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Description
My partner, my brother-in-law of some distance in time, was born, grew up in Hawaii
until he entered the Coast Guard. He went on a blind date with my sister and fell in
love. As I recall that was 1959, the year of statehood for both Hawaii and Alaska. I
was 14. Eventually, after I spent my time in the Army, drafted in 1968, he and I
became partners in business in the Seattle area. And in time that led to becoming
mechanical contractors in heating equipment installation and repair.

My sister divorced him but we remained partners. That lasted for over thirty years
only to end when I went on to other business startups and he retired. To this day he
is my older brother in essence, which I never would have had otherwise. And we shared
the dirty work, partners on the job, no heats, keeping each other company on the late
night calls in winter.

We were, by our own definition, simply Furnace Men.

We installed and maintained oil heat. Early on, the equipment dated back to the early
part of the twentieth century. I'm referring to the first gun type high pressure
burners, the better technology back in the day. They made soot.

Ours was the dirty side of carbon, not a lubricant like graphite but rather, dirty,
the definition of dirty. Black, smelly, smearing, staining, choking acid ash and
soot, the better technology in the early part of the last century designed to burn
real cheap fuel at low efficiencies (who cared back then?). Those were a burner often
retrofit into an old solid fuel furnace originally using coal, perhaps. We became
masters of updated filth. It was diesel lazy-burned in LARGE quantities producing
warmth for the old large tall homes, by gravity, heat rising, or hot water wafting
up, or making steam where a boiler was concerned. And you can't knock it for its long
burning presence of comfort, that is aside from the coming climate change, among
other things.

Those old hot air dinosaurs, arms, pipes, spreading all directions in people's
basements, smelling, were leaking between the seams of the heat exchanger portions.
Held together by gravity, the mortar between those sections was long gone, dried up.
But they endured what seemed like forever. "If it ain't broke - don't fix it." In all
of their construction, cast iron and heavy sheet steel, they weighed a ton.

It was said, back in the day, the carpenters and crew who built the big old homes
camped on the property, at the job site. And the furnace was brought in completely
disassembled, parts to be assembled on the spot, not like today. Today furnaces are
brought into the home assembled, much-much smaller.

And besides, those old monsters incorporated, used a material wrap of asbestos tape,
mud, loose fibers in a paper bag to be mixed un-cooperatively with water, another
aspect of the dirty job. That was a dangerous aspect of the work no one gave that
much thought to.

Back in the day most services came without fanfare. We two, for instance, drove old
unmarked pickup trucks, a canopy on the back securing the load of parts and tools,
loads of filters, and, well, semi-organization at best. And no one questioned our
integrity, "Hi, I'm the furnace man." That was enough for the front door greeting, no
labeled uniform, no shoe wraps to protect carpets, just shoes we referred to as
"cheapie flat soles". Zero traction, the kind that never hooked into the dog-do
outside, cleaned rather easily.

We usually asked to be let in the back door, or better, the basement door. "Turn up
the thermostat," and we were set to start work.

Time passed in old home basements. Still, monster sized demons sported oil burners,
now old and obsolete as well. The furnace rested on the same concrete it had for
sixty to eighty years. The concrete floor, in a long line, was broken out, then
repaired with new concrete where the oil line was dug in to attach to the new burner,
copper tubing from the buried oil tank out in the yard. The old coal room was nearby,
mostly now empty but black with coal dust. The chute for coal delivery was still in
place to be uncovered, opened when the coal truck drove up next to it and let go of
the load spilling into the room below. As mentioned, dust? Yes. But that was replaced
with the new modern oil burner made of cast iron weighing in with a new definition of
"really heavy". I lugged quite a few of those cast iron lugs up stairs and outside
for trash when the monster was retrofitted with Flame Retention burner technology, 85
to 90 percent combustion efficiency. Yes, instead of replacing that ancient thing
with a new tidy, much smaller furnace; oh well.

Hind sight is easy. Yes, there were the just pre World War II more modern furnaces
manufactured for oil but that ended when war broke out. For the most part no more
furnaces built until after the war. And then, when parts like motors were scarce for
a while, furnaces were made with antique parts incorporated into brand new design. It
took a while to get the manufacturing rolling again so furnaces could be built with
all new parts designed appropriately.

Those old motors, as example, were cast iron heavy as well. They were the design
built starting clear back in the late 1920s when few people could afford them. But
those old motors had to be rebuilt for a number of years because they fit the
immediate post war furnaces built based on availability. And they, like most things
"old" weighed a bunch.

When we first worked on furnaces we used vans like my old 1964 Chevy. You sat and
shared air with all the furnace parts including the stinking old dirty used stuff
smelling like diesel. And the cast iron motors, rebuilt, were stored in small
cardboard boxes ill built to handle controlling what was shaped cylinder, round, and
able to roll like a bowling ball. Sharp curves taken could and would release a
possible melee of rolling stock, motors racing around fore and aft among the other
parts and equipment. It got so you would just ignore it.

