About four years
ago, my husband decided his days of cutting wood for our
woodburning stove were over. It took three years plus a few months to use up or
stockpile. After a few weeks of shivering next to an electric oil-filled radiator-style
heater, for our Christmas and anniversary present, we invested in
a pellet stove. We still heat with a flame generated by wood, but the
technology has moved into the twenty-first century.
For my current
work-in-progress, I needed a means for a snoopy mother to be able to eavesdrop
on her children. The children soon learned how Mama seemed to know things, and
they took steps to prevent being overheard. This carried forward, even when
they both grew to adulthood. My first thought was Mama listened at a vent as
sound traveled through the heating ducts. During the time of my story, was that
even possible? Here is what I found about home heating, particularly in North
America.
 |
Medieval kitchen
|
Fire has been a
primary source of heat for centuries. It is hard to believe it was not until
the twelfth century that the chimney was invented. Before then, most fires for
both cooking and heating were on an open fire or, inside a structure, a hearth
beneath and a hole in the roof to draw smoke outside. With a chimney came the
fireplace with a firebox and hearth and often a mantle.
 |
Courtesy Virginia State Parks
|
Through the end of the seventeenth century, the fireplace
remained the primary source of heat and cooking. However, once Europeans
arrived in North America, they discovered many regions winter weather could be
much harsher than where they came from. Necessity is the mother of invention.
1744 – Benjamin Franklin invented the “Pennsylvania
Fireplace.” It included a grate to burn wood, sliding doors to control draught,
and required a fourth of the amount of wood compared to a fireplace. It would
be housed inside a large fireplace or used free-standing in the middle of the
room as long as it was connected to a chimney. It became widely popular in
North America.
 |
Rumford Fireplace
|
1795 (about) – Anglo-American physicist, Sir Benjamin
Thompson, Count Rumford, as part of his investigations on heat, developed the Rumford
fireplace. The back wall of the firebox is one-third the width of the opening
to reflect more heat into a room. Also, its streamlined throat reduces
turbulence, allowing smoke to be carried away with minimal loss of heated room
air.
Early
1800s – the potbelly Franklin stove evolved from the earlier Franklin stove.
During
the majority of the nineteenth century, wood provided the primary source of
fuel for fireplaces, stoves, and other forms of heating devices. Especially
east of the Mississippi River and most of its tributaries, wood was plentiful.
It was the English who primarily brought the fireplace technology to North
America. German immigrants brought the iron stove for heating living spaces.
1820
– 1830 – Coal became increasingly popular as a fuel, particularly Anthracite,
or “hard” coal. Adams explains, coal was
quickly becoming a dominating fuel type. Stoves that could burn either wood or
coal became popular.
1833
– Eliphalet Nott invented the first base-burner stove for using anthracite
coal.
1834
– Dennis Olmstead was the first to use the term “radiator”
in a patent for a heat exchanger which then radiated heat.
1840s
– The White House and Capitol building were outfitted with steam heating
systems in the 1840s.
1855 – The heating radiator as we know
it was invented by Franz San Galli, a Kingdom of Prussia-born Russian
businessman living in St. Petersburg. by the late 1800s, the technology made it
way to North America. To lower costs and expand the market, companies, such as
the American Radiator Company, promoted cast iron radiators over the previous fabricated
steel designs.
The
use of boilers, radiators, and steam or hot water to heat homes became more popular
after the Civil War. Large commercial and public buildings often used steam, but
most homes were equipped with lower pressure hot water radiators because they
were considered safer.
1883
– Thomas Edison invented the electric heater.
1885
– Coal became the most predominant source of fuel to generate heat. Carts and
later trucks would deliver loads of this fossil fuel to basements around the
world for the next fifty years or more.
1895
– Ernest Bryant and Ezra Smith, two businessmen, shared their plans for an furnace using riveted steel for the heating
surface with David Lennox. Furnaces at that time were made of cast iron, which
tended to warp and crack after extended use, causing smoke and coal gases to
escape into houses. After the three signed an agreement, Bryant and Smith lost
their financial backing. Lennox took over their patents and reworked their
design. He then successfully marketed the natural convection furnaces under his
own brand name.
1919
– Alice
Parker patented a central heating system. Prior to that, a lack of electricity
for fans meant that heat was transported through the ducts by the process of
natural air flow. With the addition of an electric fan connected to a network
of ducts, a furnace could supply warm air more uniformly throughout a house.
Unfortunately,
this research answered my question regarding whether or not being able to
listen through the ductwork of a heating system was possible, even in the
upscale houses of the 1870s or 1880s. The answer was no.
Jocelyn’sWedding Dilemma,
the second book in the series, The Matchmaker and the Mother-in-Law, is
currently on pre-order and scheduled for release on March 5, 2024.
To
find the book descriptions and pre-order link, please CLICK HERE
Sources:
https://archive.curbed.com/2017/11/30/16716472/old-house-fireplace-coal-stove-history-heating
https://shiptons.ca/a-brief-history-of-home-heating/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumford_fireplace
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Lennox
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiator_(heating)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stove
https://www.presbyteriansofthepast.com/2020/03/20/eliphalet-nott-1773-1866/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliphalet_Nott
.png)
