Fireplace

"We leave it to the political arithmetician to compute how much money will be saved to a country, by its spending two thirds less of fuel; how much labor saved in cutting and carriage of it; how much more land may be cleared by cultivation; how great the profit by the additional quantity of work done, in those trades particularly that do not exercise the body so much, but that the workfolks are obliged to run frequently to the fire to warm themselves; and to physicians to say, how much healthier thick-built towns and cities will be, now half suffocated with sulphury smoke, when so much less of that smoke shall be made, and the air breathed by the inhabitants be consequently so much purer."

"It is owing to this cause that the water at the top of a caldron, before it begins to boil, is always as warm, or warmer, than what is below:—for the particles of water that touch the bottom are no sooner acted upon by the heat below, than they become warmer, and more expanded, than those immediately above them, and therefore rise directly upwards, and give place to denser cold particles, which are forced in their turn to ascend in like manner towards the top."

"The air that enters the room through the air-box is fresh, though warm; and, computing the swiftness of its motion with the areas of the holes, it is found that near ten barrels of fresh air are hourly introduced by the air-box; and by this means the air in the room is continually changed, and kept at the same time sweet and warm."

"With all these conveniences, you do not lose the pleasing sight nor use of the fire, as in the Dutch stoves, but may boil the tea-kettle, warm the flat irons, heat heaters, keep warm a dish of victuals by setting it on the top, &c."

"The earth is every where surrounded with a great body of air, that is called the atmosphere. This air is a thin elastic fluid, possessing some qualities peculiar to itself, but subjected in general to the same physical laws with other fluids; and of consequence it hath a constant tendency to preserve an exact equilibrium in all its parts; so that if at any time the weight of it at one place is diminished, the heavier air rushes from all sides towards that point, till the equilibrium be again restored."

"[A]s it is an invariable rule among all fluids, that those which are lightest rise upwards, and at length swim upon the top of such as are more weighty... so... that when any particles of the same fluid are... rendered lighter, or more weighty, than other parts... they either rise to the top, and give place to the more dense and weighty parts of it, or sink to the bottom, and force the warmer fluid to the surface."

"The air of the room, warmed behind the back plate, and by the sides, front, and top plates, becoming specifically lighter than the other air in the room, is obliged to rise; but the closure over the fire place hindering it from going up the chimney, it is forced out into the room, rises by the mantel-piece to the ceiling, and spreads all over the top of the room, whence being crowded down gradually by the stream of newly-warmed air that follows and rises above it, the whole room becomes in a short time equally warmed."

"At the same time, the air, warmed under the bottom plate and in the air-box, rises and comes out of the holes in the side plates, very swiftly, if the door of the room be shut, and joins its current with the stream before mentioned, rising from the side, back, and top plates."

"It is to be observed, that the entering air will not be warm at first lighting the fire, but heats gradually as the fire increases."

