| Housing
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1. What you take for granted2. The love of my life |
 Enterprise-Fawcett  Lister diesel  Water heating diagram  Polar Bear Club |
1. What You Take For Granted Kerosene to Electricity In the early days of lighthouses all lighthing was by kerosene lamps with wicks. When electricity first came to the lights, it was only for running the main light and occassionally for operation of the foghorn solenoids. Sometimes a knowledgeable principal keeper would wire in a light to his house - a single cable hanging from the ceiling with a small wattage bulb - usually in the kitchen. Later came large generators and a bit more power. I say a "bit" more. My first station at Pulteney Point  had a 5 KW Kato generator run by a two-cylinder Lister diesel engine which supplied power to the main light, radio, and foghorn controls. The rest was left to be split between the three keeper's houses. In 1969 our house was only one year old but had one electrical outlet per room and only two circuits per house. To have boiled eggs and toast for breakfast we had to wait until the principal keeper had finished cooking his breakfast - or cook before he got up - remember, we were on shifts. We would plug the hotplate in one outlet in the kitchen to boil the eggs (oil stove was so-o-o-o-o slow for boiling water) and the toaster in an outlet in the back room (different circuit). That way both would be ready at same time! I remember the wives comparing times when they would be doing ironing. If you overloaded the circuits the engine would shut down and the main light would go out. This was a no-no!
Later the Coast Guard increased the size of the generators so that we had forty (40) amps (amperes) per house for electrical current but compared to a modern house in town running 100 amps minimum we still had to be careful. We generated 220 volts at 60 cycles but depending on the length of run of cable to the house, this could drop to 210 volts and 57 cycles. We never could run an electric clock on any lighthouse as the cycles were so erratic. You could lose 5 minutes or more in a day! By the time I left in 2001 the maximum we had was 60 amp breaker boxes in each house but if you didn't watch it you could still overload the engines and shut them down. Unfortunately overloading was not the only problem. In the early days we had two 5KW (kilowatt) engines coupled to two-cylinder diesel engines. We would run one for a week, shut it down, do an oil/filter change and start it up again. If it had too many hours on it we waited for a replacement and ran the standby, praying for a ship to deliver the new engine. This worked very well. We checked them hourly for oil leaks and opened and closed windows for ventilation depending on room temeprature and weather. Later, when the government got it into its head to try automating everything, they attached all kinds of sensors to our trusty diesels. Well the engines worked great but the sensors were always malfunctioning and shutting down the engines. We had oil temperature and pressure sensors, high and low voltage sensors, air temperature sensors and battery voltage sensors plus . . . I've forgotten all the reasons that a sensor could shut down an engine. And it did. We had an alarm in the house which sensed when the power went off (usually at night when we were sleeping) and rang a loud bell. Up we got from bed, dressed and headed up to the engine room. Hopefully the standby engine had kicked in but usually it didn't. If the sensor shut down the engine it usually shut down the control panel. Once we reset the panel, fired up the standby engine (just in case it was the poor engine's fault), checked out the problem engine, switched engines and wrote our log books and notified Coast Guard Radio that our light had been off it was usually time to start getting ready for our first weather of the morning at 3 AM (0300). The other problem when the engines went down (shut off), we had to first assume that maybe it was because we had put too large a load on them, so it was a run around the houses to unplug anything that drew heavy amperage such as kettles, hotplates, heaters, washers, dryers, etc. Then when all was working normally again, we would go around and plug them in again. This made for an easier load on the engine after it started. Also, in later years things like TVs and computers didn't fare too well if left on when starting up an engine! We even tried to conserve on energy when microwave ovens first came out. I had read that they used half the power of a normal cooking appliance so I and the assistant ordered one each. Unfortunately the managers at Coast Guard had not kept up to date and confiscated the appliances pending a study! I finally told them that they would have to pay our credit charges while they decided what to do and so they