Saturday, July 02, 2005

Coal heating


Until 1950 most of Parisian homes where heated either with wood or with coal. In "modern" buidlings there was a central heating system with the boiler in the basement. Therefore the coal was delivered by coal dealers and kept in a special location in the basement of each building. During winter, the Concierge (building superitendent) would regularly load the boiler with coal to allow the heat to spread to the radiators throughout the apartments. Needless to say, it was not very environmentally friendly and not very efficient...

Nowadays, I don't think anybody uses coal anymore, but there are still many remains of this era; like the coal feeder you can see in this photo and that you will see on many old buildings throughout Paris and other large cities in France.


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9 comments:

  1. les photos sont trés belles mais ne pourrait-on pas avoir les commentaires en Français?

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  2. My building (1923) had this heating system until relatively recently (~1975). I remember the mess it was when the coal was delivered. The furnace had to be loaded twice a day. Because the person in charge was too lazy, he used to load once in the morning, which ended up breaking the burner.

    Passionnant, non? :~)

    JM-

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  3. Eric, how big is this thing? It is difficult to guess..

    JM-

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  4. > Rock. Yes it was extremely polluting but not to the point of leaving a haze in tha sky - not that I can remember it anyway. But Paris is pretty well ventilated for it's not in a valley like some polluted cities throughout the world.

    > JM. Until 1975! Gee. I did not think that lasted so long (but you leaved in the suburbs, right ;))

    > JM. The size of this feeder is approximatly 50 cm high.

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  5. > Utilisateur anonyme. Merci pour les compliments pour les photos. En fait j'ai commencé ce blog pour faire connaître Paris aux étrangers et il m'a donc semblé plus judicieux de le faire en Anglais.
    J'ai commencé une version française également mais je me suis aperçu que ça me prenait trop de temps alors j'ai laissé tombé. Je suis désolé pour ceux qui ne parlent pas anglais, mais j'ai aussi un - vrai - job !

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  6. t'as aussi un vrai job ? pour ca que t'as plus le temps de maigrir ?... ;-))

    mdr sur le "but you leaved in the suburbs, right".

    marrant de voir que y'a encore des gens qui ont vecu ca. ca fait tellement annees dix neuf cents...

    a noter qu'ici, on n'a pas ce probleme. il n'y a tout simplement pas de chauffage... et du coup, l'hiver, quand il fait 15 degres (et meme parfois 10, quelques nuits par an), ca caille GRAVE.

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  7. Charlus> Oui, c'est etonnant d'avoir vecu le charbon dans une residence 1920, encore tres tard. Un camion entier etait deverse dans les caves par une bouche dans le sol de la cours. C'etait fun a voir quand j'etais petit. Eric vivait dans le meme genre de residence, mais, on l'avais compris, dans Paris, et dans un arrondissement a 2 chiffres; donc "eau et gaz a tous les etages"... ;~)

    JM-

    PS: une plaque "eau et gaz.." ca meriterait une photo.

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