The Monster in Our Basement
Remember as a kid how the basement used to always be a freaky spot? Well, I’m all grown up now and still find our basement to be scary, especially because our friends refer to it as The Blair Witch Basement, which doesn’t really help. Anyways, this is what terrifies me the most…
It’s our boiler, or the contraption that heats our house. Let’s try an experiement and see if it looks less threatening from a different angle…
No, not so much. Pretty scary, huh? Wanna know what makes it especially horrifying? That grayish-white stuff all around it is asbestos. We’ve been told there’s no need to worry about the asbestos unless it turns into a powder we can inhale or we decide to start gnawing on it for some reason.
The boiler is original to the house, which means it’s been heating this home for 95 years. It used to be coal fed (the coal shoot is the second door from the top). We had a special inspector look at the boiler when we were buying the house and he assured us it’s in great shape for its age, although it’s not very efficient, and might last another 8 years. That was 3 years ago. So, replacing this ancient piece of equipment is definitely part of the remodeling plan. I don’t know anyone else, besides us, who would buy a house with an almost 100-year-old boiler in it.
I’ve lived in a house since I was born in 1990 that has an original coal room and industrial size boiler. The only thing that frightens me about it is how there was a fire from the boiler once many many years ago, granted I doubt that’ll happen again… but it still has charred wood above the back of the boiler.
My house is a stucco house built in 1926… your boiler doesn’t frighten me, I love old objects… mine’s about 3 times the size of yours I do believe, it has 2 tanks up top, and the major oil burner at the bottom… the coal room used to feed right into it, we still have the working coal room but obviously the furnace no longer runs off it.
So I looked at a house today with one of these working monsters in the basement. I think we might buy the place, but I’m wondering if we should get it replaced sooner rather than later. But if it’s working, the we should just keep it. What did you do with yours?
Well, we’ve been in our house for 8 years now and ours is still doing fine. We get cleaned and serviced every other year by the local plumber who has been working on it for decades. According to him, it’s still going strong. Knock on wood though. Watch it fails tonight! Good luck with your house hunt!