This is actually a small one. I have seen some with as many as 10 output vents and three air returns. I think this is great heat. If it was designed correct when installed the heat is very even. They also keep putting out heat for such a long time after the burner kicks off. Back when things were built to last forever! Great video!

I grew up in a house with one of these. Great, warm heat and never a problem with the furnace. I've never lived anywhere since where the heat has been as good.

I almost bought a house six years ago that had one of these! I'm still regretting not bidding on it. I had to giggle when I saw "SENATOR." the only the that came to mind was "Senator - not too efficient but still more effective than our government"

The lower section with the hinge and latch receiver was for a coal ash cleanout door. The gas burner was installed inside in lieu of using coal. If you look elsewhere in the basement, you will find a narrow room that was used for coal storage. This is a good furnace and will last for centuries without any real problems.

This machinery was designed in a time before companies discovered that the market would bear the burden of planned obsolescence. (Look up planned obsolescence on wikipedia if anyone doesn't know what that is) That old furnace was engineered to heat quietly, safely and efficiently under much harsher usage. I'd put my last dollar that if it is maintained properly, clean the vents now and then, replace the burner every couple of decades. It will be running efficiently a hundred years from now. I know quite a bit about HVAC systems. I bet that convection furnace runs up in the high 90 percentile for efficiency. Because it used to be a coal burner before it was converted to gas, it has a large inner combustion chamber meant to withstand much higher temperatures. Then it has an outer layer which pulls air from the back bottom and passes it around the outside of that combustion chamber. Transferring the heat over a large surface area and into the outer vents. Heat convection pulls that heat up the large vent pipes upstairs. Given the fact that it was engineered to handle much much higher temps, those materials will last literally centuries if they are maintained. I'm being perfectly honest here when I say that newer furnace systems are engineered and constructed in such a way that they are supposed to fail after a predetermined amount of time. Today they can mix metals very precisely. For instance they can create a metal panel, paint it, then given average environmental conditions they could tell you precisely how long it will take to rot through. They design the average furnace to last about 20 years. Panels will rust through, motors will fail, relays will crap out on you. Furnaces are all engineered that way now so that after some predetermined amount of time you either have to do major repairs, a complete overhaul, or more likely it's more cost effective just to replace the whole furnace. Quite literally that Senator furnace will probably still be running smoothly and efficiently when we're all dust.

Those are also called Octopus furnaces. That one is a smaller version..some of the larger versions had octopus arms stretching in every direction. It's probably original and burned coal. Converted to gas in the '50s or '60s most likely.

You could still get gravity furnaces in the 1960s and maybe into the early 70s. One couple in Metro Detroit in the 60s had to get a new furnace and they only wanted the gravity one. Their reason? They said, "This is what we're used to".

I remember me and my Dad going through my grandparents old house before we sold it. I was only 9 at the time but I remember seeing the old coal bunker and asking my dad about it, and he remembers having to shovel coal into their old furnace before it was replaced with a forced air system. He stated that it heated the two story house very well. But I thought how neat an old gravity furnace was in its time.

My house has a gravity feed furnace from 1964. Owned the house 25 years, furnace never broke and was never serviced. Also heated the house with a wood burning stove. I do think gravity furnaces cost more to heat with, maybe 50-100% more than a modern furnace. Or maybe my house was hard to heat

@ALLPISSED Heya! Ya, todays furnaces would be long gone on their 100th (or so) birthday. Thanks for swinging by, hope things are good with you guys!

Older homes are often criticized for being too "loose". This simply means they have more air exchanges in a given period of time. This actually made sense in the days when there might have been 3 generations living in the same house and when there was wood, coal, oil, and natural gas (or propane) in descending order of "dirtiness" toward the inhabitants. Now that there are many fewer inhabitants per household and fuel is more expensive it makes sense to tighten up everything and make it better insulated. But it is wrong to say that people were simply foolish in their approach to heating in bygone days.