"Its advantages above the common fire-places are, 1. That your whole room is equally warmed, so that people need not crowd so close round the fire, but may sit near the window, and have the benefit of the light for reading, writing, needlework, &c. They may sit with comfort in any part of the room... 2. If you sit near the fire, you have not that cold draft of uncomfortable air nipping your back and heels, as when before common fires, by which many catch cold, being scorched before, and... froze behind. 3. If you sit against a crevice, there is not that sharp draft of cold air playing on you, as in rooms where there are fires in the common way; by which many catch cold, whence proceed coughs, catarrhs, tooth-aches, fevers, pleurisies, and many other diseases. 4. In case of sickness, they make most excellent nursing-rooms; as they constantly supply a sufficiency of fresh air, so warmed at the same time as to be no way inconvenient or dangerous. A small one does well in a chamber; and, the chimneys being fitted for it, it may be removed from one room to another, as occasion requires, and fixed in half an hour. The equal temper, too, and warmth of the air of the room, is thought to be particularly advantageous in some distempers... 5. In common chimneys, the strongest heat from the fire, which is upwards, goes directly up the chimney, and is lost; and there is such a strong draft into the chimney, that not only the upright heat, but also the back, sides, and downward heats are carried up the chimney by that draft of air; and the warmth given before the fire, by the rays that strike out towards the room, is continually driven back, crowded into the chimney, and carried up by the same draft of air. But here the upright heat strikes and heats the top plate, which warms the air above it, and that comes into the room. The heat likewise, which the fire communicates to the sides, back, bottom, and air-box, is all brought into the room; for you will find a constant current of warm air coming out of the chimney corner into the room. Hold a candle just under the mantel-piece, or breast of your chimney, and you will see the flame bent outwards; by laying a piece of smoking paper on the hearth, on either side, you may see how the current of air moves, and where it tends, for it will turn and carry the smoke with it. 6. Thus, as very little of the heat is lost, when this fire-place is used, much less wood will serve you, which is a considerable advantage where wood is dear. 7. When you burn candles near this fire-place, you will find that the flame burns quite upright, and does not blare and run the tallow down, by drawing towards the chimney, as against common fires. 8. This fire-place cures most smoky chimneys, and thereby preserves both the eyes and furniture. 9. It prevents the fouling of chimneys; much of the lint and dust that contributes to foul a chimney being, by the low arch, obliged to pass through the flame, where it is consumed. Then, less wood being burnt, there is less smoke made. Again, the shutter, or trap-bellows, soon blowing the wood into a flame, the same wood does not yield so much smoke as if burnt in a common chimney; for, as soon as flame begins, smoke in proportion ceases. 10. And, if a chimney should be foul, it is much less likely to take fire. If it should take fire, it is easily stifled and extinguished. 11. A fire may be very speedily made in this fire-place by the help of the shutter, or trap-bellows... 12. A fire may be soon extinguished by closing it with the shutter before, and turning the register behind, which will stifle it, and the brands will remain ready to rekindle. 13. The room being once warm, the warmth may be retained in it all night. 14. And lastly, the fire is so secured at night, that not one spark can fly out into the room to do damage."

"[T]he builder of chimneys has been left to grope his way in the dark without assistant; and in almost every instance his attempts to improve upon the practice of his predecessors, have been unsuccessful; so that the inhabitants of these countries, with justice, complain that the inconveniencies felt in new houses from this cause, usually are more than sufficient to counterbalance all the elegancies that modern refinement has introduced into the dwellings..."

"[T]he causes which produce smoke in rooms... may be all reduced to one of the three following general classes: 1. A faulty construction of the tube, vent, or chimney itself; 2. To some fault in the other parts of the building, and a wrong position of the chimney with respect to these; or, 3. To an improper situation of the house with respect to external objects."

"Many are the causes that may tend to destroy this equilibrium of the atmosphere; but the only one that it imports our present discussion to explain the effects of, is ."

"When heat acts upon the air, it immediately makes it expand to a great degree, so as that the same quantity of it occupies a much larger space than formerly. Hence... where a fire is kindled, the air immediately contiguous to it will be heated, and of consequence rarefied, and made lighter..."

"To avoid the several inconveniences, and at the same time retain all the advantages of other fire-places, was contrived the PENNSYLVANIAN FIRE-PLACE, now to be described."

"[T]he flame and smoke will ascend and strike the top... which will thereby receive a considerable heat. The smoke, finding no passage upwards, turns over the top of the air-box, and descends between it and the back plate to the holes in the bottom plate, heating, as it passes, both plates of the air-box, and the said back plate; the front plate, bottom and side plates are also all heated at the same time. The smoke proceeds in the passage that leads it under and behind the false back, and so rises into the chimney."

"There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you won't have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, "Well, your Granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana." No, Sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say, "Son, your Granddaddy rode with the Great Third Army and a Son-of-a-Goddamned-Bitch named Georgie Patton!"

