It was brought to my attention:
1) that Berwyn Homes built in the mid-1920's were heated by coal.
2) that Coal came in different sizes.
I found this article for those, who used coal and wondered what size they need to get. http://nepacrossroads.com/about14181.html (http://nepacrossroads.com/about14181.html)
The house I grew up had a big oil drum inside the basement.
The 1st house I bought in Chicago and the house I currently live in use natural gas. However, at least one of the houses, I rented had been a coal burner.
The house I grew up in on Cuyler used coal, we switched to natural gas sometime in the early 70's. I remember what a big deal it was when the coal truck came by to deliver the coal, and the coal bin in the basement.
Our bungalow and I assume many more used coal to heat.There was a room in the basement with a window where the coal was shoveled in.Later we had a oil conversion, the tank was put in the coal room.The smell remained from the coal & oil smell was just as bad.After was an gas conversion, never did we think of replacing the furnace until the 60's.Many of these old octopuses still exist today! A friend of mine just replaced his this year.Air conditioning was provided by window units,just think of removing them every fall and putting them back each spring
A few years ago we had are hot water system taken out was very inefficient.Was replaced with two high efficient forced heaters,this was because of the size of our home, gas bills cut in half!
Marcy, you will find much of this corroborative, I trust. Berwyn Senator, a boyhood friend of mine, and I, grew up within 3 blocks of each other, though I never met him until I was almost out of high school. He helped us immensely. When my folks left the bungalow, the senator drove the rental truck for us to their new house up in Michigan. What times those were! Tumultuous, to say the least, since my family was steadfast in the dictum of buy a house, keep it forever, die, then the kids take over. Times were a'changin'.
berwynson