It's a wonder anybody is left alive (OT)

[Daniel Meyer]

In a world where my generation (I'm ashamed to say) demands warning labels that say "Hot" on Hot coffee, and the generation that follows mine manages to regularly kill itself off with things like sponge nerf balls and the little plastic pellets shot out of toy guns, I am often amazed any of our forefathers survived long enough to get us to this point.

Case in point...dug out from under the house this weekend...behold:

The Diabolical Water Heater of Flaming (or Flash Steamed) Death!

Yes, this, is a water heater.


Don't let the small size fool you...based on the orifice sizes I'd guess the burner in the bottom of this cast iron monster is well over 100,000 btu's.

Note the copper twin coils for rapid heating.


Hey, look! No warning labels!


It would work like this...if you wanted hot water, you opened the door, turned on the big, honkin' gas valve underneath, put a match to the monster burner, slammed the door shut, and cranked the gas on till flames shot out all the seams and the wonderously viscious looking exhaust flue at the top.

Keep in mind this thing would be attached to the wall in your house, probably, just to be daring, over some nice Victorian wallpaper over fabric over lumber.

Now, off to the tub with you to run your hot water. Note, no pressure relief...no thermostat. If you forgot about it...or were a little slow on the uptake, it might explode, or it might just flash the pressurized water to steam when you turned on the faucet (hot or cold) somewhere in the house.

Once you were done with the hot water, or steam, or amazing explosions, and assuming your house didn't burn down, you manually turned off the valve.

Now, add a house full of kids, relatives, or guests...

I fly small airplanes. I sail little boats on big oceans. I ride a motorcycle regularly in Dallas traffic. I work with electricity and hot steel. None of that scares me.

This appliance? Installed and hooked up? Yeah, it would scare me.

I'm not sure what to do with it...I'm thinking it must be preserved just for the sheer audicity of the thing itself!

[..]

Daniel, from the scale color in that thing it looks like a lot of iron or manganese in the water.

You could fit one of these units and you will get NO scale build up. The minerals will stay in suspension and move right along. http://www.scaltrolinc.com/

This is a proven solution to scale. How do I know? I helped my ex father in law develop and patent the POLYPHOSPHATE / ORTHOPHOSPHATE mix and dispensing head.

[NiteRiderF6]

Daniel... That could have been where that contraption landed when it blew off of the wall...

It's sort of like my Mom used to say, taking a bath used to be more of a family affair than it is now.... It required teamwork.

Her brothers took baths in a wash tub out in back of their house.... and her job was to carry hot water to the tubs....

The only difference for the girls was that the girls were able to bathe behind a make shift curtain of sorts hung up on the clothes line and her Mom brought the hot water out, not her brothers.

They also bathed with lye soap... YIKES!

My Grandpa said that lye soap would take anything off... even some of the stuff that you wanted to keep!

Sex education? Who needs it?

[art]

we had one of those heaters when I was growing up in mass. about 1955 an it worked good .Just fire it up an wait about 1/2 hour an take a bath.an my grandmother used to make soap in the bathtub in those days

[DaveC]

Daniel... That could have been where that contraption landed when it blew off of the wall...

It's sort of like my Mom used to say, taking a bath used to be more of a family affair than it is now.... It required teamwork.

Her brothers took baths in a wash tub out in back of their house.... and her job was to carry hot water to the tubs....

The only difference for the girls was that the girls were able to bathe behind a make shift curtain of sorts hung up on the clothes line and her Mom brought the hot water out, not her brothers.

They also bathed with lye soap... YIKES!
 

Y'all had HOT water????????????????? we just washed in the crik..........had PUMICE soap.
the hobo

[FryeVRCCDS0067]

Wow, I've never seen anything like that. In those days, if you didn't have common sense you didn't live long enough to reproduce!

[PharmBoy]

Yep!  Life in the country used to be tough.  Took a bath on Saturday mornings in a #3 wash tub.  Heated water on the stove in a large tea kettle.  Only an outhouse with old Sears & Robuck catalog as an acompaniment.  Dad built on a real bathroom when I was five with a butane hot water heater and a real commode.  I still remember him digging that huge hole out back of the house for the cesspool.  Finally got electricity when I was about eight and got to pack away those coal oil lamps.  Never did get telephones till we moved to town when I was twelve.  And at twelve I got my first ride, a Cushman Highlander.  Yes, my life has just gotten better with each year that has passed.  Who wouda thunk that we'd be communicating on such a contraption as this here thing and riding such a grand machine as a Valkyrie?

[John Schmidt]

Because the old cook stove which had to be stoked, had a water box on the end of it. So,while she made supper the water got heated for both bathing and washing dishes. As for bathrooms.....we had a two holer for many years. I can remember in winter I'd wait until the very last minute before making a dash for the half-moon house. Ah, the good old days....you can have them. We did have a phone, was required since dad was school superintendent and the county paid for it.

[Skinhead]

Hey Daniel,

If I was you I'd make a steam genny outa that thing.

