Home, home on the range

[Cloudscape]

Here's a picture of the range that currently occupies the large inglenook fireplace (the best looking, oldest and most interesting fireplace in the house).

The range is, as far as we know, a Coalbrookdale one, from the mid-to-late 1800s. (This pic was taken before we bought the house.)

The sides of the central grate have been replaced, presumably they were just kn*ckered. The replacement sheet iron is also kn*ckered and the firebrick lining needs replacing. At the moment, you can only build a small fire at the bottom of the grate.

The casing is cracked in a couple of places round the oven, but otherwise, the range is in quite nice condition.

So far so good.

But this range is hooked up to a back boiler. If you look just above the firebox, there's a hole in the firebricks. This is a rear flue. There's another slot at the back/bottom of the firebox. If you leave these holes open, the fire roars like a jet engine and flames are drawn out backwards. You can see a large air-intake hole under the firebox.

I found old diagrams of how these early back-boiler ranges worked, and this rear flue seems correct.

The upper cowl is adjustable and is an open flue. Smoke goes up here (when the chimney is warm).

The main thing is - you can light a roaring fire (wood and/or coal) and virtually no heat is given out into the room. If you block the rear flue holes, the fire acts like a normal fire, but you still don't feel any warmth from the fire unless you're about two feet from it.

I was surprised that the casing of the range never heats up. After a few hours, you can put your hand on top of the oven (the left hand section) and it's barely warm. I don't understand how the oven was heated. It stays cool. The right-hand side appears to be a 'sham'. It's just a hollow box, with an openable top. This also stays cool.

Behind this range, on the other side of the chimney, is an old Rayburn, which also has a back boiler. If I ever replace the Rayburn, I'd still like a solid-fuel option - and probably the back boiler too.

But I don't know what to do about this range. It occupies just under half the width of the fireplace (the sides are currently filled with brick).

I really don't feel I could remove it. The house is listed and I like the look of the range. But I also need some room heating to come from the fireplace. I'd like a wood stove (possible with back-boiler option) or firebox.

I'm stuck between wanting to keep the range (somehow) and having an efficient fireplace.

What would you do?

 

[Nemesis]

I'd keep the range - an early transitional one! And you may not be able to remove it as the place is listed.

Was the right hand side possibly for water?

Is there any sign of a damper to allow heat to move around the oven? (Possibly not...) I wonder if the back boiler is a later addition actually.

What are the parts immediately under the oven and the right hand area - do they move are they part of the casting?

 

[Cloudscape]

I want to keep it. You'd be surprised how many people have suggested that I 'get rid of it'. :?

I can't imagine what cooking on this thing must have been like. The oven door has adjustable vents top and bottom. below the oven is a hollow area. You can put your hand in, from the side where the ash falls from the firebox. Below the oven door is a little removeable plate, and something that looks like it used to slide in and out.

I still think the right hand side is a 'sham'. It looks like it should be for water, but some ranges had a 'sham' to visually balance the range. The lid opens, but the little doors (etc) aren't removeable or adjustable. The inside of it is almost pristine.

Even though the sides of the firebox have been replaced with thin sheet iron, the oven stays cool. And it's right there, to the left of the sheet of metal. Strange.

Notice how the whole rear wall has been blanked off. There's quite a big void either side, behind the black wall (partly sheet iron, partly crumbling plaster). About 2/3 of the way up, from each side of the range, you can see plates that have been slid in to close off the flues.

We even have the crane for this range. I found it in an outbuilding. Sadly, one of the mountings on the wall has gone.

I'd still like to be warm though.

Does this sound silly? Ddisconnect the range and slide it all to the left. Clean it and leave it for posterity. Meanwhile, to the right of it, install a sympathetically styled log burner.

 

[Nemesis]

Or ensure that the room is heated in other ways? And simply enjoy the stove as it is? Light the fire for the glow? But yes. another one alongside is one way, something simple and efficient. Talk to the CO however, as the fitting of this could prove historically interesting also. Pity to remove that.

It may be that there was once a way of putting heat into the oven side but the fact there is a void under is interesting. Is there anything at the bottom of the oven to connect? I wonder if the oven wasn't heated from the fire at all.

The void at the right could have been a sham or the intention could have been that it was intended to be a water cistern - simply storage in order to ladle water from there ( source - a well, stream - whatever...) into a kettle to be heated on the fire.

I have a small 'kitchener' type stove which is later and the oven has 'sliders' which re-route heat into a jacket around it.

Should be easy enough to find something to hold the crane (we have one too!).

 

[Cloudscape]

You're echoing all my thoughts here. Sadly, there is no other way to heat the (quite large) room, except for an oversized radiator, which is part of a system that drinks a lot of oil. I find myself wondering of the oven was ever used. It's very clean inside and the owners of my house built a kitchen next door (a separate house).

