I'm helping a guy fix his house up so he can stop being a landlord and sell the house. It originally had steam radiators (1 pipe) that were replaced with forced air probably around 1990. Pulled up about 6 layers of floor and underlayment in the kitchen and found original maple floors. On the north wall was a hole where the radiator sat. On the west wall (interior between the kitchen and dining room) was the metal top off a coffee can nailed to the floor. Pried it off and there was a hole in the finished floor about 3 or 4 inches in diameter with a hole in the subfloor and a pipe that goes back to where the boiler was.
So the question - does anyone know of any sorts of kitchen accessories that hooked up to the boiler system - chafing dish, coffee maker,etc? Something was obviously there and was fed with hot water from the boiler - its base was attached to the subfloor and then the finished floor was installed around it. The house was built in the 20's by an architect for his mother so he may have been trying something new or different on her house (there's no basement which is fairly odd for St. Louis so the furnace room is behind the kitchen and the wall between the two rooms is terra cotta block for some reason)
I've looked around the internet and can't find anything in the way of accessories for steam heated houses or just can't figure out the right search parameters so any ideas, experience, etc. would be greatly appreciated because this is driving me crazy.