Feckin cold

franko said:
Just my observations of the changes. I do remember when we were supposed to freeze to death. Movies were even made to call it out. I remember one being about a girl having a nightmare that she was burning up in the heat, but was actually freezing to death.
I also remember many places burning coal. Schools, factories and homes. The coal trucks pulling up. The back of the truck rising up, Men with square canvas bushel baskets having the coal dumped from the raised truck box and dumping it down the coal chute into the basement. Cinders being used to pave driveways and even tracks.
As their coal towers were torn down decades ago, I thought they were out of business. I was wrong https://wisconsin.wholesale-durable.org/657904-schneider_fuel_supply_co.htm https://wisconsin.wholesale-durable.org/657904-schneider_fuel_supply_co.htm
If you look at my profile, you will see that I am a field construction boilermaker.
I believe in the late 60s or early 70s anti pollution equipment was starting to be developed. Precipitators https://www.google.com/search?q=how+does+an+electrostatic+precipitator+work&client=firefox-b-1-d&sca_esv=37d8bbf9c1461c28&sxsrf=ACQVn0-hNzSN9T_jgFE1kLITGALv0xqL9w:1714495474997&ei=8h8xZqu1PKzUp84P95aiwAM&oq=precipitators+meaning&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiFXByZWNpcGl0YXRvcnMgbWVhbmluZyoCCAYyChAAGLADGNYEGEcyChAAGLADGNYEGEcyChAAGLADGNYEGEcyChAAGLADGNYEGEcyChAAGLADGNYEGEcyChAAGLADGNYEGEcyChAAGLADGNYEGEcyChAAGLADGNYEGEdIl1NQAFgAcAF4AZABAJgBAKABAKoBALgBAcgBAJgCAaACB5gDAIgGAZAGCJIHATGgBwA&sclient=gws-wiz-serp
Bag houses https://iac-intl.com/baghouse/
Scrubbers https://www.machengineering.com/how-wet-scrubbers-work-to-remove-air-pollution/
I was an apprentice when the Pleasant Prairie Power Plant was being built. https://www.wgtd.org/news/pleasant-prairie-power-plant-ends-operation
When were on the roof of the boiler house (250' up) we could pick out the cities by the brown haze over them. Racine, Milwaukee and such.
Toward the end of my working years, working at the plant, we would take break on the roof. I could no longer pick out the cities.
The point of what I'm wondering about. Has the removal of particulates from the air allowed more heat to find its way to earth? The timing coincides with freezing/lack of pollution controls to warming and pollution controls. When I ride on roads that are shadded in spring time, I can come upon section of ice, while unshaded areas are actualy hot. The same is true when riding after the rain has ended. Dry in the open, wet in shade.
Did the lenendary London Fog start to disapate in this same time frame? The moisture would cling to the coal dust particles?
I ride through the forrest of southern Wisconsin. They used to be cooler. The tmber was mostly sold off, so there is not much teperature change when entering them now.
I'm not advocating returning to pollution, just trying to state what might be another added cause to what is causing our problems.
My qualifacetion is that I finished High School.
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I remember the excitement of the coal truck coming to my Grandmother's house, opening a door to the coal chute into the coal bin in her basement. She would pack wet towels around the door to the basement. Then a couple of hours after the delivery go in the basement and gently sweep up the coal dust and put it in the furnace along with a couple shovelfuls of coal.

I was once told that the "London Fog" was really smog - no clue if that's true, but I've been to cities where there appeared to be fog that was actually smog and it was damned near unbreathable air - in the early 70s if you were on NY Ave in Washington DC in the afternoon in August, you would swear that you were in a garage with the doors and windows closed and a car running! In those days I was required to wear a tie - glad I was since it gave me something to breathe through.

In the late 90s I went to Seoul Korea in August on a military mission. I remarked about how terrible the air was in the city. I was shown an official US military report stating that the US military considered a day in Seoul to be equivalent to smoking 7 packages of cigarettes in a day. Fortunately, I was staying outside the city where things were only bad, not terrible.
 
