Heating the house in the 1940s and 1950s: the coke-fired boiler

The living area of the house was the kitchen, and it contained a coke-fired 'boiler' which heated water and sent it through a pipe into the hot-water tank in the bathroom which supplied the hot taps in the kitchen and bathroom. A second pipe returned the water to the boiler for reheating. Apart from heating water, the boiler also gave out a great deal of heat. Every reasonably modern house seemed to have one, and many older houses seemed to have had them fitted. So the kitchen was a warm and cosy living area. In the winter, we seldom moved out of it in the early 1940s when my father was away in the army. The bathroom was also warm because it was directly above the kitchen and housed the hot tank in it airing cupboard.

The bedrooms were, however, freezing, and for some reason which I have never been able to understand, I was told it was unhealthy to have a hot-water bottle. The lavatory was also unheated.

In our house - and I suspect in most other houses at that time - things changed slightly in the second half of the 1940s when the men returned from the war. My father would eat his supper in the kitchen, but then it was deemed appropriate to heat the sitting room for him. This involved lighting a coal fire, which my mother did about half an hour before he came home. She had done all her housework in a house that was unheated, apart from the kitchen and bathroom.

Even after the men were back, rationing continued and everyone had a mind-set of austerity. So it was only on very rare occasions that the gas fires in the bedrooms were lit. We did, though, sometime in the early 1950s acquire a paraffin heater for the hall and a portable electric fire. The house did not have central heating until the 1960s.

My memories of the house in winter are of always being cold. Even if there was a roaring coal fire, it caused a draught and one was cold on one side and scorched on the other. It was a relief to get to school where there was central heating.

This website Join me in the 1900s is also known as Join me in the 1900's and is © Pat Cryer.

The 1940s and 1950s are also written as the 1940's and 1950's