My Life in the Little Brown House, part 18: Basement, Heating, and Laundry

But to return to the subject of the little brown house. I’ve covered to this point the main floor and the upstairs, now for the basement. The steps to the basement, leading from the landing outside the back door to the house were rather steep and narrow, and closed by a door at the top. At the bottom of the stairs to the left was the small pressure tank for the soft water system in the house. Beside the tank was the small motor-driven pump that drew water from the cistern outside the house and charged it under pressure to the tank (so that it would flow to the faucets in bathroom and kitchen upstairs). The cistern was supplied by water from runoff from the roof, via eaves troughs and downspouts. Being “soft” and uncontaminated with calcium, magnesium and iron salts it was preferred for use in laundry and washing dishes, also for bathing uses.

The soft water also made its way through the heating tank associated with the cook stove — the hot water was a byproduct of the use of the stove for heating and cooking. So the supply of hot water was somewhat limited and dependent in any event of the cooking done. The “cold” water taps in the house were connected to the town water supply which came from a well, and was accordingly charged with dissolved salts. It was used for cooking and drinking. My mother had of course the ubiquitous “tea kettle” sitting on the stove at all times and it was naturally cared with city water. A layer of precipitated salts would gradually build up in the kettle and periodically my mother would chip away at the layer (my recollection was she used a large screwdriver and a hammer) to remove it to a workable thickness. I may have assisted her in this task as I recall that the layer was really not hard, more like a rather soft friable rock. Unless I had actually worked with it, I can’t see how I would have been aware of its consistency.

The pressure tank for the soft water was only supposed to be charged to a certain pressure level, so the pump and motor charging it needed to be shut off when this level was reached. This was done by someone watching the pressure gauge and pulling open the open (uncovered) switch when the appropriate level was reached (if there was an automatic cutoff it had over time ceased to function). I recall that this task on occasion fell to me. I had doubtless been warned about the switch and the bare copper contacts, but with nothing to occupy me as I sat watching, my thoughts were captivated by the switch and what I had been told about its function. Anyway, once when I shut it off I decided to touch the bare copper legs of the switch — fortunately on the side next to the motor so there was no potential involved. Nothing occurred of course. For some unfathomed reason I didn’t pursue the investigation any further.

The basement generally was divided into two parts longitudinally. The north half contained the furnace (convective hot air) which was located about in the middle of the room. On either side were the areas where either coal or corncobs were stored — for use either in the furnace, the stove in the kitchen or in the small stove in the laundry section. The coal was kept in the west end, the cobs to the east. The coal was of course purchased but the cobs came from farm sources — I remember once assisting my Uncle Carl when he was delivering some cobs to the house. One had to be careful in charging the furnace that the fresh fuel did not snuff out the actual flame. If the flame went out there was a source of ignition, the fuel smolder for awhile, generating a combustible mixture of air and gases which when it got hot enough (from the underlying bed of embers) would burn suddenly, generating a pressure surge in the furnace fuel box. My parents referred to this happening as the furnace “puffing.” I think I was asked to charge the furnace on occasion (thought not to the extent that this was my duty when we were living out on the farm).

The south half of the basement was divided into two rooms, the larger of which (on the west) contained the laundry equipment. This consisted of a small stove which my mother used to heat the water for the washing process; for this she used a large copper wash boiler. The boiler had a lid, stood maybe 15 to 18 inches high and was roughly rectangular in horizontal cross sections, with rounded corners.
















Copper boiler

Some of the clothes were literally boiled in the wash boiler, mainly I suppose white items. The washing machine had a wooden tub, made of staves like a barrel. The agitator was electric motor-powered. After the washing in the machine was complete the clothes were put through a wringer into the tub of an old, manually-powered washing machine for rinsing. And, my recollection, from there through the wringer again into the wicker basket from which they would be hung out to dry. The white or light-colored items were washing first, followed by progressively darker and dirtier items, ending up I suppose with the coveralls my father used in his milking chores. For the white clothes a treatment with bluing was always in order, to counteract a tendency for white items to develop a faint yellowish tint.
























Wooden washing machine