Page 39 - It's a Rum Life Book 3 "Ivy House Tales 1970 to 1984"

CHAPTER 7

THE SMOKE SCREEN
The Arabs decided to jack up the price of oil. It was the early 1970’s, the exact year
escapes me now but it was not long after we have moved to Ivy House where we had oil
fired central heating.
There were about 20 radiators in that beautiful house. Some had been made especially to
fit under the windows of the kitchen where we had bench seats and the remainder were
large big capacity cast iron arrangements similar to those many of you will remember
seeing in your schools.
The pipe work feeding these was all two inches in diameter. It took some oil to power that
lot and even then in the winter the main rooms had open fires as well.

HEATING EFFICIENCY
It was actually during the time before my ‘retirement’ from the Firestone corporation and I
still had a good regular income but even so we decided a change was necessary.
I had already begun to purchase firewood supplies from an annual wood sale on a large
country estate some 15 miles north in the heart of the ‘Wolds’ country, so had a good idea
of the comparative cost of using timber instead of oil. The timber won hands down even
after only the first few hikes in oil prices. Little did we all realise how this one fact was to
change all our lives forever. Inflation, something previously unconsidered because it was
not there before, had come to stay.
So, wood it was to be and as soon as possible.
More research found us two solutions, the first in the form of a Scandinavian wood burner
based on the same principles as a steam engine boiler. Something with enormous
capacity to heat the house efficiently and with the burning capacity to take wood or straw
bales. The second was to be a multi-purpose wood burning cooker that was to be installed
in the kitchen and also connected into the heating system. This eventually transformed the
large 15 foot square, high ceilinged kitchen which became one of the warmest rooms in
the house.

We found a specialist dealer in
these quite ‘new fangled’ wood
burning units near to
Nottingham.
They had become agents for an
English made boiler working on
the same principles of the long
established Scandinavian
makes, but with a substantial
saving in initial cost. The saving
helped purchase the tall
stainless steel double skinned
chimney which eventually cost
almost as much as the boiler
itself!

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