gravity warm air furnace (GWA). They had these alot pre 50s. You knew when you walked into a house and there was a huge grill in the hallway floor. I can't remember if that was the supply or return but, they must be very quiet because there is no pumps or fans to fail but efficiency? forget it. Today we only put the heat where we need it so everything gets insulated...Fuel was cheap back then and people were frightened of stale air so furnaces were commonly oversized by 3 times the need. They could warm a house with the windows opened (sickness prevention). They didn't even insulate walls or ceilings. When they did some insulating in the late 40s early 50s, Slag, taken off the top of molten steel and mixed with vermiculite and mica , was common but very dirty. as you can see the ductwork isn't tight, sealed, taped or insulated. The furnace isn't insulated either. In Fitchburg Mass, my daughter was living in a house that was actually heated by a stove in the kitchen, and this was a manufactured thing, not a homeowners contraption.It was on the side of the stove. A dual purpose thing. Comfortwise, it didn't do the job very well, so the kitchen was always warmest, and the other rooms kept the doors open to get some heat.. The heating industry has come a long way in comfort and efficiency.

@naterade21 Thanks, that seems to work for the short term. It does fill it out but it take a bit away at the ends. I will mess around in the next few vids and figure out whats what. Thanks for the tag info.

My mother's family lives in Paw Paw, West Virginia, where houses had coal-fired gravity warm air systems installed new through the 50s and possibly into the 60s. The houses in our family that were built before 1960 (many of them by my great-grandfather) have the characteristic large floor grills and, though they have newer oil-fired furnaces, you can clearly see the ductwork from octopus-style furnaces, radiating from the furnace to different parts of the floor above.

I used to be involved in replacing some of these in the Madison WI area. Some of them were equipped with stokers which would enable you to refill them with coal from the delivery area in the basement.

We had something similar here in Atlanta, but ours was square with the air returns at the very bottom. Quite the beast, about four-and-a-half feet to the side for an 1100 square foot house. It was a Hercules brand, and had been converted from coal to gas before my parents bought the house in 1957. We called it Vesuvius after the explosive ignition when too much gas built up in the combustion chamber and the pilot was weak. Click-hiss-whoosh when it worked right, but it went hissssssssssss-KABOOM with rattling sound effects from collapsing ductwork when it didn't. When the power went out, you could crack a screw on the regulator about an eighth of a turn and let the cast-iron heat exchanger start to glow, turn it off, and the house would stay warm overnight. We put filters in the registers in each room, but could not overcome the fragrance of igniting elkhound fur and house dust. Never regretted the switch to central air and forced air heat, though I have to start the gennie to power it during ice storms.

I had one for 18 years.

THERE WAS A OLD HORROR MOVIE WHERE THE MONSTER LIVED IN THE FURNACES LIKE THAT I SAW WHEN I WAS A KID ..

@TheRickfix It does the job very well, quiet and fires up once an hour or so. I've been meaning to do a video on it for some time now. Thanks for coming by!

My buddy's dad was a welder for Beach Foundry and Murray later joined him in the sheet-metal department assembling ranges.

When I was a kid my parents almost rented a house with a furnace like this. We too called it the monster.

Gravity Furnace Ducted

Wasn't that thing in an old movie with a scarecrow, a chick with ruby slippers, and a lion?

Yes sir. as a kid I was scared to go down the steps. I just thought they would blow up when they ignited. And ours was bigger than that one. we had those same kind of walls going down the steps. I would watch out for spider webs and huge water bugs. That bad boy would get hot. Love The music Man had to like the video immediately 🤣

My grandparents had an octopus monster ljmr that too, it was originally a coal furnace converted to oil in the 50s.

P.S. we did put water in the tank once in a while. grandpy let Emma and I pour it in there with a bucket. -your nephew Patrick

I don’t know why, but these things scare the hell out of me. In fact all things that involve pipes or tanks...water towers, boiler rooms. I remember as a child, if there was a problem with the toilet flushing, my mother would lift the lid of the cistern. I couldn’t even be in the room for this, it frightened me so much.

Beast!

@TheFred1952 I wanted to say that, but gravity pulls down, I think the term would be more like convection or something. Thanks for checking it out!

nice ole furnace too

Neat video! What city is this in, if I may ask? (in Canada, of course...recognize the accent, and the obvious label on the furnace....lol) I believe my dad had to shovel coal into their gravity furnace in one of the many houses h e lived in, growing up in the Toronto area...

awsome vid love those old furnaces why cant i find stuff like this on youtube i love this vid thanks

My parents still have their original huge( orange ) monster furnace in their cellar. It was an old coal furnace converted to oil. It does have a giant belt/motor fan system on top to drive the air upwards into the house that cycles on at times. The furnace got nicknamed "Tabonga" (which the burner guy and friend of my dad's had stenciled onto the front of it ..) I had to look up Tabonga... It's from some B movie in the 60's with a giant branched tree that attacks? people. LOL

@MrJRR67 Spooky!! Maybe there IS a monster down there!! LoL

@Goregoon nowadays rust accelerator is mixed in with metal so we have too buy and buy again ..something that last forever puts people out of jobs..