[Michael K (Az.)]

On your way to makin yer own hooch, I figure.

[Scott in Ok]

Daniel,

That is a very cool piece of history!  A tiny little water tube boiler!



Ohhh, flashing to steam...can you imagine the water hammer as it hit that first 90 in the plumbing? 

-Scott

[sandy]

Daniel: I've been a sailor since I was 12. What sort of boats do you sail on?

[Daniel Meyer]

Daniel,

That is a very cool piece of history!  A tiny little water tube boiler!



Ohhh, flashing to steam...can you imagine the water hammer as it hit that first 90 in the plumbing? 

-Scott

Cool pic Scott...I figure it'll clean up nice and get mounted in the water heater closet just as a conversation piece!

On your way to makin yer own hooch, I figure.

LOL! Could be!

Daniel: I've been a sailor since I was 12. What sort of boats do you sail on?

I've sailed all over the gulf....mostly in a rented cape dory, but in everything from a snark to a 55' mahagony chris craft.

Haven't been in a few years though...flying either for that matter (Cessna 172's).

I had dreams of (re)building my own...before certain things caught up with me..

http://lifeisaroad.com/boat.html

[FryeVRCCDS0067]

Yep!  Life in the country used to be tough.  Took a bath on Saturday mornings in a #3 wash tub.  Heated water on the stove in a large tea kettle.  Only an outhouse with old Sears & Robuck catalog as an acompaniment.  Dad built on a real bathroom when I was five with a butane hot water heater and a real commode.  I still remember him digging that huge hole out back of the house for the cesspool.  Finally got electricity when I was about eight and got to pack away those coal oil lamps.  Never did get telephones till we moved to town when I was twelve.  And at twelve I got my first ride, a Cushman Highlander.  Yes, my life has just gotten better with each year that has passed.  Who wouda thunk that we'd be communicating on such a contraption as this here thing and riding such a grand machine as a Valkyrie?

My oldest brother Larry was born on the farm my parents and grandparents shared at the time. The Dr. came there to deliver him. Later Mom and Dad moved to this area where my brothers took baths in a washtub outside when the weather permitted. By the time I came along we had electricity and indoor plumbing.

As a young adult I spent 4 or 5 months in a cabin next to raccoon creek. The cabin had electricity but no running water. I would shower at work through the week and bath in the creek on the weekends. We did dishes in a washtub in the front yard. The cabin was built in the bottom of a barn which stood within 50 feet of the covered bridge at Mansfield. Yep, it's one of the bridges we hang out at during the CBR. I’ve got a lot of memories tied up in that area. That was back in my hippie days.

I didn't have a bike at the time but I did have a 914 Porsche which was a ball to drive. With its four cylinder motor it wasn’t fast but it cornered well. You could throw it into a high-speed, four-wheel slide around a corner, the tires and your passenger would be screaming but man it was a ball.

[Jess from VA]

Daniel, "flash" water heaters are still in use throughout the world.  I had one on the wall of my kitchen in my aprtment in Ankara Turkey (USAF tour).  There was a specific sequence in operating them and if you did it wrong you could easlily blow it off the wall and have some excitement. 

Everyone used these small one gal propane tanks which were set outside on the balcony (quality control on the tanks was not good either and they also ocassionaly blew up).  My apartment was huge and the bath all the way in back.  I'd get up in Winter in a freezing cold apartment, fire the flash heater in kitchen, run back and start the shower, and wait for the water to get warm, then hot thru 50-60 feet of unisulated pipe. I can't tell you how many times the propane tank went empty, and while all soaped up in the shower, the water turned to freezing cold.  I'd just  jump out, run down the hall, turn the flash heater off, go out on the balcony covered with snow and swap out to a fresh tank....while soapy naked.  Most of the Turks were not up this early, but I'm sure some were amused.  It was pretty funny, the first few times....

If you want an excellent and hilariously funny read about a US servicman's experience in Turkey in the late 50's hunt up an old copy of "Scotch and Holy Water" by John Tumpane

http://web.syr.edu/~cisik/canisik.html

[solo1]

Thanks Daniel, I almost had forgotten those heaters.  They were VERY efficient!  Quite a number of times someone in the family would forget to turn the heater burner off after taking a bath.  Steam would come out of the lead pipes. Steam and lead pipes and I'm still here!

The medical field has changed as well.  When I was about 6 years old, our family doctor and his nurse came to our house. The dining room with its sliding doors was closed off and the house was filled with the smell of ether.  They took out my oldest sister's tonsils right in the house!   I tell that to my family doctor and he just rolls his eyes for some reason.

[timk519]

http://web.syr.edu/~cisik/canisik.html

web.syr.edu has been discontinued....

[Jess from VA]

http://web.syr.edu/~cisik/canisik.html

web.syr.edu has been discontinued....

Here you go.    http://www.amazon.com/Scotch-Holy-Water-John-Tumpane/dp/0960738207

                      22 used from $4.29