In the middle of this, I find myself thinking about ways to get warm and I remembered the floor furnace that used to be in my grandparent's home. Actually, they had two of them - one in the kitchen area and one in the living room. Early on, they were fueled with fuel oil and later they were either converted or replaced with units that burned natural gas. Fuel oil - we will come back to that in a little bit.
Back to the floor furnace. For those of you who were never around one of these, they were one of the best and quickest ways to get warm - ever. If you were outside and chilled to the bone, you could come inside, stand over the furnace and when it cycled, you would be warm. As a kid, I remember thinking of it as standing over the sun. The heat would travel up through your pants legs and just warm you all over. In only a moment, you were warm and happy.
Now the catch to a floor furnace (and there is always a catch) is that the grate in the floor was about the temperature of the face of the sun. Touching the metal with exposed skin, or even skin with one layer of cloth over it, like a sock, would result in a burn, often with the accompanying "sizzle" sound telling you that it was going to hurt. The other thing that you had to remember as you rolled into the house and dropped your shoes/boots, was that leaving them on the furnace could result in melted, burnt, or branded clothing.
But when you were cold, wow the floor furnace would fix that. For those of you that are younger and wondering how the decision could be made to have such a dangerous appliance in the house, remember, we were the children of full-blown chemistry sets, wood burning sets, and lawn darts. It was a different time.
The other thing that made a floor furnace a really great thing was the way the heat got to the second floor of the house. In the ceiling of the first floor/floor of the second floor, there were grates that could be opened and closed to let heat into the upstairs. The thing that made this fun as a child was that they were also the perfect place to drop things on your cousins from upstai8rs, or listen to the adult conversation going on in the kitchen. You did have to be careful, though, as typically the people in the kitchen could hear you open the grate and would then yell at you about eavesdropping on them. Sometimes the reward was worth the risk. My cousins and I found out some great things that way.
Circling back to fuel oil. Now that I work in the industry, I have a much greater awareness of the inherent risks in dealing with fuel. We all know some of them, but I'm probably more aware than I was a year ago at this time. Any fuel - fuel oil included - needs to be recognized not only for its flammability, but also for the chemical properties and the way that it interacts with the human body. Basically, you need to be careful with this stuff.
When I grew up, we used fuel oil in a multitude of ways it was never intended for. In fact, when Grandma and Grandpa change the house to natural gas, the fuel oil barrel was kept so we still had a good source. It actually became easier to use since the barrel was no longer attached to the house. To get fuel you just opened the valve and filled your three pound Folgers can. It was it for everything from lubricating the horse shears to cleaning paint brushes. Nobody thought a thing about it, and honestly, I liked the smell. We think of it all differently today. Sometimes I wonder how we ever lived through those days.
I've talked enough about the weather and the cold. I hope you all have a great way to stay warm, and I hope that you have a source as good as an old floor furnace to heat you up. Take care and talk to you soon.
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