How do you light up one

They are not energy efficient but a good reliable furnace

I wonder just how efficient it really is with a gas burner in it and it "cycling" on and off and how comfortable it would be in the house trying to maintain a temperature setpoint with a burner firing that way.These old beasts were designed to burn coal and give steady, constant heat with some form of mechanical thermostat opening and closing dampers as needed to try and hold the house at a given temperature.... Bonus thing with no blower it would not be hard to get that conversion burner to operate off an inverter and car battery if you lost power to the house for an extended period of time.... If the burner is "millivolt" controlled it wouldn't matter, the beast would carry on carrying on..

I’ve seen a bunch of those on KZfaq they look neat probably not safe I personally would never go near it as I am easily scared

Scary looking 😆

@naterade21 sure is!

try using yt:stretch=16:9 in the tags

Far better than anything you can get nowadays, after about 26 years we will be starting with our third gas furnace after the second one failed prematurely, high-efficiency means nothing more than highly-expensive pieces of crap designed to keep poor people poor and HVAC companies wealthy. My grandparent's old furnace in Ottawa South was still chugging away in 1973 and likewise, my aunt's furnace in Westboro (circa 1898) continued to work fine too until it was replaced with a new forced-air oil system by the mid-1970s.

Is that return/make up air in the rear coated with asbestos?....sure looks like it, either way cool old coal funace.

Watch the fourth season of "Bates Motel" and you'll see this furnace in an even darker, more sinister light.

This thing is awesome!!! It would be a lot more efficient if it had a forced air fan and a limit switch, which actually was a common thing to do to these furnaces. The fan would usually be placed in the air return duct.

In the movie a Christmas story they have a lever in the kitchen that controls the damper.

Dude, I don't know why your moms service guy told her that, those are very inefficient, she most likely spends hundreds a month. BUT I LOVE old octopus furnaces! If I had one in a house I bought, I would keep it, have it serviced so it's in working condition, and install a new 97% or so furnace beside it. It might sound stupid but that's the historical preservation side of me, when I see people tearing out those beautiful old furnaces to replace it with something more efficient, a little part of me dies inside haha. Also, I'm a guy who likes to be prepared for anything, and having a backup heating source, especially one as versatile as that would be awesome! If she wanted to, and the situation called for it, she could take out that burner and burn whatever's available at the time to heat her house.

change that out lol , i dont understand where the combustion products go, right up into the living room ?

That's great! Illinois ?

Are you in the east coast???

There probably a hidden coal shoot and little room where coal was stored.

thats an awesome furnace,i think u r right,was originaly a coal burning furnace,thankx for sharing the monster

I had one when I was a kid I would sneak down at night and stare at the worm turning glowing running anthersite coal.

@briansmobile1 LoL, you'd almost think so eh? Don't forget that rusty old axe murderer!

a old gravity feed

@WhoSaidTyler Ya, I did some g**gl* searches and saw a bunch of different styles. Some where pretty ominous!! I'm just glad the big bad gas company hasn't tried to convince her (or should I say... scam her) to upgrade. Why fix what ain't broke!

@Goregoon She better be careful not to anger them or they might pee on HER meter!

a gravity furnace is NOT safe or efficient

neat

100 year Old

This house is goddamn old

@WhoSaidTyler LoL

nevermind the asbestos its fine..... that rotted ass cast iron heat exchanger probably isnt though.......

These are better... don't depend on electricity

Not scary at all. I love gravity furnaces. Then again im.big time into steampunk.

"AAAHH! KILL IT! KILL IT!" (lol) These were the predecessors to the modern forced air units of today...No moving parts and relatively silent in operation (unless you had an automatic coal stoker or a later oil-fired burner unit installed), they were built at a time when coal prices and later via conversion, heating oil and natural gas rates ...were all relatively cheap...Not anymore - that's the REAL horror! There's still a few units around, though...

M

What great coal burner to bad it was converted to gas