Old Common, Day to Day Technology. Waht do you hang onto?

[Larry Caldwell]

That was one of the big selling points when we bought our current (1830s vintage) house. Propane stove & hot water, woodstove for heat and gravity feed well. Water pressure isn't very high (~20 psi), but it's enough to do everything we need, including showers. We do have a couple oil lamps, but LED lanterns or headlamps (for reading) work better.
We put in the woodstove, PO had a couple of propane parlor heaters to supplement the rather creaky old oil furnace. The original brick chimney didn't look too promising, so when we got the woodstove we also put in a new SS chimney.

We do have a generator (3500W pull-cord start), but we've never needed to use it other than periodic exercise runs. Mainly got it for summer outages to keep the refrigerator & freezer running...start it and let it run for an hour or so 2-3x/day if needed.

We also do canning. I'll pass on the scythe though, ditto for crosscut saw and splitting wedges.

I have a 6 lb. splitting maul that I use. I rented one of those motorized wood splitters once and for $2000 new it was just as much work as the $40 maul. I still have an old 5' buck saw, but it's a decoration on the wood shed. The chainsaw is worth its weight in gold. Wood splitters not so much.

Just for keeping the freezer cold I have a little 2-cycle 1000w camp generator that I paid $149 for. It runs 4.5 hours on a gallon of gas. I have never been lazy enough to leave fuel in it, so it has been running fine for 15 years now. I use it to charge the batteries in my travel trailer too, when I go duck hunting.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Not tech that I've hung on to but actively sought... a hand bellows for my wood heater.

Every so often I'd sleep past the 0200-0330 window to add wood to the fire = embers. I'd have to blow onto the re-built fire until I was blue in the face & light-headed. The obvious answer was to use a bellows but they're really not made anymore.

Picked one up at a local antique shop!

The local farmer's co-op stocks them. So does Home Depot.

Pleasant Hearth Fireplace Bellow-FAZ - The Home Depot

 

[Larry Caldwell]

I collect watches, the two mechanicals are Rolex and Tissot, all the old pocket watches are fusee, also collect clocks and have an Atmos which never needs winding, accurate? not really.

I have a grandfather clock. I call it my gravity clock, since all it take to run is gravity. It took a while to get it regulated, but now it runs pretty accurately. I also have a gnomon in the front yard, but that is just a decoration, since US time zones don't have anything to do with what time it actually is.

 

[bunyip]

I have a grandfather clock. I call it my gravity clock, since all it take to run is gravity. It took a while to get it regulated, but now it runs pretty accurately. I also have a gnomon in the front yard, but that is just a decoration, since US time zones don't have anything to do with what time it actually is.

Have a look at the atmos, no gravity, no winder, no solar power and been around a looong time, they can be regulated but are fiddly and very delicate.
I have one from the 1930's that needs fixing but it has to go back to the maker in Switzerland and cost is prohibitive so it just sits in a box somehwhere.

 

[Wagtail]

The local farmer's co-op stocks them. So does Home Depot.

Pleasant Hearth Fireplace Bellow-FA4Z - The Home Depot

That link is a very pleasant surprise as the bellows shown is the exact same look and design as the antique that I bought.

Which goes to prove the premise of this thread.

 

[Alan W.]

Truck with manual trans and crank windows.
Windows XP, funny how that is considered old tech.
Non smart home
No adornment not even wedding ring. When Im asked what my wife thinks about it I just tell them shes seen me naked and doesnt worry.
Still use a riding mower instead of a zero turn.

On the other hand I love my 4K TV.
Hate fluorescents and cant understand the reason to hold onto incandescents.
Would never go back to biasply over radials.

 

[Oaktree]

I have a 6 lb. splitting maul that I use. I rented one of those motorized wood splitters once and for $2000 new it was just as much work as the $40 maul. I still have an old 5' buck saw, but it's a decoration on the wood shed. The chainsaw is worth its weight in gold. Wood splitters not so much.

I never had much luck splitting with a maul, sledgehammer & wedges worked much better. Love my splitter...bought it secondhand for $400 and it's worth every penny. MUCH faster, and easily splits stuff I would never get split manually.

Windows XP, funny how that is considered old tech.
Non smart home
No adornment not even wedding ring. When Im asked what my wife thinks about it I just tell them shes seen me naked and doesnt worry.
Still use a riding mower instead of a zero turn.

On the other hand I love my 4K TV.
Hate fluorescents and cant understand the reason to hold onto incandescents.
Would never go back to biasply over radials.

XP is old tech...it's been around for almost 20 years. Not to say that's a bad thing...still got a couple XP machines myself. Other than some security fixes, I don't see that newer OSs really have anything on it.

No smart home here either, don't even have wi-fi (other than one laptop don't have anything that uses it).

Rider mower here too, don't see any advantage to having a ZT...actually, it would make more work for me since there are a couple places the wider deck on ZTs wouldn't fit thru. And they're a LOT more expensive.

As far as lights, I have a mix of incandescents, LED and fluorescents. I'll replace older lamps as they burn out, but can't see throwing out perfectly good ones either. And incandescents don't cause radio interference.

Only have a 32" tv. Our living room isn't so big as to need anything larger, we don't watch much tv anyway.

 

[Big Barn]

That link is a very pleasant surprise as the bellows shown is the exact same look and design as the antique that I bought.

Which goes to prove the premise of this thread.

Ah. The cordless model.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I have a grandfather clock. I call it my gravity clock, since all it take to run is gravity. It took a while to get it regulated, but now it runs pretty accurately. I also have a gnomon in the front yard, but that is just a decoration, since US time zones don't have anything to do with what time it actually is.

I have a grandfather clock i built around 30 yrs ago. Also a coocoo clock i bought in germany.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

I have a grandfather clock i built around 30 yrs ago. Also a coocoo clock i bought in germany.

Yeah, we have an old Regulator school house clock. We've had it probably 50 years, and it was an antique when we got it. I don't know how old it is really.