"In small rooms... the chimney often smokes unless the door or window be open, not only because the fire devours and carries off a large quantity of the air of the room, but also because the fire requires a continual supply of air for its support; so that, if a proportional quantity of air which the fire consumes and sends up the chimney does not enter the room (which it cannot do in small rooms with a large fire), the fire languishes, and the smoke increases, since flame is nothing more than a kindled smoke, and smoke is only an extinguished flame, or, at least, not yet kindled."

"I don't approve of open fires. You can't think, or talk or even make love in front of a fireplace. All you can do is stare at it."

"Take a look at the simplest of objects. Let's take, for example, an old chair. It seems like nothing. But think of the universe comprised within it: the sweaty hands cutting the wood that used to be a robust tree, full of energy, in the middle of a luxuriant forest by some high mountains. The loving work that built it, the joyful anticipation of the one who bought it, the tired bodies it has helped, the pains and the joys it must have endured, whether in fancy halls or in a humble dining room in your neighbourhood. Everything, everything shares life and has its importance! Even the most worn down of chair carries inside the initial force of the sap climbing from the earth, out there in the forest, and will still be useful the day when, broken into kindling, it burns in some fireplace."

"Lyndon's gone and dragged Nasser away from the fireplace and onto the balcony again. Once you get him out there, it's a helluva job to get him back to the fireplace again."

"Till more effectual methods can take place, it would be of great service, to oblige all those Trades who make use of large Fires, to carry their Chimnies much higher into the air than they are at present..."

"Workmen should be consulted, and encouraged to make experiments, whether a particular construction of the Chimnies would not assist in conveying off the Smoke, and in fending it higher into the air before it is dispersed."

"[N]ear half the children that are born and bred in London die under two years of age. ...[T]he constant and unremitting Poison is communicated by the foul Air, which, as the Town still grows larger, has made regular and steady advances in its fatal influence. ...[W]e are accustomed to read with great composure of the deaths of thosands of infants, suffocated every Year by Smoke and Stenches which good policy might in a great measure remove."

"And what is all this, but that Hellish and dismall Cloud of SEA-COALE? which is not onely perpetually imminent over her head... so universally mixed with the otherwise wholsome and excellent Aer, that her Inhabitants breathe nothing but an impure and thick Mist, accompanied with a fuliginous and filthy vapour, which renders them obnoxious to a thousand inconveniences, corrupting the Lungs, and disordering the entire habit of their Bodies; so that Catharrs, Phthisicks, Coughs and Consumptions, rage more in this one City, than in the whole Earth besides."

"[N]ot from the Culinary fires, which for being weak, and lesse often fed below, is with such ease dispelled and scattered above, as it is hardly at all discernible, but from some few particular Tunnells and Issues, belonging only to Brewers, Diers, Lime-burners, Salt, and Sope-boylers, and some other private Trades, One of whose Spiracles alone, does manifestly infest the Aer, more than all the Chimnies of London put together besides."

"Whilst these are belching it forth their sooty jaws, the City of London resembles the face rather of Mount Ætna, the Court of Vulcan, , or the Suburbs of Hell, than an Assembly of Rational Creatures... For when in all other places the Aer is most Serene and Pure, it is here Ecclipsed with such a Cloud of Sulphure, as the Sun itself... is hardly able to penetrate... and the weary Traveller, at many Miles distance, sooner smells, than sees the City to which he repairs."

"It seems that those who have hitherto built or caused chimneys to be erected, have only taken care to contrive in the chambers certain places where wood may be burnt, without making a due reflection that the wood in burning ought to warm those chambers, and the persons who are in them; at least, it is certain that but a very little heat is felt of the fire made in the ordinary chimneys, and that they might be ordered so as to send forth a great deal more, only by changing the disposition of their jambs and wings."

