Fireplace

"[B]y a proper use of the two registers, together with a judicious management of the fire, the air in the room may either be made hotter, or colder;—or may be kept at any given temperature—or the room may be most effectually ventilated; and that this change of air may be effected, either gradually or more suddenly."

"[W]e must never forget that it is the room that heats the air, and not the air that heats the room."

"The rays that are sent off from the burning fuel, generate heat, only when and where they are stopped, or absorbed, consequently they generate no heat in the air in the room, in passing through it, because they pass through it, and are not stopped by it, but, striking against the walls of the room, or against any solid body in the room, these rays are there stopped and absorbed, and it is there that the heat found in the room is generated. The air in the room is afterwards heated by coming into contact with these solid bodies. Many capital mistakes have arisen from inattention to this most important fact."

"It is really astonishing how little attention is paid to events which happen frequently, however interesting they may be as objects of curious investigation, or however they may be connected with the comforts and enjoyments of life."

"Things near us, and which are familiar to us, are seldom objects of our meditations."

"How few persons are there who ever took the trouble to bestow a thought on the subject in question, though it is, in the highest degree, curious and interesting."

"It has frequently been a subject of inquiry, whether the ancients were acquainted with chimneys, or open fire-places. In the houses discovered at and , there are no chimneys; they all appear to have been warmed by furnaces and flues."

"[T]hough one or more expressions of ancient authors may appear to allude to a chimney, if the ancients were acquainted with the art of constructing, in mason-work, elevated funnels for conveying away the smoke, it must be allowed, when we consider the many proofs... to the contrary, that they were... extremely rare."

"It is not known at what time chimneys began to be used. The writers of the 14th century seem either to have been unacquainted with chimneys, or to have considered them as the newest invention of luxury."

"That there were no chimneys in the 10th, 12th, and 13th centuries, has been presumed from the terms "ignitegium" [curfew] or "inpritegium" the curfew-bell of the English, and couvrefeu of the French; which seem to intimate, that the people made fires in their houses in a hole or pit in the centre of the floor, under an opening formed in the roof; and when the fire was burned out, or the family went to bed at night, the hole was shut by a cover of wood."

"The oldest certain account of chimneys, is in the year 1347. An inscription at Venice, records... a great many chimneys (molti comini) were thrown down by an earthquake."

"The first chimney-sweepers in Germany came from , , and the neighbouring territories; and these for a long time were the only countries where the cleaning of chimneys was followed as a trade. Hence it is conjectured, that chimneys were invented in Italy."

"[I]n the countries of modern Europe, the use of stoves prevail throughout the north; while in France and Great Britain, open fires are used. In the warm countries of Italy and Spain, there are very few chimneys, and the only method usually practised of tempering the cold, which is sometimes severely felt, is to burn charcoal in portable brasiers."

"A consists of a fire-place, in which the fuel is consumed, and a flue to carry off the smoke and vapour arising from the combustion; thus affording the benefit of the heat of a fire without the inconvenience of its smoke. But these objects were, and still are, very imperfectly attained; a large portion of the fuel being wasted without increasing the warmth of the apartment."

"Dr. Franklin, in 1785, published "Observations on the Cause and Cure of Smoky Chimneys." He has very satisfactorily explained all the usual causes of this defect, and shown their remedies. To this pamphlet succeeded the "Essay" of Count Rumford, in 1796, whose improvements in the construction of fire-places have been very generally adopted. These two works together, form a valuable body of information. They are well known to the public, but it is not so generally known, that exactly a hundred years ago, viz. in the year 1715, Dr. Desagulier published his book, entitled "Fires Improved, being a new method of Building Chimneys, so as to prevent their smoking, &c." which is a translation of a still older work from the French of M. Gauger, which shows that the most, if not all, the principles pointed out by Count Rumford were understood, and are explained by M. Gauger. He also proposed seven different constructions of chimneys, in which there are hollow cavities made by iron plates in the back[,] jambs and hearth, through which plates the heat passing warms the air in those cavities, which is continually coming into the room fresh and warm. This construction had many obvious advantages; but the expense and difficulty attending it, at that early period, discouraged the propagation of the invention. In our own times, however, similar constructions have been brought forward as new, probably without the knowledge of what had been done so long before, and therefore with all the merit of invention."