released them to us to use. They were a dream! Consider that most of our supplies in the 70s to 90s came frozen. The microwave was great boon to quick defrosting and reheating. We still had the old oil stove for slow cooking and keeping the coffee water hot, but the microwave made us modern! Another problem we had was washing machines. The only Coast Guard approved machine was a wringer washer! What the heck! We had the power. We had the water. So what was the problem? I have no idea. First of all Coast Guard supplied us in the mid 1960s with all heavy appliances - fridge, freezer, washer, and stove. This made it easier for them to transfer us to another station as they did not have to move these appliances. The problem with the washing machine was that they had no idea about living on a lighthouse. Of course we collected rainwater for drinking and washing. Of course it was limited but we were in control of that. The first washing machines supplied were these apartment-sized combination washer spin/dryer machines - not even big enough to take one double bedsheet let alone dirty clothes from two kids.. When ours arrived on station I immediately sent it back on the helicopter and bought our own machine. This wasn't confiscated but it was a lot of paperwork getting it shipped out as it used "too much water"! Water from the Sky (fresh and salt!) But what about water, showers, washing you say? Well, rainwater was collected from the roof in the rainy season and was stored in a cistern in half of the cellar. In the earlier days our roofs were cedar shingles painted with Coast Guard approved oil-based red paint containing lead. Good for the ships and metal but not too healthy for us. The rain ran down over this paint into cedar gutters (more colour and flavouring) and then through solid lead elbows into galvanized steel pipe and then into the cistern. This combination of lead, steel, and wood didn't seem to flavour the water too much but probably wasn't too healthy by today's standards. Later we had Duroid shingles. The water was collected from the roof where it flowed into the gutters, down the downpipes into the cellar cistern where it either passed through a sand and rock filter* first or the filter was on the other end and filtered the water coming out to the house pump. I preferred the latter as it required less maintenance but we had to trap all the needles and leaves, bugs and other stuff that landed on the roof before it entered the cistern. By the use of external traps which usually had to be emptied daily in rainy season we managed to keep the water relatively debris-free. Usually once a month a cup or two of chlorine bleach was thrown in to the cistern tank (depending on rainfall and amount of water in the tank) to kill algae and bugs. That was fresh water falling into the cistern - fresh water with salt flavouring! In a storm sheets of salt water would be flying through the air and hitting the houses. I don't know where the salt went but we didn't really taste it too much but it did crystallize out in the pots and kettles as a scale and cause a bit of green colour on the copper fittings, etc. In the pre-electricity days this water was hand pumped to a forty (40) gallon (182 litre) galvanized hot water tank laid horizontal in the attic. The hand pump was in the bathroom next to the toilet and in many cases an overflow pipe was situated just outside the bathroom window. When doing your "sit down thing" on the toilet, you would pump the handle of the wig-wag pump mounted to the wall until the water came out of the overflow pipe showing the tank was full. By gravity, the toilet was flushed, the shower was operated and water for washing dishes was available too. Dishes were washed by hand as was the laundry. Hot water came from the oil stove (or wood/coal stove in the earlier days). Water circulated through copper coils in the firepot of the stove and by convection filled another galvanized forty (40) gallon hot water tank in close proximity to the stove. It was always a priority before a shower to feel the outside of the hot water tank to see if there was going to be enough hot water for the shower. On winter days, when the wind was howling outside, the flame in the stove would flatten itself in the bottom of the firepot and not give enough heat to the coils. Of course one could turn up the oil flow to produce a bigger flame but occassionally this produced more work as the inside of the stove sooted up with fluffy black carbon and prevented anything from getting hot. The best time was on a calm day when the wife was baking bread. Everybody had a shower and all the clothes were washed. Remember also that this oil stove also heated the house in many cases. Like all old houses the kitchens were large and became the community meeting place, eating place, and study room for school-aged children. It was the warmest