40 years ago moved from an apartment by a high traffic city street to a rural farm. Could increase from one pack of cigarettes to two packs per day and felt better.
 
50 odd years ago I was on a military mission at Ft. Lewis, WA. It was called basic training. That was my first and last experience with coal heat. There was a rotating night duty of "fireman," whose duty was not just to watch for fire but to stoke the coal furnace. Since these were temporary barracks the Army had not seen fit to install oil burners, Iron Firemen or other automatic feed. They were built for WWII training. Fifty years later, I wonder if they are yet standing.

Not only did the coal furnaces keep us up at night stoking them but the combination of dust and coal smoke produced a lot of URI (bronchitis) trips on sick call in the mornings. Eventually the brass disallowed sick call for bronchitis and said "tough it out bucko." Mind you this was April in Western Washington where 30 years later, in Dec. 1998, it rained 98 days in a row and the Mt. Baker ski area had 40 feet of snow lining the parking lot. Still in spring '68 we had dust. Ten years ago I couldn't take the rain anymore and moved to the dry side of the mountains. Now it's unseasonably dry but still freezing most night and we're worried about wildfire and smoke this summer. What's a body to do?
 
Thomasa said:
50 odd years ago I was on a military mission at Ft. Lewis, WA. It was called basic training. That was my first and last experience with coal heat. There was a rotating night duty of "fireman," whose duty was not just to watch for fire but to stoke the coal furnace. Since these were temporary barracks the Army had not seen fit to install oil burners, Iron Firemen or other automatic feed. They were built for WWII training. Fifty years later, I wonder if they are yet standing.

Not only did the coal furnaces keep us up at night stoking them but the combination of dust and coal smoke produced a lot of URI (bronchitis) trips on sick call in the mornings. Eventually the brass disallowed sick call for bronchitis and said "tough it out bucko." Mind you this was April in Western Washington where 30 years later, in Dec. 1998, it rained 98 days in a row and the Mt. Baker ski area had 40 feet of snow lining the parking lot. Still in spring '68 we had dust. Ten years ago I couldn't take the rain anymore and moved to the dry side of the mountains. Now it's unseasonably dry but still freezing most night and we're worried about wildfire and smoke this summer. What's a body to do?
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Fort Bragg NC. 1970 I was a fireman, keeping the furnaces in the WW II wooden barracks going. There were three of us ,on duty 24 hours ,off 48. On still nights the cars in the parking lots would have a fine layer of soot, ash on them . Had to shovel out ashes and feed the furnaces with several 5 gallon buckets of coal. The soot would blow back when a bucket of coal was thrown in . After a round, every 3 to 5 hours, I would snort water up my nose to clear the soot, nobody mentioned any thin about a mask or respirator ( it was 1970 ) I volunteered for the 2 days off and not having to pull KP or guard duty.
 
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I have to wonder what kind of coal you were using. Soft coal is pretty dirty you do better with hard coal.
"Phoebe Snow stays clean and white upon the Road of Anthracite"!
We cannot even mine coal now in the UK.
 
Onder said:
I have to wonder what kind of coal you were using. Soft coal is pretty dirty you do better with hard coal.
"Phoebe Snow stays clean and white upon the Road of Anthracite"!
We cannot even mine coal now in the UK.
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One of my fav movies is Brassed Off about a pit band and Thatcher's pit closures. Makes me feel for the miners and the musicians who played in the pit bands.
 
My Dad said that after the war (WWII) the Army was tasked with manning the coal mines over in the UK. My experience is with a different kind of pit. I did a deployment to Iraq with a P-3 squadron, we were quite south of Baghdad @ COB Adder/Tallil and the burn pits were at the departure end of the runway, needless to say, the wind almost always blew that damned thick black smoke into our H.A.S. To this day if I laugh too hard I end up having a coughing fit that lasts way too phreakin’ long. (I was also exposed to asbestos and copper berillium dust courtesy of Uncle Sam, fortunately no mesothelioma yet) it’s all in my record and if I do develop mesothelioma, the money kicks in…or so they said…anyway that’s some money that I don’t want. Cj
 
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