"[H]aving, in 1742, invented an open stove for the better warming of rooms, and at the same time saving fuel, as the fresh air admitted was warmed in entering, I made a present of the model to Mr. , one of my early friends, who having an iron furnace, found the casting of the plates for these stoves a profitable thing, as they were growing in demand. To promote that demand, I wrote and published a pamphlet, entitled, "An Account of the new-invented Pennsylvania Fire Places; wherein their construction and manner of operation is particularly explained, their advantages above every method of warming rooms demonstrated; and all objections that have been raised against the use of them, answered and obviated, &c." This pamphlet had a good effect; governor Thomas was so pleased with the construction of this stove as described in it, that he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years; but I declined it, from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz: That as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously."

"An ironmonger in London, however, assuming a good deal of my pamphlet, and working it up into his own, making some small changes in the machine, which rather hurt its operation, got a patent for it there, and made, as I was told, a little fortune by it. And this is not the only instance of patents taken out of my inventions by others, though not always with the same success; which I never contested, as having no desire of profiting by patents myself, and hating disputes."

"The use of these fire places in very many houses, both here in Pennsylvania, and the neighbouring states, has been, and is, a great saving of wood to the inhabitants."

"[O]f the [15 1/2] millions of tons of coals raised yearly from the mines, not more than [3 1/2] millions are consumed by steam-engines and in manufacturing operations, leaving [11] or [12] millions of tons of fuel to be mismanaged in kitchens and sitting-rooms throughout the country."

"The register-plate was described at the close of the fifteenth century by Alberti... and by others who wrote afterwards. Were this simple and cheap smoke-valve introduced into every cottage chimney, it would save the heat of [5] or [6] millions of tons of coals that is now annually wasted and thrown away."

"Vitruvius... thus describes the construction of the or stove for heating the or sweating room of a bath. The floor is made inclining, so that a ball placed on any part of it would roll towards the fireplace, by which means the heat is more equally diffused in the sweating-chamber. The floor is paved with tiles... and on these are built brick pillars... two feet high, and cemented with clay and hair mixed together. The pillars are placed at such a distance, as will allow tiles to be laid on them to form the ceiling of the hypocaust, and support the pavement of the caldarium. The air to the caldarium, or room over the hypocaust, is admitted through an aperture in the centre of its roof, from which a brazen shield is suspended by chains. By raising and lowering this shield, which opens or shuts the aperture, the heat of the caldarium is regulated. For heating the water to supply the baths, there are to be three caldrons... the arched cavities in which they stand are to be heated by one fire. After such minute instructions how to form the stove in which large quantities of wood were to be consumed, it is singular that he should omit to notice in what way the smoke produced was to be conveyed into the atmosphere. From this silence, it has been inferred that he was ignorant of what Anderson calls "the elegant and commodious tube now known by the name of a chimney.""

"Longlande, in Pierce the Plowman'sVision, feelingly alludes to the change as prompted by a mean and selfish wish to abridge the ancient hospitality observed towards the poor. "Elynge is that halle eche day in the wyke, Ther the lorde ne the lady liketh nat to sitte. Nowe hath eche ryche a reule to eten by hym silve In a privey parlour for pore mennys sake; Or in a chaumbre wyth a chymney, and leve the cheef halle That was mad for melis men to eten inne." The chimneyed chamber was spacious and lofty, and usually formed with a large bay window, looking into the court of the castle."

"The strong hold of Conway is further remarkable for exhibiting another domestic refinement, not found, except at , in any contemporary building. A hearth is recessed into the wall, and has a rising from it for the passage of the smoke into the air. It is true, that after this period, flued fireplaces were sometimes made in rooms that had been erected without them, but the chimney in Conway Castle, and a similar one at Kenilworth [Castle], appear as if they had formed part of the original edifices."