room in the house in more ways than one! Well we survived! We survived on 4500 gallons (20,450 litres)* for sometimes 4 to 5 months in the summer dry season with a family of four. We sometimes used saltwater for the toilets, recycled wash-water for the garden and cut down on the washing but we survived. In many a lightkeeper's house was a sign in the bathroom that stated "If it's yellow, let it mellow; If it's brown, flush it down!" and the kids used to say "Many pees to a push!" It was not a problem. The only problem came when and if the cistern leaked, or we had an extremely dry winter, or a large cement project was taking place on station and demanded a lot of water. At these times we were forced to ask the Coast Guard to bring us water. They were very accomodating but after one refill you did not want to try it again! The water came from steel holding tanks on the ships and then into aluminum barges which were then coupled to rubber hoses and pumped up on to the station and into the cisterns. The water was brown and foamy with rust and other "flavours" and could not be drunk for weeks. If we were lucky and still had a third house (leftover from the days of three-man stations) we usually pumped the water from it's cistern into ours and filled it with the ship's water. After a few weeks we could pump it over to our cisterns and hopefully all the rust had settled out. It was pretty grim and was not suitable for washing clothes because of the colour. After the first refill of ship's water we usually did not call on the office unless we got down to the last few inches of water. Think of us next time you turn on a tap and crystal clear water runs out without having to pump it up to the attic first, or hearing the sound of the water pump thumping away every time you turn on the tap. Speaking of the water pump, it was fun having a shower with one of these. The early pumps were electric driven pumps that pumped water into a small pressure tank and then shut off. You could then use the water until the pressure dropped and the pump came on again. This was the cold water line that it was pumping up first so when you were in the shower the pressure would drop and the water get hotter and the pump would kick in and you'd get a cold blast. We learned to get wet, turn off the water (letting the pressure build up), soap up, then rinse off when pressure was higher. We NEVER flushed the toilet at this time (see the "Maxine" cartoon at the left!). The easiest way was to have a bath but we rarely had enough water except in winter, and then you didn't have enough hot water because of the wind effect on the oil stove. By the time I left we had a few jet pumps on stations which kept pressure pretty constant. We survived! * - the average water consumption for a household in British Columbia was 0.5 cubic meter (500 litres) per person per day in 1999. For a four member family that is 2 cubic meters or 2000 litres. At that rate our cistern, if it was full, would have lasted ten days, not 4 to 5 months! * - I had a note from a former lighthouse keeper the other day who is into "enviro-friendly housing". He asked if I had heard the word "schmutzedecke". He said "It seems that the sand filter we used on the lights not only caught bird crap, insects etc. coming off the roof but it also caught pathogens, bacteria, and some bad oxidized stuff from the ocean that landed on the roof too. The schmutzdecke was a biological zone that broke that material down . Adding chlorine bleach, as we were instructed to do, did not kill the pathogens but did kill off the schmutzdecke. I remember being told to fill the filter right up with sand but in fact long hydraulic retention of water above the filter permits development of a substantial biological community (in the schmutzdecke). Also, I was always told to regularly scrape off the top layer of the filter, which actually removed that essential part of the system." Read more on it here from Wikipedia. - John Coldwell (Lightkeeper on Pulteney, Kains, Pachena, Green and McInnes 1969 - 2001) |
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 Enterprise-Fawcett  Our daughter Wendy on 4th Birthday  Firepot Water heating diagram |
2. The Love of My Life! When my wife Karen and I started on Pulteney Point in 1969 the house was supplied with a beautiful white porcelain enamel Enterprise oil cook stove. It had a "polished cast iron cook top, roomy storage drawer, even heat porcelain oven, no- fog oven window"*and a high shelf above the cooking surface. As the lighthouse generators ran on diesel, the stove (and oil-burning furnace) had been modified for burning this fuel. Never having used one of these stoves before we did not not have very good luck cooking on it at first. This talent improved over the years and later we had great success with our cooking and we fell in love with our oil stove.