"A plate of iron or copper bowed or bended after such a manner as is not at all disagreeable to the sight; a void behind, divided by certain small iron bands or partition plates, forming several spaces that have a communication one with another; a little vent hole in the middle of the hearth, a register plate in the upper part of the funnel; and for some shafts, a capital on the top, make up the whole construction and workmanship of our modern chimney. Now, can there be anything more simple or plain, or more easy to execute?"

"To be able to kindle a fire speedily, and make it, if you please, flame continually, whatever wood is burning, without the use of bellows; to give heat to a spacious room, and even to another adjoining, with a little fire; to warm one's self at the same time on all sides, be the weather ever so cold, without scorching; to breathe a pure air always fresh, and to such a degree of warmth as is thought fit; to be never annoyed with smoke in one's apartment, nor have any moisture therein; to quench by one's self, and in an instant, any fire that may catch in the tunnel of a chimney; all these are but a few of the effects and properties of these wonderful machines, not withstanding their apparent simplicity. Since I used this sort of chimney, I have not been troubled one moment with smoke, in a lodging which it rendered before untenable as soon as a fire was lighted; I have always inhaled, even during the sharpest seasons, a fresh air like that of the spring. In 1709, water that froze hard everywhere else very near the hearth, did not congeal at night in my chamber, though the fire was put out before midnight; and all that was brought thither in the day soon thawed; neither did I ever perceive the least moisture in winter, not even during thaws."

"In an edition of the author's writings on electrical and philosophical subjects, published in London in the year 1769, the following note is appended to this tract. "Soon after the foregoing piece was published, some persons in England, in imitation of Mr. Franklin's invention, made what they call Pennsylvanian Fire-places, with improvements; the principal of which pretended improvements is, a contraction of the passages in the air-box, originally designed for admitting a quantity of fresh air, and warming it as it entered the room. The contracting [of] these passages gains indeed more room for the grate, but in a great measure defeats their intention. For, if the passages in the air-box do not greatly exceed in dimensions the amount of all the crevices by which cold air can enter the room, they will not considerably prevent, as they were intended, the entry of cold air through the crevices.""

"[A]ny new proposal for saving the wood, and for lessening the charge and augmenting the benefit of fire, by some particular method of making and managing it, may at least be thought worth consideration."

"1. Air is rarefied by heat, and condensed by cold, that is, the same quantity of air takes up more space when warm than when cold. This may be shown... Take any clear glass bottle (a stript of the straw is best), place it before the fire, and, as the air within is warmed and rarefied, part of it will be driven out of the bottle; turn it up, place its mouth in a vessel of water, and remove it from the fire; then, as the air within cools and contracts, you will see the water rise in the neck of the bottle, supplying the place of just so much air as was driven out. Hold a large hot coal near the side of the bottle, and, as the air within feels the heat, it will again distend and force out the water. Or, fill a bladder not quite full of air, tie the neck tight, and lay it before a fire as near as may be without scorching the bladder; as the air within heats, you will perceive it to swell and fill the bladder, till it becomes tight, as if full blown; remove it to a cool place, and you will see it fall gradually, till it becomes as lank as at first."

"2. Air rarefied and distended by heat is specifically lighter than it was before, and will rise in other air of greater density. As wood, oil, or any other matter specifically lighter than water, if placed at the bottom of a vessel of water will rise till it comes to the top; so rarefied air will rise in common air, till it either comes to air of equal weight, or is by cold reduced to its former density."

"[I]n any chimney, the air over the fire is rarefied by the heat, becomes lighter, and therefore immediately rises in the funnel, and goes out; the other air in the room (flowing towards the chimney) supplies its place, is rarefied in its turn, and rises likewise; the place of the air thus carried out of the room, is supplied by fresh air coming in through doors and windows, or, if they be shut, through every crevice with violence, as may be seen by holding a candle to a key-hole."

"If the room be so tight as that all the crevices together will not supply so much air as is continually carried off, then, in a little time, the current up the funnel must flag, and the smoke, being no longer driven up, must come into the room."

