My Furnace
On furnaces, temples, and aprons
It’s been getting cold outside.
For the past few weeks I’ve been warming my home with the fireplace. In it I burn scrap from the local lumber mill. I think that the mill, by giving away its scrap reduces its costs, and as a side benefit, heats a lot of homes in my little city. A wonderful thing all around.
I’ve also got small heaters in the rooms we spend most of our time in, believing it to be much more efficient to heat a couple of rooms than the entire house.
But the fire and the little heaters only work when it is a bit chilly outside. It’s been getting cold.
So on a cold morning a couple of days ago, I switched on the furnace for the first time this winter. The warm air flowing from the vents in each room had the house toasty warm in minutes.
My furnace is an odd thing in the modern world. It is a massive bulk down in the basement, with ducts heading off out of its head in every direction, like an octopus. It burns diesel, and it’s about seventy-five years old.
I’ve read that it will last forever, as long as it is properly serviced at least once a year. I have that done, but it is becoming a bit of a challenge. The company that serviced it for something like forty years stopped doing so a few years ago. I found a retiree from that company who’s done it since, on the side. But this year he told me that he won’t be doing them anymore. It’s OK, I got a line on another fellow, someone from a few towns to the east of me.
The problem is of course that very few furnaces like this exist any longer. There just aren’t enough of them to keep a service business profitable. But, every year the heat exchanger must be cleaned, for if it is not, it could crack, and once cracked cannot be replaced. Such is the nature of owning a furnace that no one has made parts for in decades.
But, it’s OK. It heats the house extremely quickly, with a wonderful dry heat. Unlike the movie A Christmas Story, it never shoots soot into the house, and it requires no swearing. Just as with the brand spankin’ new furnaces at Centralia Lodge, one just sets the temperature on the little thermostat on the wall, and it does the rest.
I took note of the day I turned it on though. I can’t help but notice, because it is expensive. Diesel is over five dollars per gallon here in Washington. One needs to think about burning too much diesel at that price.
I could of course swap it out for something new. Natural gas or electric. Both options would be a lot less expensive to operate, and both options would take up a lot less space in my basement.
But, does it make sense to throw away something that works perfectly just because it is old? Does it make sense to replace something still full of life with something built not nearly as well, that will need replacing over and over again because it is built to be disposable?
One could make the argument that the old furnace pollutes our world more, burning diesel, than natural gas or electricity would. But is that true? Certainly burning diesel creates pollution. But throwing away the old furnace would create pollution. Manufacturing a new furnace to replace it would create pollution. And shipping that new furnace, and its parts, likely from Asia to my home would result in the burning of massive amounts of diesel, in ships and trucks. So is it really true that a new furnace would pollute less? I can’t imagine it.
So, I keep on using my old furnace in my old house. I like it. I like old things. I’ll keep finding repair guys, and I’ll keep buying overpriced diesel, knowing that with political change the price will become more reasonable again.
Yesterday I attended a Masonic Lodge’s Installation of Officers, within the oldest Masonic structure within the State of Washington. Franklin Lodge No. 5 in Port Gamble Washington.
That old building is rather like my old furnace. Delightfully designed, and quite beautiful, from a much earlier time.
We have nice, new, Masonic buildings, and they truly are wonderful. Large stainless steel kitchens that are great to work in. Lots of insulation and modern HVAC systems keeping a steady temperature no matter what the weather is like outside. Comfortable seating, with good acoustics.
But are our old buildings worse because they lack those things?
I don’t think so. I love our old historic structures. I really enjoy seeing and spending time in those beautiful rooms, lovingly created so long ago. Even if they are less comfortable.
Yes, I think those old Temples are like my furnace. They have limitations, and maintaining them is quite a challenge, but they are wonderful because they stand for what was.
In the Jurisdiction of Washington, a Past Master’s apron should be white, with sky blue and silver decorations, illustrated by a symbol combining the Compass and Quadrant. No Square here for a Washington Past Master.
That’s a little different from Past Master aprons in quite a few other Jurisdictions. Lots of them include the Square, and lots of apron companies use different colors or shades of blue.
Many years ago, when I became Master of my Lodge, I went off in search of my own personal, perfect Past Master’s apron. It was after all to be the apron that I would wear for the rest of my life. I wanted something I could be proud to wear for decades.
I looked at the offerings of seemingly every company and crafter out there. I didn’t see anything that met my three criteria:
-The proper symbolism for this Jurisdiction
-The proper color for this Jurisdiction
-A design that was beautiful to my eye
Nope. I looked and looked, and couldn’t find a thing that I wanted to wear for decades.
So, I started looking at antique aprons. That is when I found it. The proper Compass and Quadrant, the proper Sky Blue color. Silk and grosgrain, with accents crafted from real silver wire. It was to me, the most beautiful Past Master apron ever created. Something I could be proud to wear in the decades to come.
This year that apron is ninety years old. It was crafted for and presented to a Worshipful Master in 1933.
But despite my love for the apron, I had very little occasion to wear it. Immediately following my time in the East I was appointed District Deputy. That necessitated a new apron, this in purple and gold. So my old apron has been sitting. Honored, but largely unused.
Yesterday, Franklin Lodge Installed a new Master. A middle aged man, but a man fairly new to Freemasonry. I know that he, like me, enjoys old things. For if he did not, he wouldn’t have worked to become the Master of a Lodge located in a ghost town. I also know that he will be an active, honored, and respected Mason for decades to come.
So, with those things in mind, I gave him my Past Master’s apron yesterday.
In a perfect world, the apron would eventually have been buried with me, or placed in a Grand Lodge memorial specifically built for that purpose, but that was no to be, for other offices, unexpected at the time, resulted in other aprons for me.
I think that by giving it to this new Master, I’m honoring this apron for what it is, and if indeed he wears it as I hope, ten years from now it will be a century in service. How wonderful that would be.
How many great men will it have adorned over that century?
A new apron would come with a comfortable belt to hold it in place. One wouldn’t have to worry about harming a historic treasure while packing it around. It would be without the marks of use and wear.
But just as with my furnace, there is something truly wonderful about a well preserved object from our past.
At tonight’s Rummer & Grapes, W. Tom mentioned an upcoming educational event. The details for it are attached:
Here in Bremerton, our furnace in our temple is an old coal burning furnace, something straight out of a horror movie. It has since been converted to natural gas, but still sits, hulking, in the basement. It to needs regular servicing, the bricks in the inside need to be inspected, cleaned and replaced as necessary. As with your issues finding a company or person who actually knows how to work on such an old device, it's also becoming harder and harder.
It should be replaced with a modern efficient system, hopefully one that provides both heating and cooling as the lodge rooms become ovens in the summertime. But as with some many other old masonic buildings, there are always more pressing maintenance issues that need the funds more urgently, while that old hulking furnace still chugs along.
For the apron, I am sure the previous owner would be proud to see the apron passed along to a deserving brother. Such a simple gesture that allows it's tale to live on.
If it's diesel it will also run on used vegetable oil which restaurants toss out.
You'd have to get one of those kits the hippies sell at Oregon Country Fair to filter the potato and fish sediments out of the oil, and you might need a heating element to add to your burner, but I'll bet the guy who services it for you could tell you how to make it work.
If it's got a boiler on it, you could run it off recovered veg oil and add in under-floor hydronic heating which would let you set the thermostat lower. If your feet are warm, the rest of you stays warm, and also , heat rises.