Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1884-12-11
why Chimneys Smoke.


Many persons object to open fire.
places for burning wood or soft coal on
account of their liability to fill with
smoke the rooms they are intended to
warm. A writer in a paper devoted to
the construction OF houses, in discuss
ing the question ''Why Do Our Chin
neys Smoker" says:
As a matter of fact they never dot
is the wood that smokes. We make
this statement not by way of facetious-
ness, but to bring the discussion to a
strictly scientific basis. Since the new
birth of the open wood fire, the old
question of how to coax the smoke to
60 straight up the chimney-flue, at all
times and under all circumstances, has
come again to the front; and the old
controversy as to the relative magni-
tude of two stupendous but familiar
domestic evils is liable to be revived.
1t is not our purpose to give here and
now all the infallible rules by which
one of these-and doubtless the minor
can be cured, or, better still, prevent
ed, but simply to refer to one of the
common reasons why smoke from fire
on the hearth falls out into the room
occasionally, if not constantly, instead
of going up to the skies, where it be-
longs. Having stated that chimneys
never smoke, it may be well to observe
that they never "draw" either What
ever goes up the chimney-from Thom-
as Hoods chimney-sweep to the steam
from the kettle nose-is poked up from
behind. Of course, this amounts to
the same thing practically as being
drawn up, but it is well to remember
that the same pushing force will just as
readily lift air, shavings, ashes, steam,
or anything else that comes in its way
as smoke. The point, therefore, is to
so arrange the throat of the chimney
that the smoke shall be caught first,
and, like proud Korah's troop, be swal-
lowed up before it has chance to spill
over into the room and before some
thing else can be crowded into its
place. Left to its own devices, it would
fall out of the fireplace and run over
the floor like water. As the air in the
room happens to be usually cooler and,
therefore, heavier than that in the fire.
place, it forces the latter upward and
the smoke with it. Now, the tendency
of the smoke, as soon as it is lifted
against the back wall of the fire. place,
is to fall forward, and this tendency is
favored by the curving back against
which it ascends. There is no objec-
ton to this curve, which seems to keep
the smoke within bounds, and it doubt
less radiates more heat than if it stood
erect, but the one point that should be
insisted upon is that the face of this
curve along which the smoke rises
should strike, if it were continued
(Which it is not, being cut off by the
broad throat of the flue), several inch
es above the Intel at the top of the
fireplace opening. The smoke is then
fairly caught in the ascending current
of warm air and carried up and away.
A smoking fireplace may often be
cured without any change of flue or
chimney by simply bringing down the
top either with row of bricks or tiles,
or by piece of metal fitted in between
the jams. And this cure is effected not
because the fireplace was originally too
large or too shallow to "draw," but
because the proper provision had not
been made for entrapping the smoke
and turning it into the rising stream of
warm air.