"1. Fire... throws out light, heat, and smoke (or fume.) The [first] two... move in right lines, and with great swiftness; the latter is but just separated from the fuel, and then moves only as it is carried by the stream of rarefied air; and without a continual accession and recession of air, to carry off the smoky fumes, they would remain crowded about the fire, and stifle it."

"2. Heat may be separated from the smoke as well as from the light, by means of a plate of iron, which will suffer heat to pass through it without the others."

"3. Fire sends out its rays of heat, as well as rays of light, equally every way; but the greatest sensible heat is over the fire, where there is, besides the rays of heat shot upwards, a continual rising stream of hot air, heated by the rays shot round on every side."

"[C]onsider the fire-places heretofore in use, viz. 1. The large open fire-places used in the days of our fathers, and still generally in the country, and in kitchens. 2. The newer-fashioned fire-places, with low breasts and narrow hearths. 3. Fire-places with hollow backs, hearths and jambs of iron, (described by M. Gauger, in his tract entitled La Méchanique de Feu,) for warming the air as it comes into the room. 4. The Holland stoves, with iron doors opening into the room. 5. The German stoves, which have no opening in the room where they are used, but the fire is put in from some other room, or from without. 6. Iron pots, with open charcoal fires, placed in the middle of a room."

"1. The first of these methods has generally the conveniency of two warm seats, one in each corner; but they are sometimes too hot to abide in, and, at other times, incommoded with the smoke; there is likewise good room for the cook to move, to hang on pots, &c. Their inconveniences are, that they almost always smoke, if the door be not left open; that they require a large funnel, and a large funnel carries off a great quantity of air, which occasions what is called a strong draft to the chimney, without which strong draft the smoke would come out of some part or other of so large an opening, so that the door can seldom be shut; and the cold air so nips the backs and heels of those that sit before the fire, that they have no comfort till either screens or settles are provided (at a considerable expense) to keep it off, which both cumber the room, and darken the fire-side. A moderate quantity of wood on the fire, in so large a hearth, seems but little; and, in so strong and cold a draft, warms but little; so that people are continually laying on more. In short, it is next to impossible to warm a room with such a fire place; and I suppose our ancestors never thought of warming rooms to sit in; all they purposed was, to have a place to make a fire in, by which they might warm themselves when cold."

"2. Most of these old-fashioned chimneys in towns and cities have been, of late years, reduced to the second sort mentioned, by building jambs within them, narrowing the hearth, and making a low arch or breast. It is strange, methinks, that though chimneys have been so long in use, their construction should be so little understood till lately, that no workman pretended to make one which should always carry off all smoke, but a chimney-cloth was looked upon as essential to a chimney. This improvement, however, by small openings and low breasts, has been made in our days; and success in the first experiments has brought it into general use in cities, so that almost all new chimneys are now made of that sort, and much fewer bricks will make a stack of chimneys now than formerly. An improvement so lately made may give us room to believe, that still farther improvements may be found to remedy the inconveniences yet remaining. For these new chimneys, though they keep rooms generally free from smoke, and, the opening being contracted, will allow the [house] door to be shut, yet, the funnel still requiring a considerable quantity of air, it rushes in at every crevice so strongly, as to make a continual whistling or howling; and it is very uncomfortable, as well as dangerous, to sit against any such crevice. Many colds are caught from this cause only, it being safer to sit in the open street; for then the pores do all close together, and the air does not strike so sharply against any particular part of the body."

"[M]any of the diseases proceeding from colds, as fevers, pleurisies, &c., fatal to very great numbers of people, may be ascribed to strong-drawing chimneys, whereby, in severe weather, a man is scorched before, while he is froze behind."

"In the mean time, very little is done by these chimneys towards warming the room; for the air round the fire-place, which is warmed by the direct rays from the fire, does not continue in the room, but is continually crowded and gathered into the chimney by the current of cold air coming behind it, and so is presently carried off."

