Pressure Atomizing Oil Burner Equipment and Systems – Oil Pumps
A rotary, low pressure, fuel oil pump, with carbon separator blades, heavy steel rotor, in cast and machined steel body, with classic black/green enamel finish, and original external piping connections, a marker of the 2nd wave of automatic home heating, pump assembly technology for the Canadian home, partial pump assembly only, manufacturer unknown, Circa 1924.
Features: Natural carbon blade
Technical Significance:
From the vantage point of the early 21st century the evolution of automatic oil fired home heating equipment would be seen as generally advancing in four broad waves, each of which would take place over a considerable period of time, each producing many variations of the genre:
1. Vaporizing, non-motorized and non-electrified, technology [see Group 11.01 artifacts, no. 11.01-1]
2. Elemental, motorized, platform mounted technology with peripheral piping and valving components [see Group 12.01, artifact no 12.01-1, and pump assembly 12.06-1]
3. Compacted motorized technology with inherent, peripheral component parts engineered into the pump assembly [see pump assembly Group 12.06, artifact, and 12.06-2]
4. Functionally integrated, motorized technology, beyond being compacted, a number of functions would be smoothly integrated into a single pump assembly, including piping and valving [see Group 12.01, artifact 12.01-2 and pump assembly 12.06-2]
By the early 1930’s the Canadian oil heating industry was progressing well beyond simple, gravity feed, vaporizing oil-heating equipment [wave 1] moving to elemental, motorized, electrified, designs [wave 2], using low pressure mechanical atomizing burners with rotary, carbon separator blade pumps [see ID# 12.06-9].
This pump assembly is, then, a marker of the second wave. It is associated with the earliest years of electrified and motorized oil heating equipment to be found in Canadian homes
A hallmarks of the design is the use of carbon, separator, rotor blades. Carbon was a natural choice, as a natural substance, which tended to be self lubricating and self-positioning, wearing to cylinder wall to maintain a close running tolerance and quiet operation – all this in a period long before the availability of more sophisticated engineering materials
A hallmark of this technology of the period would also be its massive weight, as represented here by this 10 lb., toe crushing, partial pump body. But the look was a preferred one in the culture of the times, by a public still spooked by the seeming inherent dangers represented by un-attended, automatic oil heating equipment in the home. Among other things it must look, feel and in fact be solid.
Industrial Significance:
A marker of the manufacturing techniques of the times