Equator by Lennox Furnace question

Hey, I came across this antique wood burning furnace today. It was in an old one room school house, but I was told that it wasn't original to the school house. I'm not an expert in fireplaces or furnaces, but I'm wondering what the large crescent shaped box was on the back. It looks like it's plumbed so the exhaust from the furnace travels in the top, then exits the bottom only to travel back up through the chimney.
Anyway, thanks for your help!
Al

Al Cart : - Not really all that old the design falls into place about the time of the launching of the Titanic -notice the major use of rivets to make an
air (and smoke ) type fittings - tho it probably was being produced as late as the 1930s-

The idea was to allow the hot exhaust gases to rise up inside the Curved crescent part stratify and as they cooled only the coolest would fall down
to the smoke pipe hole and exit via the chimney, This also had a tendency to reduce smoke back when the '' Wind was blowing from the wrong
direction

Originally the whole thing wood have had a sheet metal shell around it (thinK stovepipe grade ) and hundreds of thousands were also equipped
with a blower cabinet containing a Squirrel Cage fan to warm distant rooms via attached warm air ductwork ( and cold air returns )

I have a pre world war 11 model setting in my basement that went thru a conversion process to make it a Fossil Fuel Fired Forced-air Furnace -
probably 50 years ago !

This is a back-up to my back-up to my plan to go south for the winter !

For the Good of the Crafts ! Big AL

OK, thanks for the info!

I am sure you could burn wood and small furniture items in that stove but by chance do you think it could be a coal burner? I'm no expert on furnaces but I don't recall ever seeing a down draft heat exchanger on a wood burner. On the other hand I used to have a coal burner with that exact same configuration! It had a vertical dome top cylinder fire box, two doors with aggressive air intake top and bottom, and down draft heat exchanger with a 9 inch flue pipe. Mine was built in 1916 and the bottom door was modified with an auto stoker.

The air intake system is better fitted for coal burners that sucked air up through the shaker grate. Much of coal ash would melt together into "klinkers" and the "fly" ash was usually too heavy to blow about much. Wood stove air intake would almost always be above the grate to preserve the bed of coals and keep the ash from blowing into the flue system.

I bet if you posted that picture at hearth dot com you would get an authoritative answer answer rather quickly.

Kittum Daniel : Yes Certainly, all these older units were coal and wood fired, The shaker grates were reached thru the lower "Ash Door ''

A very beefy Crank not much smaller than the crank used to 'crank start' a '' Model T'' would be mated to a triangular socket in the shaker grate

and the Handle was rotated through maybe 100º of arc to shift ashes and Klinkers, When a hot coal fire was needed, a bed of coals was made

to save the grates from being over heated !


Models like this were still common in Army barracks in the 70s and 80s, and they could really blast out the heat after you had that initial bed

of coals and the Coal started out gassing hydrocarbons ! A low blue flame meant you could go back to bed for 3-4 hrs before tending it again-

Because the guy who tended his barrack fires was excused from morning formation ( he was the 'Accounted for ' in the morning formations

cry of All present or accounted for) it was a job some people tried to get ! You could always tell who that guy was in the chow line because of

the Smell of "Coal gasses'' that clung to him !

For the good of the Craft ! Big AL

I have a old Lennox TZ (Torrid Zone) Coal/Wood Burning Furnace. It is still in use, today. It was taken out of a old house, in the 1960's. The house was much older than that, probably closer to 1900., as was the stove. Does anybody have any information and pictures on how The Lennox TZ Coal/Wood Burning Stove looked when it was new? Mine had the outer portion removed, so all that remains is the stove, itself.

That stove will definitely burn coal. You can tell by the draft controls under and over the grates. Under for burning Anthracite Coal, and over the grates for burning off the gasses for burning soft coal.

I am not convinced it had tinwork and a blower though. It would be easy to hook up though.

I have a Lennox TZ 10 30 . It came out of a Catholic church  I have been burning wood in it for over 30 yrs. I would like to know if any one has grates, and bottom ash door for one. Does any one know about how old this furnace is? We have an old DRAFTY farm house in north Iowa. It has 12" chimney pipe outlet also.