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I grew up in the country with a wood-burning furnace to heat
the house. I think everyone in my neighborhood had one because as soon as you
go off the highway for my town, everything smelled like burning wood. It's such a cozy, comforting smell. Wood has
been used to heat dwellings dating back a million years. The transformation
from open fire to the modern wood stove is explained in the story below.
What we would now consider a campfire was once all people
had to heat the house, cook, heating water to wash, etc. The earliest evidence
of a controlled fire can be found in South Africa and dates back a million
years, but the first evidence of a pit of hearth was found in Israel from
750,000 years ago. This fire burned grain, bones, seed, and wood. Today, campfires
are used for survival, but more commonly just for fun.
Image Credit:
Inventors Digest
Open fireplaces provide ambience and romance. Although
they are considered inefficient and dangerous today, open fireplaces were the
standard heat sources for thousands of years. The most primitive form of a
fireplace may be seen in the Orkeny and Shetland Islands between the UK and
Norway. These fireplaces consisted of a central hearth and a rising lump of
stone, slightly hollowed in one face to form a backing to the fire. Again the
fireplace was used for almost everything in daily life. They were often put in
the center of the room and smoke (a least a little bit of it) leaked out from
the windows (no glass) and by holes which were poked in the walls or roof. In
other places in the world, such as Mexico, devices called chimeneas were being
used by Mexican tribesmen to provide heat for their family. The bulbous design,
which included a "chimney" with a lid, was intended to keep rain off the fire
and keep everyone warm with minimal fuel. What's weird is that some Romans
warmed their houses using interior pipes laid under the floors and used flues
to pipe the smoke outside, but somehow all these ideas were lost with the fall
of the Roman Empire. And it wasn't until the 13th Century that there was
advancement on the fireplace - the chimney.
Around 1066, the fireplaces were moved into a niche in
the wall and holes were poked into the exterior wall to allow the smoke to
escape. Eventually flues and stone hoods were installed to facilitate
ventilation. Many homes still used a louver on their roof, which is an opening
with a raised area that would allow smoke from a ventral fire to escape while
preventing water or debris from coming inside. When coal became popular it
became important to remove the coal smoke and more sophisticated ventilation,
in the form of the chimney, was developed.
Elaborate Tudor brickwork chimneys at Hampton Court
Palace. Image Credit:
Apartmenttherapy.com
Good ol' Benjamin Franklin can be credited with founding
what is now the modern day stove. In 1642, a Massachusetts foundry constructed
the first box of cast iron plates with the intention of burning wood inside. Over
100 years later, Franklin created the Franklin stove with a hollow baffle at
the rear with the intention of increasing the heat and reducing the amount of
smoke that would circulate around the room. The U-shaped flue in a Franklin
stove draws hot gases from the fire into a hollow baffle. This heats up cool
air inside the baffle and then expels it into the room via vents near the top.
Image Credit:
Popular Mechanics
At the end of the 18th Century, Benjamin
Thompson suggested that chimneys feature a slanted fireback and adjustable flue
damper. This became the norm for stoves in large estates and working kitchens
in stately homes. This was eventually scaled down to fit in more homes by Philo
Stewart, who patented his Oberlin stove in 1834. It was a totally cast-iron
stove and while the designs have changed to compensate for aesthetics and
increase efficiency, the basic workings have remained the same. The potbelly
stove is probably the most iconic older stove design. It first appeared around
1860 and was used in train stations, cabooses, and hunting lodges. The firebox
was enclosed and was able to release a lot of heat.
In the late 19th Century wood-fire cookstove
systems became popular. They featured a large cast-iron surface and an elegantly
enameled oven. The cookstoves were used for cooking food, warm water, and heat
homes. They are still produced but have lost popularity due to the high amount
of fuel required. Masonry stoves rely on fast, hot fires to store heat energy
in the stove's large masonry, ceramic, or plaster thermal mass which is then released gradually over hours or even
days. They have complex heat-exchange passages and are often referred to as Kachelofen
(their German name).
One of the biggest weaknesses of wood stoves in the past
is that they leaked and let in air, which means the fire would burn out in an
hour or two. The Airtight Stove of the 1970s and '80s allowed the user to
control the airflow, and therefore the burn. The embers would glow hot for
eight hours or more, but the slower burn resulted in smoky stoves that were
unnecessarily pollutant. Modern stoves are highly efficient catalytic and
noncatalytic airtight stoves which aim to eliminate emissions and increase
efficiency through complete combustion of the wood fuel. Noncatalytic stoves
feature a damper that directs smoke and creosote into a secondary combustion
chamber for reignition. Catalytic combustors in stoves are similar to those in
cars.
Image Credit:
Popular Mechanics
My family's house uses an indoor wood furnace and I love
it, even though it does require a little more work (stacking wood was torture when
I was little when I lived at home.) It keeps the house cozy warm and I love
the smell of wood. Indoor wood furnaces are designed to vent all the smoke and
exhaust outside through a chimney. They are used to heat water circulated into a
radiator that is attached to ductwork throughout the house. A blower is then
used to transfer the heat into the air.
I couldn't image having a fireplace in the middle of my
living room, but I'm sure some people can't even imagine loading wood into a
furnace to heat their house today like I do. All I know is that I'm glad for
chimneys.
What do you use to keep your house warm? Keep Warm!
Resources
Quick
History: The Evolution of the Chimney
The
Evolution of the Fireplace
The History of
the Modern Woodburning Stove
Know
Your Wood-Burning Stoves
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