NEXT

Description
My partner, my brother-in-law of some distance in time, was born, grew up in Hawaii
until he entered the Coast Guard. He went on a blind date with my sister and fell in
love. As I recall that was 1959, the year of statehood for both Hawaii and Alaska. I
was 14. Eventually, after I spent my time in the Army, drafted in 1968, he and I
became partners in business in the Seattle area. And in time that led to becoming
mechanical contractors in heating equipment installation and repair.

My sister divorced him but we remained partners. That lasted for over thirty years
only to end when I went on to other business startups and he retired. To this day he
is my older brother in essence, which I never would have had otherwise. And we shared
the dirty work, partners on the job, no heats, keeping each other company on the late
night calls in winter.

We were, by our own definition, simply Furnace Men.

We installed and maintained oil heat. Early on, the equipment dated back to the early
part of the twentieth century. I'm referring to the first gun type high pressure
burners, the better technology back in the day. They made soot.

Ours was the dirty side of carbon, not a lubricant like graphite but rather, dirty,
the definition of dirty. Black, smelly, smearing, staining, choking acid ash and
soot, the better technology in the early part of the last century designed to burn
real cheap fuel at low efficiencies (who cared back then?). Those were a burner often
retrofit into an old solid fuel furnace originally using coal, perhaps. We became
masters of updated filth. It was diesel lazy-burned in LARGE quantities producing
warmth for the old large tall homes, by gravity, heat rising, or hot water wafting
up, or making steam where a boiler was concerned. And you can't knock it for its long
burning presence of comfort, that is aside from the coming climate change, among
other things.

Those old hot air dinosaurs, arms, pipes, spreading all directions in people's
basements, smelling, were leaking between the seams of the heat exchanger portions.
Held together by gravity, the mortar between those sections was long gone, dried up.
But they endured what seemed like forever. "If it ain't broke - don't fix it." In all
of their construction, cast iron and heavy sheet steel, they weighed a ton.

It was said, back in the day, the carpenters and crew who built the big old homes
camped on the property, at the job site. And the furnace was brought in completely
disassembled, parts to be assembled on the spot, not like today. Today furnaces are
brought into the home assembled, much-much smaller.

And besides, those old monsters incorporated, used a material wrap of asbestos tape,
mud, loose fibers in a paper bag to be mixed un-cooperatively with water, another
aspect of the dirty job. That was a dangerous aspect of the work no one gave that
much thought to.

Back in the day most services came without fanfare. We two, for instance, drove old
unmarked pickup trucks, a canopy on the back securing the load of parts and tools,
loads of filters, and, well, semi-organization at best. And no one questioned our
integrity, "Hi, I'm the furnace man." That was enough for the front door greeting, no
labeled uniform, no shoe wraps to protect carpets, just shoes we referred to as
"cheapie flat soles". Zero traction, the kind that never hooked into the dog-do
outside, cleaned rather easily.

We usually asked to be let in the back door, or better, the basement door. "Turn up
the thermostat," and we were set to start work.

Time passed in old home basements. Still, monster sized demons sported oil burners,
now old and obsolete as well. The furnace rested on the same concrete it had for
sixty to eighty years. The concrete floor, in a long line, was broken out, then
repaired with new concrete where the oil line was dug in to attach to the new burner,
copper tubing from the buried oil tank out in the yard. The old coal room was nearby,
mostly now empty but black with coal dust. The chute for coal delivery was still in
place to be uncovered, opened when the coal truck drove up next to it and let go of
the load spilling into the room below. As mentioned, dust? Yes. But that was replaced
with the new modern oil burner made of cast iron weighing in with a new definition of
"really heavy". I lugged quite a few of those cast iron lugs up stairs and outside
for trash when the monster was retrofitted with Flame Retention burner technology, 85
to 90 percent combustion efficiency. Yes, instead of replacing that ancient thing
with a new tidy, much smaller furnace; oh well.

Hind sight is easy. Yes, there were the just pre World War II more modern furnaces
manufactured for oil but that ended when war broke out. For the most part no more
furnaces built until after the war. And then, when parts like motors were scarce for
a while, furnaces were made with antique parts incorporated into brand new design. It
took a while to get the manufacturing rolling again so furnaces could be built with
all new parts designed appropriately.

Those old motors, as example, were cast iron heavy as well. They were the design
built starting clear back in the late 1920s when few people could afford them. But
those old motors had to be rebuilt for a number of years because they fit the
immediate post war furnaces built based on availability. And they, like most things
"old" weighed a bunch.

When we first worked on furnaces we used vans like my old 1964 Chevy. You sat and
shared air with all the furnace parts including the stinking old dirty used stuff
smelling like diesel. And the cast iron motors, rebuilt, were stored in small
cardboard boxes ill built to handle controlling what was shaped cylinder, round, and
able to roll like a bowling ball. Sharp curves taken could and would release a
possible melee of rolling stock, motors racing around fore and aft among the other
parts and equipment. It got so you would just ignore it.

NEXT