What do wisdom teeth, body hair and the appendix have in common with a Sawdust Stove Chimney and Cooler Cabinet vents? They are all vestigial, of course! In terms of humans, vestigiality is defined as traits or organs which have lost all or most of their original function through evolution. A heritage house is no different from the human body. Heritage homes and their systems evolve over time, such that certain features lose their function in today’s world and become purely architectural.
In 1995, when we moved into our 1926 home, the house was dated way beyond the orange shag carpet in the living room and the brown shag carpet in the bathroom (yes, there was carpet in the bathroom!). The kitchen came with bright blue plywood cupboards, one of which had slatted shelves and mesh-covered vents that lead directly outside. At first, we thought it was a pie safe where pies could cool without being swarmed by flies. However, we soon realized that it was a “California” Cooler Cabinet that was used to keep food cool. The slats to the exterior were the key to keeping the food cool. The Cooler used a simple convention system; the hot air would rise and go out the top vent, while cooler, fresh air would come in the bottom vent. Due to the presence of slatted shelves, the air could move freely throughout the cabinet. A California Cooler was clearly a valued feature of the kitchen at the time as shown in the real estate ad below.
1912 Real Estate Ad marketing the California Cooler as a selling feature of the kitchen.
Although we removed the cabinet in the process of installing a new kitchen, we decided to leave the exterior vents in place as a link to the past - although we replaced the mesh with a piece of wood.
The upper and lower vents are visible to the left of the window during our kitchen renovation.
What is remarkable about these vents though is that they were built in keeping with the decorative moulding around the doors and windows on the house, thus becoming architectural features of our home, despite being put out of business by the refrigerator! That is the thing about heritage homes; the quality of workmanship tends to be much higher than what we see in most new houses today.
The California Cooler vents with the same architectural moulding as the windows and doors.
Another interesting architectural feature of our home is the 2nd chimney off the kitchen.
Sawdust-burning stove chimney to left, off the kitchen.
Although the home had an electric stove when we bought it in 1995, it was clear from the stash of sawdust under the rafters in the basement that the chimney was originally used as an outlet for the smoke from the sawdust-burning stove. Given that North Vancouver was a thriving centre for logging and milling wood, it makes sense that a major source of fuel in the 1920’s was sawdust. While I don’t have any images of a stove of this type, this YouTube video provides some insight as to how the sawdust stove works. Sawdust Stove - YouTube.
As well, in my research on this topic, I came across this article - “Family Life at Parkhurst Before the Modern Kitchen” - which outlines the life of the Kitteringham family, who said they used 8 large pails of sawdust a day to fuel their stove. They also mentioned that they put sawdust into bins to store potatoes, carrots and other vegetables over the winter in their root cellar. I imagine that John Bull, the man who built our house, and his family would have done the same. When we bought the house, there was still an unfinished basement, complete with shelves full of undated preserves (no, we were not brave enough to try them!) and a large tin bin.
Bin which may have been filled with sawdust to keep vegetables cool in the Root Cellar.
When we had the roof re-done some years ago, the roofers suggested we remove the top part of the non-functional sawdust-stove chimney. We declined as we felt this vestigial chimney is an integral architectural feature of our house.
So, these are two examples of vestigial features of our home. Do you have any additional examples of vestigial features which remain in your home? If so, please feel free to share those with us and we’ll write a sequel to this story.