Primus stove

“ It is free from impurities which invite corrosion and rust and has proved a valuable material out of which to make a good stove body. On some stoves the tops are made of gray iron castings which, with the black body and its polished iron trimmings, make a very stately and harmonious article without sacrificing anything of practical utility.
The top of any stove is the place upon which are placed the utensils for frying, boiling, etc. This is true whether the fuel be coal, gas, electricity or what-not. ”

“ There is always some soot formed, even in the best-managed stoves, and the flame often carries ashes with it. These in time fill the narrow space about the oven and cut off or check the passage of the hot gases about the oven. When this happens and the oven damper is closed, the stove will smoke and not bake well. No stove should be allowed to get in this condition. The housewife can watch the accumulation of ashes in the stove and remove them before they become one-fourth inch thick. If this is not done, the oven will not heat well and some parts may be considerably cooler than others. ”

“ In the ingle-nook of mine house open fireplaces are, in two rooms, replaced by American stoves. One of them stands about two and a half feet high and cost only 15s. It juts well out in the study—close to the writing-table—and keeps my toes and fingers warm and comfortable at a minimum cost of fuel. An iron arm elbows its way up the closed chimney, and a sheet of zinc nailed over the ordinary grate gives a good draught. The fire-space in this stove is very tiny—a handful of shavings and a spoonful of coal makes it light up cheerfully, and a little damp slack keeps it at furnace heat for hours. ”

“ Never, for any reason, allow the coal to come above the edge of the fire-box or lining. If you do, ashes and cinders will fall into the oven-flues, and they will soon be choked up, and require cleaning. Another reason also lies in the fact that the stove-covers resting on red-hot coals soon burn out, and must be renewed; whereas, by carefully avoiding such chance, a stove may be used many years without crack or failure of any sort. ”

“ However, one should manage somehow to make a fireplace there, ay, even if one can have nothing better than the small, round, moveable stove called the ‘Ideal,’ which burns patent fuel, and can be taken away at any moment. It should be placed on an iron corner bracket rather raised above the floor, and a guard should be round it, so that dresses could not come in contact with it. But one should never be tempted from the paths of virtue by the charms of oil stoves, for they always smell and are detestable, no matter what anyone says ”

“ A cheap and very satisfactory drier for use over the kitchen stove can be made by any handy man of small-mesh galvanized-wire netting and laths or strips of wood about 1/2 inch thick and 2 inches wide. By using two laths nailed together the framework can be stiffened and larger trays made if desirable. This form can be suspended from the ceiling over the kitchen range or over a clear burning oil, gasoline, or gas stove, and it will utilize the hot air which rises during the cooking hour. It can be raised out of the way or swung to one side by a pulley or by a crane made of lath. ”

“ Owing largely to the strides made in the cycle trade enamelling is stoved by means of gas, and of this a plentiful supply is necessary. Enamelling stoves may really be described as hot-air cupboards or ovens, and for a stove which will answer most requirements—say one of 6 feet by 6 feet by 31/2 feet—six rows of atmospheric burners will be necessary to heat it, while it will be also advisable to fix pipes of 11/4 inch internal diameter from the gas meter to the stove. ”

“ The good points of the stove are that it can be made by anybody in a half day's time; it does not smoke the camp, does not black the cooking utensils, gives the maximum amount of heat from the minimum quantity of fuel, and will not give out or go bad unexpectedly in the middle of the winter. If you leave it to me our camp will be equipped with a sheet iron stove. While the stove itself is not now to be considered, we must know before we commence to build what form of heating and cooking apparatus will be installed. ”

“ The iron stoves, being mostly composed of thin plates, soon absorb and radiate the heat; and although this property enables them to rapidly warm an apartment, it has the disadvantage, if the stove becomes red-hot, of allowing the escape through the heated metal into the surrounding air of the carbonic acid generated in the stove; and furthermore, in its immediate vicinity converts a portion of it into carbonic oxide. Such stoves must necessarily be unsafe unless used in well-ventilated apartments. ”

“ The reasons given for failure in any particular point are innumerable, and all cast the burden of blame on the poor, inoffensive stove. There never was such a miserable cooking-stove. The fire won’t burn, or it burns too fiercely; the oven won’t bake at all, or bakes so furiously that everything you trust to it is ruined. It smokes, or the gas escapes, and fills the house with the offensive odors; it burns out more coal in one day than should be used in two; the dampers are useless, or the grate cannot be turned over. ”

“ Nowadays, only peasants sleep on the stove, and they literally sleep on top of the huge, mud-plastered stone oven, close to the ceiling. In dwellings other than peasant huts, what is known as the "German stove" is in use. Each stove is built through the wall to heat two rooms, or a room and corridor. The yard porter brings up ten or twelve birch logs, of moderate girth, peels off a little bark to use as kindling, and in ten minutes there is a roaring fire. ”

“ Open all the draughts of the stove, close all the covers, and light the fire; when the cinders are lighted, add fresh coke and coal gradually and repeatedly until a clear, bright fire is started; then partly close the draughts. To keep up a fire, add fuel often, a little at once, in order not to check the heat: letting the fire burn low, and then replenishing it abundantly, is a wasteful method, because the stove grows so cold that most of the fresh heat is lost in raising the temperature again to the degree necessary for cooking. ”

“ Another effect of the over heating of the stove is to desiccate or parch the air, and to render it irritating when breathed. The fire-clay stoves are free from these drawbacks, and continue to radiate from their surfaces a large amount of heat, even when the fuel with which they have been supplied is consumed. ”