"Leland, in his Itinerary... gives an account of his visit to . ...[H]e says, ..."One thynge I muche notyd in the hawle of Bolton, how chimeneys were conyened by tunnells made on the syds of the walls betwyxt the lights in the hawle, and by this means, and by no covers, is the smoke of the harthe in the hawle wondor strangely conveyed.""

"[P]revious to the erection of this stronghold, the word chimeney is of frequent occurrence. Chaucer in several places speaks of chambers with chimeneys; Longlande we have seen also employs it: and Wiclif, in his translation of the New Testament, in 1380, has the expression, "thei schulen send him into the chymeney of fier." In the poetical vocabulary, "chimeney" appears to be synonymous with "fireplace," or "hearth recess;" and the verbal equivalent to the word in the reformer's Testament is "furnace." Leland, who wrote a century after, in using the word almost defines it. "The chimeneys were conveyed by tunnels;" or, in other words, the fireplace was continued by a tunnel to the top of the building; a description that will accurately fix the meaning of the word when found in writers previous to the Tudor period; for it is quite obvious the chimneys in common use, and with which Leland was acquainted, had no tunnels to convey the smoke from the hearth... His observation, that the smoke from the hearth was not conveyed by "covers," also shows that at the time... covers were common appendages to fireplaces for conveying smoke. What these were, must be guessed... most likely... "canopies" or "pyramids " constructed over a hearth where it was not recessed into the wall, and often also where it was. Underneath this canopy was a hole through the wall for the escape of the smoke..."

"It is hoped that these amusing details will not make the book less interesting to those who seek to become acquainted with the beautiful laws on which warming and ventilation depend; the principle of the latter art being, in fact, identical with that by which nature ventilates our globe—a hot ascending current from the warm regions, while the cooler air streams in at a lower level from the temperate regions."

"[A] great improvement was made in France in fire-places by Louis Savot (born 1579 ; died 1640), a licentiate in the Faculty of Medicine at Paris."

"Savot pointed out the means for curing that domestic plague—a smoky chimney; and, like a true physician, set about investigating the causes of the disease."

"He saw the evils of large chimneys, and the necessity for a due supply of air to the fire. The fire should be proportioned to the size of the chimney, and vice versâ, and smoke may often be prevented by lowering the mantel."

"[Savot] also points out how the chimney may be too long for the fire, or how one large chimney may draw upon another smaller one; and he recommends that the flue be smooth on the inside, to diminish friction."

"To improve the draught of the fire he raised the hearth about 4 inches, and lowered the mantel so as to make the opening of the fire-place about 3 feet high."

"The width between the jambs was reduced to 3 feet; the jambs from the mantel were to be carried up sloping to the waist, or where the flue begins to be of uniform width, and the opening of the fire-place was formed like an arch."

"But, where the fire-place could not be conveniently altered, Savot perforated with small holes a plate of iron, the width and length of which were nearly equal to the hearth, and this was fixed 3 inches above the tiles of the common hearth. On this perforated plate he placed & grill de fer of the same length as the billets to be burned, and raised 9 inches above the plate; the wood was placed on the grate, the charcoal on the perforated plate, and the hearth received the ashes; the air, rising through the small holes, made the charcoal burn briskly, and this so much assisted the burning of the wood, that a rapid draught up the chimney was established, and smoke prevented."

"In Savot's description of the fire-place used to heat the Cabinet des Livres, at the , we have the first recorded attempt at combining the cheerfulness of an open fire with the economy of an enclosed stove. Fig. 15 is a front view, and Fig. 16 a vertical section of this ingenious contrivance."

"The hearth was a thick iron plate placed above the old hearth, with an interval, n, of 3 inches between them. The two sides, or covings of the fire-place, were also formed of thick iron plates, placed 3 inches from the jambs. The space, n, at the back, and the spaces at the sides, communicated with the space, n, under the hearth ; two pipes, or channels, i, communicating with these hollow spaces, opened into the room at c, as shown by the dotted line in the section; these spaces could be closed at pleasure. When the fire was burning, the iron hearth, and the plates which formed the sides or covings, and the back, became very hot. The cold air at the floor, entering by the openings at a, into the space, n, was heated by the hearth, and rising into the spaces at the back and sides, had its temperature further increased; it then entered the channels, i, and escaped at c, thus diffusing an agreeable warmth over the whole room."