Actually, depending on the fuel, the weather, or the person, you would either love or hate your oil stove. These stoves were not designed to burn diesel fuel but the lighter and hotter burning stove oil. This stove oil would ignite easier, burn cleaner, and leave less carbon. We could have purchased drums of stove oil and had them shipped to the lighthouse via the Coast Guard ships but diesel was readily available and could be purchased at lower cost. Diesel is hard to light except when in a fine mist from the injector of a diesel engine. Ours just ran by gravity from the carburetor (actually a glorified mechanical shut-off valve with a reservoir for oil) into the bottom of the firepot (see diagram of the firepot at left). In here we threw a lighted wood kitchen match and hoped it would ignite something before the match went out. Later we learned to use a small piece of lit paper instead which acted as a wick. Then we waited and watched until more of the oil heated up and started to vaporize. Depending on the wind speed this could be fast or slow. When well lit we turned on the fan for air and closed the firepot lid and waited for the stove to warm up enough to create its own draft. This sounds like an easy job but if the stove was cold it could take a long while to heat up. If hot, then we had to be cautious it didn't heat up too fast and explode. Also, most firepots were lined with copper water-heating coils which collected soot. These sat just above the firepot and below the stove top. They entered and exited therough the rear of the stove. The inside of the firepot was earlier lined with cast iron fire rings (later replaced by stainless steel). These rings helped "lift" the flames above the bottom of the pot by heating up and creating a secondary burning surface for the vapourized oil. When lighting the stove these presented an additional hazard as they were in the way, making it more difficult to get the match or fire paper into the pot. Holding a flashlight with one hand as the inside of the pot was black with soot and ash, we would manouever the fire-lighting material through the coils and fire rings, meanwhile trying to avoid the soot and not burn our fingers. With the wind blowing this sometimes took many tries. The stoves used a standard eight (8) inch blue-steel stove pipe with a wind-damper inline which was to prevent strong gusts from putting out the fire. Similar pipe and damper were also used on wood stoves. Anyone who has lit a wood stove will know the routine. This stove pipe ran into a brick chimney or in some occassions straight out through a collar in the roof. OK, the diesel fire is lit, the covers all closed and the fan running. Perfect! If you were looking at the stove from the front, the hot exhaust and flame from the burning oil in the firepot (left side of the stove) travelled up through the middle of the water-heating coils and across the top of the oven below the flat cooking top. From there it travelled down the right side of the oven, under the oven and exited at the back up the stove pipe. This flow of heated exhaust gases warmed the oven and the stove top, and the house. It was a perfect arrangement. We could keep things hot on top; cook, or dry things out in the oven, store things on the shelf to keep them dry (salt) and keep pans warm and rust-free in the drawer. It was a perfect arrangement. Well, almost! Depending on the quality of the diesel oil (summer/ winter grade, rust, water, additives, etc.) the fire would burn differently. The diesel was picked up in Esquimalt, BC by the Coast Guard ships for their own use and for re-supplying the lighthouses. It came from steel tanks, went into steel fuel tanks on the ships and from there it was transferred to aluminum barges to come ashore at the lightstations where it was pumped through long hoses and two-inch steel fuel lines to steel holding tanks. We then pumped what we required to a 250 gallon fuel tank in our basement (early years). This was great. The oil was warmed by the household air and so burnt better. The tanks did stink a bit in the cellar but we got used to it. They really did stink when you overfilled them (which happened a few times!). The fuel was pumped by a little car fuel pump up to the stove carburetors. When on "idle" (low flame) the carburetor would pump (make a bumping knocking noise) about every 15 seconds. When on high (baking bread or cooking roast) this little pump would go crazy, making its bumping noise every few seconds as more fuel was required. The copper fuel line to the stove had an inline felt filter to pick up sediment, rust, dirt, etc. The only thing it would not stop was water. Water got into the bulk tanks through condensation, or a mishap in delivery. When water got into the system all shut down for hours of cleaning. We could usually recognize the water sound as the carburetor fed it into the hot firepot and it sizzled and bubbled as it evaporated. Eventually more water would displace the oil and the stove would go out. Later, for safety reasons, the house storage tanks were moved outside. This gave more chances for water to get in and if extremely cold, turned the summer (thicker) diesel into a thick, waxy, sludge which again shut down everything. A small "trouble-light" could heat the fuel line enough to melt the sludge and the oil would flow again. One time we had a delivery of diesel oil that contained an acetone-like additive. This stuff burned like wildfire in the stoves. Never had a better fire in the old oil stove! Could have used that forever. Unfortunately it had a bad effect on our diesel engines and caused the fuel injectors to slowly plug up and stop working as the residue from the additive clogged the exit ports. One after another the three-cylinder diesels shut down after about 24 hours running time. Just before the last diesel went down the cavalry (CG technicians and helos and ships) arrived with fresh clean diesel to dilute the contanminent. Never did find out what it was but sure smelled like acetone. Nobody would confirm it but I wish I knew what it was. It made diesel burn with a nice blue hot flame.