charge, blah blah.  With budget billing I only had to pay $34 (averaged over the whole year).  Gas is very cheap here.