"In both these sorts of fire-places, the greatest part of the heat from the fire is lost; for, as fire naturally darts heat every way, the back, the two jambs, and the hearth drink up almost all that is given them, very little being reflected from bodies so dark, porous, and unpolished; and the upright heat, which is by far the greatest, flies directly up the chimney. Thus five sixths at least of the heat (and consequently of the fuel) is wasted, and contributes nothing towards warming the room."

"3. To remedy this, the Sieur Gauger gives, in his book, entitled La Méchanique de Feu, published in 1709, seven different constructions of the third sort of chimneys mentioned above, in which there are hollow cavities made by iron plates in the back, jambs, and hearths, through which plates the heat passing warms the air in those cavities, which is continually coming into the room fresh and warm. The invention was very ingenious, and had many conveniences; the room was warmed in all parts, by the air flowing into it through the heated cavities; cold air was prevented rushing through the crevices, the funnel being sufficiently supplied by those cavities; much less fuel would serve, &c. But the first expense, which was very great, the intricacy of the design, and the difficulty of the execution, especially in old chimneys, discouraged the propagation of the invention; so that there are, I suppose, very few such chimneys now in use. The upright heat, too, was almost all lost in these, as in the common chimneys."

"4. The Holland iron stove, which has a flue proceeding from the top, and a small iron door opening into the room, comes next to be considered. Its conveniences are, that it makes a room all over warm; for, the chimney being wholly closed except the flue of the stove, very little air is required to supply that, and therefore not much rushes in at crevices, or at the door when it is opened. Little fuel serves, the heat being almost all saved; for it rays out almost equally from the four sides, the bottom, and the top, into the room , and presently warms the air around it, which, being rarefied, rises to the ceiling, and its place is supplied by the lower air of the room, which flows gradually towards the stove, and is there warmed, and rises in its turn, so that there is a continual circulation till all the air in the room is warmed. The air, too, is gradually changed, by the stove-door's being in the room, through which part of it is continually passing, and that makes these stoves wholesomer, or at least pleasanter than the German stoves... But... There is no sight of the fire... When the room is warm, people, not seeing the fire, are apt to forget supplying it with fuel... The change of air is not carried on quite quick enough; so that, if any smoke or ill smell happens in the room, it is a long time before it is discharged. For these reasons the Holland stove has not obtained much among the English (who love the sight of the fire) unless in some workshops..."

"5. The German stove is like a box, one side wanting. It is composed of five iron plates, screwed together, and fixed so as that you may put the fuel into it from another room, or from the outside of the house. It is a kind of oven reversed, its mouth being without, and body within, the room that is to be warmed by it. This invention certainly warms a room very speedily and thoroughly with little fuel; no quantity of cold air comes in at any crevice, because there is no discharge of air which it might supply, there being no passage into the stove from the room. ...Its inconveniences are, that people have not even so much sight or use of the fire as in the Holland stoves, and are, moreover, obliged to breathe the same unchanged air continually, mixed with the breath and perspiration from one another's bodies, which is very disagreeable to those who have not been accustomed to it."

"6. Charcoal fires in pots are used chiefly in the shops of handicraftsmen. They warm a room (that is kept close, and has no chimney to carry off the warmed air,) very speedily and uniformly; but, there being no draft to change the air, the sulphurous fumes from the coals (be they ever so well kindled before they are brought in, there will be some,) mix with it, render it disagreeable, hurtful to some constitutions, and some times, when the door is long kept shut, produce fatal consequences."

"In the same manner... when the air contiguous to a fire is heated... it is immediately expanded very much; and therefore instantly rises upwards, till it reaches the higher regions of the atmosphere, or is cooled by gradually mixing with the denser air it meets with in its ascent:—and as its place contiguous to the fire is immediately occupied by the cold dense air around it, which rushes from every side towards that point, it is heated and rarefied in its turn, and ascends in the same manner, carrying the smoke that rises from the burning body along with it."