"In 1678, Prince Rupert invented a fire-place, so contrived that the draught took a downward direction before entering the flue, as shown in Fig. 18, in which... x is a wall built at a distance of 10 inches from the back of the hearth recess, and carried up to the mantel, where it is terminated by the wall x, thus completely closing all communication between the flue and the room. An opening, a, is made in this wall, 10 inches high, and of the same width as the length of the grate, and its sill is 2 inches above the top rib of the grate. Fixed within the chimney is a plate of iron, i, placed perpendicularly, so as to divide it into two equal parts. To the upper edge of this plate is hinged an iron door, c, as long as the chimney is wide, and this door can be brought into the position c, or into that indicated by the dotted lines at e. The fuel grate stands on the hearth, and is placed nearly in a line with the wall of the room. At the back of the ash-pit is a brick that closes the aperture through which the soot is removed. When the fire is first lighted, the smoke door, c, is pushed back, and when the draught is once established, this door is drawn forward, and the smoke being thus prevented from flowing upwards, reverberates downwards, and passes the lower edge of the division plate, i, and rises between it and the back of the hearth into the chimney flue. In boisterous weather, or with such a fire-place, in an upper room, where the chimney is short, another iron door, r, is hung under the edge of the mantel, in front of the fire-place, and extending the whole width of the opening. Its breadth varies according to circumstances, but it is made so as to reach within 2 inches of the upper bar of the fire-grate, when hanging in the position shown by the dotted lines at s. This converts the fire into a furnace, and the room will, in such case, be "warmer than it would be with a fire four times the size made in a common cradell." When the smoke flows regularly through the aperture, a, this door is thrown back out of use, as at r. In some cases, the ordinary fire-board or fire-cloth was used instead of this door."

"An economical method of heating two rooms by one ...[fireplace] is described by Savot. A plate of iron is made to separate the fire-places of the two adjacent rooms. A fire made on the hearth, a, (Fig. 20), heats the plate, n, and this, in its turn, by its radiation, warms the air in the adjacent room, e, as effectually as a stove would do, provided its flue, i, is properly closed. Or if the second room have no chimney, it may... be warmed by making an opening in the wall... and closing it with an iron plate. When Dr. Franklin was in Paris, he saw an example of this contrivance, and estimated it highly."

"[T]here is one writer, whose inventions have especially served as the type of many a modern fire-place, and at the time of their introduction in 1713, showed a great and sudden advance in the art of warming apartments. It has been said... that the author... was no less a man than the Cardinal Polignac, who, under the assumed name of Gauger, published a treatise, entitled "La Mechanique du Feu, ou l'Art d'en augmenter les effets et d'en diminuer la dépense, contenant le Traité de Nouvelles Cheminées qui echauffent plus que les Cheminées ordinaires, et qui ne sont point sujettes à fumer" [The Mechanics of Fire, or the Art of increasing its effects and reducing its expenditure, containing the Treatise on New Chimneys which heat much more than ordinary Chimneys, and which are not subject to smoking] This treatise was reprinted at Amsterdam in 1714, and a translation of it, by Dr. Desaguliers... was published in London in 1716."

"It is remarkable that, while the open fireplace was one of the earliest contrivances invented to contribute to the health and comfort of man, the upright flue for carrying off the injurious products of combustion should have remained one of the latest."

"Cold air, being heavier than warm, will fall below the latter, and press it upwards to make way for itself. Thus the air in the neighborhood of the fireplace will press the hot smoke up into the chimney-throat. If this throat is only large enough to take the smoke, hot air only will enter the flue, and the draught will be rapid. But if the throat is larger than necessary, that part of the cool air of the room which enters the fireplace and becomes most heated by the fire, and next in buoyancy to the smoke, will, in its turn, be pressed up by the cooler air behind it, and enter the flue alongside of the smoke. Indeed, the entire volume of the air of the room, being warmer than the outside air, will tend to enter the flue with the smoke, so long as there be room provided for its entrance. The heat of the column, and consequently the rapidity of its rise, will therefore be proportionately diminished."

