How did you heat your home?
Heat in the winter time is a pretty important thing. Different sources of heat are used. When you were young what kind of heat did you have in your home? What kind of heat do you have now in your home? Did you have to work at having heat such as gathering wood and building a fire? Or did you just turn up the thermostat to have heat?
When I was young we had a coal burning furnace. It had a hopper which when filled completely would keep a fire burning for hours. One of our chores as kids was to fill the hopper with coal. The coal was in small round chunks that we shoveled into a bucket in the coal bin and then dumped into the hopper. The coal would burn down into clinkers which had to be removed from the furnace firebox. You didn't want to forget to fill the hopper if it was your turn. If you forgot, the house would fill with smoke when the furnace ran out of coal. Then everyone in the family would have to sit outside and wait for the smoke to clear out of the house.
I also learned the hard way to remember that the poker for removed the clinkers would get hot. I accidentally let the poker touch the top of my foot. That taught me to be much more cautious when working around the furnace.
I did enjoy the warm heat from the furnace. It had a blower and the heat was blown through ducts into each room. I liked to stick my feet over the side of my bed where the vent was and let them get really warmed up. If you had wet clothes, they could dry quickly when hung over the vent. If the power went out, the furnace still produced heat. It just couldn't be blown throughout the house. You had to stay close to the furnace to stay warm.
Unfortunately burning coal leaves a fine layer of soot on the walls and ceilings, so every spring we got to wash down the walls and ceilings.
Today I live in an all electric house. Each room has radiant heaters in the ceilings. I just turn on the thermostat and the heaters start to work. I have a wood burning fireplace which gives very nice heat, but it is a lot of work to build and keep a fire going.
Write down what you did for heat throughout your life. Write down what you liked about your source of heat and what you didn't like. Write down what you did when your source of heat wasn't working. Write down what source of heat your grandparents had. Even the every day things like heat add to your story.
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