“ The vital thing in the gas stove is the burner and its regulation. Nothing will compensate for poor burners, poor insulation, poor heating. Some stoves are so made that the linings come out and can be easily washed and greased with kerosene thus keeping them in excellent condition. ”

“ The kerosene stove is cheaper to operate than a gas range, even with kerosene at fourteen cents a gallon, but the heat is not under such perfect control, and the stove requires more work to keep it clean.
The one important point in the management of this blue-flame wick stove is to keep the flame down by having the wick low, and where it belongs. The cylinder around the burner prevents the escape of heat and carries it to the utensil above. A careless person, by raising the wick too high, and producing a yellow smoky flame, makes much trouble for herself. ”

“ The most common modes of cooking, where open fires are relinquished, are by the range and the cooking-stove. The range is inferior to the stove in these respects: it is less economical, demanding much more fuel; it endangers the dress of the cook while standing near for various operations; it requires more stooping than the stove while cooking; it will not keep a fire all night, as do the best stoves; it will not burn wood and coal equally well; and lastly, if it warms the kitchen sufficiently in winter, it is too warm for summer. Some prefer it because the fumes of cooking can be carried off ”

“ There is often an unnecessarily large amount of heat lost through faulty construction of stoves and lack of judicious use of fuels, which greatly enhances the cost of preparing foods. Ovens are frequently coated with deposits of soot; this causes the heat to be thrown out into the room or lost through the chimney, rather than utilized for heating the oven. In an ordinary cook stove it is estimated that less than 7 per cent of the heat and energy of the fuel is actually employed in bringing about physical and chemical changes incident to cooking. ”

“ Kerosene stoves are made with no wick, the kerosene being vaporized just before it reaches the burner, but such a stove requires occasional pumping to force the kerosene into the vaporizing chamber, and on the whole is less satisfactory than the stove with the wick. The heat is intense from this blue flame, and the burner is economical of the fuel. The small kerosene stoves, burning with a yellow flame are always inclined to smoke, and difficult to keep clean. A three- or four-burner oil stove with a portable oven will do the cooking in summer for a family of five or six. ”

“ Then again, if you employ electricity, whether it is more costly or not, you do not have to put in so strenuous a flue system when building a house, but just a hood over the stove as a vent to carry off cooking odors and a special wiring system. You do away, too, with the draughts necessary for coal or wood types and all the contingent engineering niceties, which harass and wear you if they are not perfection.
The body of the stove should be built of non-rusting iron. Armco rust-resisting iron is often used in the best grades of stoves. ”

“ The addition of small quantities of fuel at short intervals so long as continuous heat is needed, is far better than to let the fuel burn nearly out, and then add a larger quantity. The improper management of the drafts and dampers has also much to do with waste of fuel. As stoves are generally constructed, it is necessary for the heat to pass over the top, down the back, and under the bottom of the oven before escaping into the flue, in order to properly heat the oven for baking. In order to force the heat to make this circuit, the direct draft of the stove needs to be closed. ”

“ Of paramount importance is, of course, the stove, and what kind it shall be, whether gas, coal, or oil. Those of us who have grown accustomed to the immunity from those inevitable accompaniments of a coal range, ashes, soot, dust, and heat, afforded by the gas range, with its easily regulated broiler and oven, could hardly be persuaded to go back to first principles, as it were, and the coal range. But when this is necessary, either for warmth or because there is no gas connection in the house, one has a wide choice of first-class stoves and can hardly go astray in selecting one. ”

“ Before stoves for cooking came into use in the home, food was cooked in open fireplaces. Even when wood was the only fuel known, a stove for burning it, called the Franklin stove, was invented by Benjamin Franklin, but not until coal came into use as fuel were iron stoves made. For a long time stoves were used mainly for heating purposes, as many housewives preferred to cook at the open fireplace. However, this method of cooking has practically disappeared and a stove of some kind is in use for cooking in every home. ”

“ Cooking by gas is less heating, and consequently less tiring to the person employed, than cooking by a coal-range. Construction of Gas Stoves.—The oven of a well-constructed gas stove is made either entirely of cellular cast iron and jacketed all over with slag wool, or it is made with a double casing with an intermediate hot-air jacket. This is necessary to prevent heat being conducted from the oven to the surrounding air. The gas-burners are not always inside the oven ”

“ Its function is not that of a wick at all. It is rather the self-starter of the stove and its business is to light the oil and start the cooking. The stove is lighted by applying the match to the kindler which is saturated by oil (from its very position) and this ignition of the kindler furnishes sufficient heat to the surface of the oil to turn it into a gas. After the burner is started the heat automatically keeps the gas forming (vaporizing) as long as there is oil in the burner. So you can see that all the kindler does is start the gas ball rolling. ”

“ They are usually unsightly, and they—even the most economical—rob the room of the bright, cheerful, moral influence of warmth with light. But none of the objections to which stoves are liable attach to their use under the arrangement we advocate. The stove is not placed in an unventilated room, but in a strong draught. No particle of air ever gets warmed twice over. None is forced into contiguity with the heating surface. It takes up as it passes that surface its modicum of caloric, and wings it way to impart it to all and everything of a lower temperature than itself ”

“ Something, no doubt, has been done in the direction of economy by the invention of new and improved forms of stoves, but a great preponderance of the heat generated in the fire of even the best stove goes up the chimney. The electric oven, as already invented, is perhaps the nearest approach to a really economical "cooker" that has yet been proposed; but even before the general adoption of such an apparatus there will be ample room for improvement in the cooking stove, first as regards insulation, and secondly in the distribution of the fuel around the objects to be heated. ”