Anyone here ever use Carbide to light home?

Greg1959

Well-known Member
Just reading about the use of Carbide and how it was use for light in homes. I didn't know that...."Carbide lighting was used in rural and urban areas of the United States which were not served by electrification. Its use began shortly after 1900 and continued past 1950. Calcium carbide pellets were placed in a container outside the home, with water piped to the container and allowed to drip on the pellets releasing acetylene. This gas was piped to lighting fixtures inside the house, where it was burned, creating a very bright flame."


Any of y'all ever use it? My Grand father did in the coal mines but not in the house.
Poke Here
 
My Granparents had carbide lights in the house in eastern Montana.I remember as a kid how nice it was to have bright lites all we had was kerosene lamps.We had a 6 volt wind charger on the house that charged 2 big glass batteries but that was only for the radio,that was our entertainment.Ron
 
I remember my dad talking about it, have found the piping in some of the old houses I worked on.
 
The Methodist church here had carbide
lights with the "generator" out back. It
was all gone by the mid 1940s. When I was
a kid some of the old men would explain how
it worked.

Don't recall the system being used in any
of the houses around here.
 
MT RON- I looked on the member map and see that you are in Montana. I am camped out for a few days in Billings. Are you close to or far from Billings?
 
I remember showing up for work at a neighboring farm in about 1962- boss and an old neighbor were trying to get an acetylene generator going. There were several hiccups in the process, and he ended up deciding that we would probably all be killed sooner or later, so he scrapped it.
 
when I was in high school, I had an evening job, clean up around this welding shop. welder had a portable rig with a carbide gen. on an old chev 1-ton,. well, he pulls behind shop & drains this white milky stuff outa that carbide unit, hollers @ me-'hey, I gotta run for a bit, take water hose & bla-bla- than--bla-bla & i'll be back-----Folks, when ya put the water in wrong compartment, on top of da new carbide---!!!//.,. ( no, it didn't blow, I caught my goof-up quick, but it whistled !!)
 
"I heard a Racket!,And I whuupt my Carbide LIGHT around to see what it was, It shown a Mans face , And It LIKE SCARED ME TO DEATH , cause We wus hunting on this mans Place. It was John Eubanks" ,/////.i have seen these carbide lights on OLD trucks at Lanesville Heritage weekend Shows, Used to see them at auctions as the clutter of tools on hay wagons.never used a carbide lamp ,
but Helped teardown a house that had gas lighting in the walls about 1970 as a boy We Used Kerosene Lamps nite fishing // One of The Things I Would love to see is a working Lite Plant on display . On This farm,i tore down the lite plant building in 1984, still have a couple of GOULD battery cells from the old lite plant that ran everything on the farm here in 1930.. i am told where i live Elizabeth Ind. area did not get
Rural Electric til after W W 2 ,,.. Yet Dubois Co. Ind Where my German heritage mother grew up had nearly the whole county covered by 1934 with rural electric //// Do you Guys Know Who was hunting with that lite and uttered those words in HIS Stories ?
 
Kerosene lamps and 32 volt DC Wind Chargers were popular in our area before REA installed electric lines.
 
Both my Grandpa's used carbide lights in the coal mines in Western Arkansas.

Never heard of carbide being used for home lighting either in the past or present.

Hadn't thought of carbide lights in a long time.
 
I have several lamps. One is nickle plated brass another is just brass, and a third is ABS plastic. Just-Right brand. We used them for Raccoon Hunting, we (my dad and the Fire Department) also used a massive one to light up a sledding Hill several times in the late 50s. We have used the hunting lights inside during power outages. Jim
 
That's funny that you mention Kerosene. Seems that out here (west usa), nobody knows what a kerosene is. Back in East KY, every gas station had a dedicated pump for Kerosene.

You ask for Kerosene out here and no one knows what you are talking about. But, Mernards sells Kerosene heaters...explain that one for me???
 
The house I am living in has the pipes in the walls. The light fixtures had already been taken down but the pipes are in the walls. They lead down to the basement here. I am sure the acetylene generator was in the basement/cellar.

My Great Grand Mother's house had a working system in it when I was in grade school. She refuse to allow wiring to be ran in the walls of the house as she was afraid of them causing a fire. She was fine with a acetylene BOMB in the cellar but now wires in the walls. LOL

The lights gave off a good bright light. The current owners of that house took the original fixtures and had electric light put in them. They are quite pretty.
 
I have several carbide lamps, used mainly for coon and fox hunting. Most are the small ones that clip on your hat, but I also have a large one that hangs on your belt and has a big reflector on a headband. It has a hose from the belt to the reflector, and it makes a very nice light.

When I was a young man and enrolled in welding classes, the instructor's first lesson was about acetylene generators. He said that if on your first welding job you walk into the place and discover that they use an acetylene generator, turn right around and leave to look for a job at any other place. It was not a question of IF that thing would malfunction, it was a question of WHEN it would malfunction, and you did not want to be there when it happened. I've only seen two acetylene generators in use in my lifetime. One was owned by a very intelligent and cautious blacksmith/machinist, and it never malfunctioned to the point of destruction. The other one was also owned by a very intelligent and cautious blacksmith/machinist, and I was one block away when it blew all of the doors off and blew all of the windows out of his shop. It seemed like a miracle that he wasn't seriously injured. It burned all of his hair off that wasn't covered by his cap, and even left little white marks on his red face for each BB on the little chain between his welding goggles. It is a good memory because he survived, even though the shop did not. So - my view is that anyone who survived the use of an acetylene generator had the Lord looking out for him.