I will probably try and restore the firebox part of the range, so that it can be filled up and see if that helps. It eats coal though, and - as I said - you get very little heat off it.

 

[Flyfisher]

It eats coal though, and - as I said - you get very little heat off it.

How long have you tried running it? I imagine it would burn a fair bit of coal just heating itself up, so it may be that it takes quite a while before it begins to heat the room. Once up to heat it might not need much coal to 'tickover' as it were.

Having said that, I wouldn't be surprised if it's much less efficient than a modern multifuel stove.

 

[Cloudscape]

After running it for most of a day, there's a tiny bit of warmth in the room, but most of the body of the range is just slightly warm. As I say, though, I need to repair the firebox so I can get a bit more in it.

 

[Nemesis]

which is part of a system that drinks a lot of oil.

Maybe that should be first priority...

 

[Nemesis]

Also - the oven would only likely be used for baking. Not used like a modern oven for everything.

I do think any CO who allowed such an interesting part of a historic building to be removed should be quietly shot, but there you go.

 

[Cloudscape]

So I'll just sit there in mittens and a scarf then. :shock:

:wink:

Actually - you're still echoing my thoughts. I couldn't get rid of it. I don't want to. Up close, it's quite beautiful, and the casting is amazingly high quality. Smooth as silk.

But I'd like to find a compromise.

 

[Nemesis]

Well, I do... frequently!

But I think it really isn't something any good CO would be keen to see removed!

Maybe a more efficient heating sytem not based on oil should be something worth thinking about.

I'm still interested in the workings of the oven, which seems to have a hotplate on top?

 

[Penners]

Is it possible that the gizmos underneath the oven are in fact some sort of damper system for a second fire that was lit there, to heat the oven? You say that there's a void there - could there once have been a dog grate inside for the fire to built on?

One other thought, assuming that the above is nonsense - what are you burning on the fire? Wood or coal? There appears to be a fairly small surface area of the side of the oven that forms part of the fire basket - I imagine that a lot of hot coal would need to be stacked against that side in order to get some heat into the oven. I doubt that wood would get hot enough.

A bit of a mystery and a problem for you, but I do hope you find a way of leaving the range as it is. It's wonderful!

 

[Flyfisher]

After running it for most of a day, there's a tiny bit of warmth in the room, but most of the body of the range is just slightly warm.

Does the oven (and hotplate?) get hot when the fire is burning? If so, it sounds as if the thing is optimised for cooking, rather than space heating, and there might not be anything wrong with it at all - as a cooker.

Not much help in terms of heating the room, I know, but if true at least you could then reconsider your idea of moving it to one side and installing something else to heat the room.

 

[Nemesis]

The oven is most likely either warmed via a flue system from the existing fire or it is heated independently - maybe with a fire under (or even inside, like an older type bread oven).
The probability of it getting hot enough to bake in just from a fire against the side is small!


And no, the heat wasn't designed to go into the room, with this type of stove, hence the small firebox. It was designed to cook and be fuel efficient.

 

[Cloudscape]

On top of the oven - it's not so much a hotplate, as one of those lift-off circular covers, like you get on old solid-fuel Rayburns (same as the one I have, in fact). There's no real wear in this area, as if pots had stood there.

Below the oven, on the front, the tiny little hatch lifts off. The lower rectangle is decorative only. If you'd had a fire under the oven, it would have been in a small space under the oven. I'm going to the house tonight, so I'll try and take some pics to explain.

In the book I found (part of an 1890s set on house construction and maintenance) there was a diagram showing this type of range, used with a back boiler, and showing the flue arrangement. Even back then, the author said that the back boiler would take most of the heat. If you leave the rear flue holes uncovered, this this baby really roars. :lol:

You're right in that the range might be optimized for something, but I think it's might be for making hot water, before the Rayburn was added to supplement it.

At the moment, we're burning wood and a bit of coal, but not over the line where the side firebricks are missing. The previous owner just filled it up with coal and that's damaged the repaired walls of the firebox.

 

[Nemesis]

The thing is, there were so many variations of these and improvements over time that instructions for one may not cover another.

The space with cover under the oven isn't there for decoration. Interesting.

A larger fire would of course help, but not until it's repaired.

(We had a range when I was small - made lovely stews!).

 

[KN]

We had one just the same in our last house. The only difference being it was the other handed, had a tap on the opposite side to the oven and was set with in a very plain surround. We just put a radiator in the kitchen and kept it for show.

Karen

 

[chuckey]

Once I went to a cottage at Beamish where they were baking on a range. The coal was banked up at an angle of 45 degrees from the front of the grate and the heat that thing threw out into the room was unbelievable, must have been 10KW. It was the only source of heating in the cottage.
Frank

 

[Nemesis]

Beamish - pitman's cottages. Free coal.

 

[KN]

I can remember trying to cook meringues in it. Memories are flooding back. I don't think they cooked though

Karen