"For this reason the throat of the chimney should be contracted until it is no larger than is sufficient to carry off the products of combustion. A similar contraction throughout the entire length of the flue would be desirable, were it not that an allowance must be made for clogging up by soot, and for the resistance by friction to the passage of the air offered by the rough walls of the flue."

"The first, to recognize and apply this principle was Count Rumford (1796-1802). ...But he is to be blamed for not investigating or at least acknowledging the progress made by his predecessors in this particular. ...[H]owever much good he may have done in improving the form of the chimney-throat, and in calling public attention to the advantages of bevelled over rectangular jambs, he... also did much to discourage any further effort in economizing the waste heat of the smoke, and should therefore be considered as having really done more than any other one man to retard the proper development of the subject."

"[Rumford] complains of the enormous waste of heat, and regrets that no means of saving it can be invented, in the face of the discoveries of both [Louis] Savot and [Nicholas] Gauger. Even his bevelled jambs for better reflecting the rays into the room had long since been recommended by Gauger. They were brought forward as quite new by Rumford. ...In speaking of the waste in unconsumed smoke... [Rumford] gives no way of consuming the smoke, or of alleviating the evil."

"[T]he so-called Rumford stove or fireplace... contracted the area of the fire-chamber, and gave the sides an angle of 135° with the back, or, which is the same thing, of 45° with the front of the fireplace, in order, as he said, to reflect the greatest possible amount of heat into the room. He considered the best proportions for the chimney recess to be when the width of the back was equal to the depth from front to back, and the width of the front or opening between the jambs three times the width of the back. These proportions are used today, and are undoubtedly the best. He objected to the use of iron for these surfaces on account of its great heat-conducting power, which wasted the heat and cooled off the fire; but advocated some non-conducting substance, such as fire-clay. He also objected to circular covings, on the ground that they produced eddies or currents, which would be likely to cause the chimney to smoke."

"But [Rumford's] chief, or perhaps only, real improvement consisted in the reduction of the size of the chimney-throat, and the rounding off of the lower edge of the chimney-breast... to afford less obstruction to the ascent of the smoke. ...This form, as given by Rumford, is, however, still defective. The smallest part of the flue should be at the bottom... so as to prevent the entrance into the flue of unburnt air from the room. ...The back of the fireplace should also incline forwards, as shown, in order to increase its radiating effect..."

"The simple and earnest style of Count Rumford's essays, the substantial nature of his acknowledged improvement, the facility with which it could be tested, and the enthusiasm with which he urges its importance, the detailed directions he gives for the guidance of the builder, and the liberality with which he offered the free use of his invention and services to the public,—all tended to make a permanent impression, and not only to give the precedence over all others, but even to place the latter altogether in the shade. So much [so] that, though infinitely more important as tending to improve the ventilation of the apartment and the draught of chimney, as well as to save the waste heat of the fuel, they were almost forgotten, and, so far as the mass of the public is concerned, remain so... to the present..."

"So great was the influence of Count Rumford as a man of science, and his ability as a writer, that his failure to acknowledge the value of the efforts of his predecessors seemed like a tacit condemnation of them, and proved the severest blow to the cause."

"Mr. Culin read a communication from Mr. Charles Laubach, of Riegelsville, Bucks Co., Pa., giving an account of the stove plates manufactured at Durham Furnace, Durham, Pa., from 1741 to 1789."

"Iron stoves were unknown before 1678, when Prince Rupert, of England, attempted to convert a fireplace into a furnace. This was the first attempt to force smoke back over the fire and create heat for warming apartments by the aid of iron."

"[A]bout 1710, Count Polignac, of France, made an attempt to convert an ordinary fireplace into a heating apparatus by simply constructing a fireplace with an iron back, hearth, and jambs. The result was only a slight saving of heat. In 1716 Dr. Desaguliers, of London, succeeded in improving the Polignac fireplace so that it could be used for burning coal."