No - never saw it used in a home in this area (Southern Illinois). My brother had gas lighting in his big old house in Buffalo, New York, but I don't know if it was city gas or acetylene generator gas.
 
I have 2 of the kerosene heaters that I use for some backup heat. The only places that I know of here that have kerosene are the bulk oil distributors where they will fill your own can. There are a few places where you can buy 5 gal pails prepackaged. It is almost twice as much for the prepackaged as filing your own can though.

Steven
 
My great grand father built the house where my grandparents lived sometime before 1900. It had pipes in the walls and a carbide generator outside below the house with piping into the basement & connected to the inside piping. This was most all in place until the 1960's when the generator was removed and the hole filled in. Sometime before REA brought the power line to that area (late 30's), Grandpap installed a Delco system for lighting which was replaced with standard electric lights when the lines came thru. Granny still used a coal stove into the 60's but they did have a freezer, electric water pump, electric vacuum pump for milkers and Electric cooler for the milk.
 

Dad had one of those carbide gas lamps he used for coon hunting but he later switched over to a head lamp that used a small rechargeable motorcycle battery that clipped to his belt.
 
A friend in Southampton County in Va. had a huge old plantation house, and out back was a carbide generator "well", a covered pit about 6 feet diameter. Piped into the house, where the carbide lamps used to be. I never saw it operated.
 
My maternal grandparents had carbide lights in the house with the generator in the basement. When they got electric after WWII the pipes were used as conduit to run wires for the lights. This was before my time but my mom and uncle grew up that way.
 
There are several carbide gas generators in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. Rural electrification in the 1930s would have killed off the use of carbide. Both of my parents were raised in homes lit by kerosene lamps; I think gas lighting was a bit of a luxury.
 
My grandparent had carbide lights with actlene gas piped into house in NW Oklahoma. Later used a windcharger with 12 volt lights, Got REA rural electric in 1949. Also had carbide light system at rural church. My uncle had a carbide generator for acetylene welding.
 
My Grand Parents house had carbide lights in it at one time. The house was built by a Confederate veteran and he updated it several time till he died in about 1920.
The carbide generator house still stands about 100 feet behind the house. It was built with very thick rock and poured concrete walls. After my Grand Parents bought that farm in the 30's, my Grandma used the building to store her canned goods.
The main house is being taken down and stored to be used at the Foothills Farmstead working exhibit here in our community. Al the work is being done by our son with my cousin helping him.
An old carbide generator has been found and will be set up when the house is put back up.
Richard in NW SC
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I wonder now if that's what was in a house just south of town that was remodeled recently? They said it had pipes all through it and they thought it was for gas lights. It's too far out of town to have been natural gas. I'd bet now that it was for those carbide lights. I'll be darned. Learn something new every day.
 
My father had a carbide miners lamp that he used for hunting, and our neighbors had a carbide generator for their acetylene torch. There is a acetylene generator here in AZ at the Goldfield Ghost town.
 
Thanks, that house saw a lot of kids raised up.
That porch was a great place to sit and feel a cool breeze on a hot day.
I spent a lot of time keeping that house in good shape for my Grandma who died at 91 in 1985.
The Foothills Farmstead project is really an undertaking.
Richard
 
Thanks. My Grandpa bought the house and 153 acres in the 30's for $5000 and was afraid he could not pay for it. He had it paid for in 5 years growing cotton.
 
Never had it in the house, but I'm only a young pup, but in my grandfathers farm account book for 1917 there is a bill for ploughing which has an entry for carbide for lighting.
 
Back when I moved o Missouri my dad worked in a tour cave and because he did I ended up in a cave exploring club. We use the carbide lamps to explore the caves and I still have one or 2 of them laying around some place but the carbide is hard to find now days
 
How many time do you need to be told I do not care what you think or have to say leave me alone period
 
My brother bought a hobby farm near Warrenton, VA in the 80s (?) which had a generator half-buried in the yard. First time I heard of them.
 
often used for fishing. Put carbide in a jar, add water & quickly seal it up with a concrete block tied to the jar. It sank in the pond or pool & exploded as the gas pressure built up til the jar exploded. Proportions & speed were critical.
 
I was an underground miner for over 40 years. I started after the carbide lamp era. I have carried one when exploring old mine workings as a backup to my battery light. Extremely bright light. I have been collecting them for awhile and have a few. If anyone on here has one that they wouldn't mind letting go, I really would appreciate the opportunity to purchase it. Carbide is available but getting expensive.
 


Don't know if it is still done but years ago target pistol shooters blackened the sights on their guns using a carbide lamp flame.Cut out any reflected glare.
 
It was out of service before I ever saw it, but some friends of my Dad near Bourbon Mo. had a carbide generator that was in a little block house by a spring, and the gas was piped up the hill about 40 yards to the house. Would sure have liked to see that in operation, but I was 30 or 40 years too late.

On another note, a welding/blacksmith shop in Potosi had an acetylene generator (carbide and water) he used for many years till one day it blew the entire back wall out of his shop. Luckily he was not back there at the time and was not injured. The acetylene generator was not too badly damaged and could have been repaired, but he put it in the scrap pile and bought acetylene bottles after that.
 
They may know what kerosene is here in the Eastern states, but they treat you like a terrorist when you go to buy some. You have to provide ID, and sign a ledger indicating how much you bought and what you intend to do with it.

So I just buy diesel for my heaters.
 

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