Odd domestic question - cordwood stacks

[Guest Jack Benson]

Hi,

 

Growing up in rural Germany, the cordwood stack is fact of life. Lovingly maintained and all family responsibility, these features of backyards, field edges etc. are still evident (a recent 62% rise in cost of ‘free’ firewood delivered) 

 

Given that the US has embraced propane for domestic use, was the cordwood stack a ‘thing’ in rural areas of the NE States in the ‘40/50s?  
 

I can’t find a US image but the enclosed image is suitably German.

 

Thanks

 

 

[dave1905]

In the 1940's, 1950's propane wasn't a thing in the rural US.  

 

Heating and cooking in cities and towns was mostly coal in the east, often anthracite coal, and oil in the west.  Coal was later replaced by oil and then after that by natural gas or propane.

 

Often homes and businesses had a bunker in the basement under the house or porch with a small metal hatch that coal would be loaded into or they had a coal box in the back.  Obviously in a very poor or rural area, if they couldn't afford coal they would use wood.  You mentioned the "Waltons", since they owned a sawmill, it would only be logical for them to use wood .  In 6th through 9th grade, I lived in a house in Pennsylvania that had a coal bunker under the front porch, with an oil tank in it and the furnace was a former coal fired furnace with an oil burner installed in the side.

 

Conditional answer.  Yes, cordwood was used.  No it wasn't universal.  The more urban an area the more likely to use coal, the closer to a railhead the more likely to use coal.  The closer to the 1960's the more likely to use oil.  Propane in the 1940's and 1950's would be relatively rare.

Edited October 10, 2022 by dave1905
Misspelling

[dave1905]

Addition:  If it is a more rural home with a wood burning fireplace (typically a home from the 1800's or earlier) it will have a wood pile.

 

More urban homes in cities and towns will be less likely to have a wood burning fireplace unless they also date from the 1800's and haven't been converted to coal or oil by the 1950's.

[pH]

1 hour ago, dave1905 said:

More urban homes in cities and towns will be less likely to have a wood burning fireplace unless they also date from the 1800's and haven't been converted to coal or oil by the 1950's.

Our suburban house, built in 1976, had two wood-burning fireplaces. We used them for a few years, into the mid-1980s, before replacing them with gas fireplaces.

 

When we replaced them, we gave away a significant amount of cut wood.

[dave1905]

Since Jack's area of focus is the 1950's in upstate New York, I pointed my answers that way.  Yes, in the more suburban, upscale homes in the 1960's and more commonly in suburban homes  in later years would have "decorative" wood fireplaces, and then possibly a wood pile.  Over the years we had some "suburban homes" that had wood fireplaces but never had a wood pile, we never used the fireplace that much.

[doctor quinn]

In rural New Hampshire  my godparents had a cordwood stack in the 1990s