* Hooked to the hot water coil inside the firepot were two copper lines that went to a forty (40) gallon, insulated, hot water tank which stored the convection-heated water while the stove was running. (see similar diagram at left) As we also used the stove to heat the house, the stove was on all the time. This way we had lots of hot water for washing and baths. On top we kept a large coffee pot of water so we had hot water for coffee or tea. Wet clothes could be hung on the sides where we had installed a towel rack, or hung on the oven door handle. Many a wet shoe was dried on the rack above. When we really wanted more heat and cooking was finished we just opened the ove door. The heat was constant and regular and the house was always warm. Many cold helicopter pilots and engineers and others used to come in and even before taking off their shoes, they would "hug" the warm stove sides to warm up their hands and legs. It was a perfect arrangement. Well, as I said before, almost! Besides the fuel, the next problem was the weather. On a nice calm summers day, the stove burned beautifully. With a light breeze the stove burned beautifully! With a 20 knot wind the stove burned beautifully, but with strong gale force winds and/or gusts the damper was banging and slapping against it's stove pipe tee and the flame in the firepot was rising and lowering like a charmer's snake. The only thing to do was to turn up the oil flow and create a bigger fire to make it's own draft greater than the wind speed. This worked to some extent but the gusts made the diesel smoke, and soot started to build up on the inside of the stove. We loved it when Karen made bread in the windy weather. Stove was on high, water was hot, and the fire burned hotly. We had fresh bread, hot baths, and a clean stove. A dirty stove was not something to look forward too, but sometimes was a necessary evil. The soft carbon from the diesel would build up in the firebox, on the coils, the underside of the cooking top, and under the oven. The hard ash would clog the fuel flow from the carburetor and eventually the stove would not operate at all. Then came the dirty work. On with the coveralls and dirty gloves (I kept a special set of each for this job). Off with all the cooking surfaces exposing the "innards" all clogged with soot worse than a smoker's lung. I rigged up my own Shop-Vac (vacuum cleaner) with a long pipe from the exhaust which trailed out the door so that any soot that wiggled its way passed the vacuum filter ended up outside the house. First, make sure the clinkers in the firepot are cold before vacuuming them up. I heard of one fire in a vacuum cleaner when hot coals were sucked into the paper vacuum sack. (another reason for using a Shop-Vac with a metal drum). Another incident that I did witness (after the fact) was the cold hard clinkers sucked into a normal household vacuum and cutting the bag. This then left all the soft carbon soot to be pumped out through the hole at vaccum force all over the house behind the lightkeeper. What a mess! Once cleaned, the stove was re-assembled and re-lit. It work beautifully. Well . . . the only other thing that could mess up a good diesel oil fire was a helicopter. On McInnes they used to approach the landing pad into the NW summer wind directly over the house. The downdraft from the helicopter forces the exhaust gases back down into the stove and loosens all the carbon from the inside of the stove. This then exits from the damper and any cracks on the stove plates. The first time this happened we returned to the house to find everything around the stove covered in soot and ash. Live and learn! Later I asked the pilots to try and fly a different route and if impossible (while slinging) I fabricated an aluminum cover for the stove pipe to deflect the downdraft and I put the stove flame out for that period. Some people just didn't like the oil stoves. I'll admit, they were fussy at times, but all I remember was the wonderful warmth from them. They were the centerpiece of the house. From it came good foods, warm water, dry clothes and utensils, and heat for the whole house. *"Exclusive Enterprise Features" quoted directly from the Enterprise-Fawcett webpage. *"A side-effect of this contamination was that the very same ship that fuelled us up was put out of commission by the very same fuel, and had to be towed back into port. - John Coldwell (Lightkeeper on Pulteney, Kains, Pachena, Green and McInnes 1969 - 2001) |
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| John Coldwell (retired BC lighthouse keeper) Galvanistrasse 8 A-4040 Linz, Austria Tel: +43 (732) 750515  |