When did they start putting dampers in chimneys?
At one time fireplace chimneys went straight to the top with nothing interfering, right?
But my fireplace chimney has a damper, which I use to keep the indoor air from escaping when there is no fire.
It can also be used to slow down a fire, perhaps? Hence the name?
Aren't dampers universal in chimneys therse days.
When did that start?
So, you just let heat from the house flow out the chimney when the fireplace isn't being used? Don;t know about what you do in the UK, but here in the USA woodburning fireplace chimneys have commonly had dampers for half at least a half a century. And I've seen the guys on This Old House replacing old ones that didn't work correctly with new ones that fit over the top of the chimney from the outside, with a pull chain going down inside the chimney. Or is this just another case where harry doesn't know what he's talking about?
Fireplaces are a piss poor form of heating anyway. Put in an air tight stove and you won't have to worry about it.
The 1700's house we lived in when I was a kid had dampers in all 6 fireplaces. No one had lived in it since the Civil War- so the dampers were installed before that. They appeared to be original.
Caves and teepees had no dampers. I think Franklin writes about the value of a damper in his patent on his friend's stove. [around
1750 and not much like the 'Franklin' stove we know of today]Originally, maybe. Houses don't usually have enough airflow to try that today-- you could open a window in the room.
I would guess mid-1800's-- but that's just a guess.
Jim
Thanks all. Thats' what I sort of thought, not counting what Harry said.
=3D=3D Dampers controlled the rate of combustion in all kinds of stoves and fireplaces. Without them a good many homes would have burned down. If all the fireplaces in North America were closed off or removed we could save one pile of money on energy. The wasted heat from fireplaces is totally unnecessary. =3D=3D
I've lived in a few UK houses with 'open' fireplaces, the youngest probably a mid-1970's build. None of them had dampers. I've not seen many in the US, but the few that I have had all had dampers (and also doors that could be closed)
At a few of the UK places, we did have covers that would fit over the fronts of the fireplaces and at least stop air movement and stop some of the heat from escaping up the chimney.
cheers
Jules
re: "It can also be used to slow down a fire, perhaps?"
I had a friend that moved into an renovated farmhouse. It had a great room that was both the living room and dining room, separated by furniture. There was a huge fireplace in the living room area and a coal burning stove in the dining room.
They had been using the coal burning stove for a few weeks (topping it off 3 times a day) and had used the fireplace for small fires on occasion.
One wintry evening they threw a party and built a huge fire in the fireplace, leaving the glass doors open for effect.
The house kept getting colder and colder so the husband went to check the coal stove. The temperature was down and the coal was almost out.
Curious as to what was going on, he opened the door on the stove, coating himself and most of the dining room area with coal dust.
Turns out the fireplace was pulling air down the coal stove chimney and putting the coal out. Once he opened the door, the rush of air spewed coal dust everywhere.
What a mess!
Years ago, I was helping my boss install a furnace. Of course, it was cold. So, the folks lit a fire in the fireplace. The make up air came donwn the furnace chimney, which was drawing pure fireplace smoke. The bitter acrid smoke was really killing me. I ended up wrapping a shopping bag over the end of the flue, and some duct tape. And then go open a cellar window to let some make-up air in.
Exactly. An air tight stove doesn't need a damper.
Because an air tight stove, by design, has built-in adjustable "dampers" on the air inlet side.
An airtight stove with no dampers would either not be an "airtight", would not be a stove, or would be uncontrolable.
Several hundred years ago would be a good guess.
I have seen many houses with a fireplace and heated by rads. I could never figure out why a rad-type heat exchanger was not build into the fireplace. It would make the damn thing way more efficient. You would still need a boiler but the fireplace would help when in use.
Not sure but I don't think they call the air inlet adjustments "dampers". So with no dampers it would be controlled by the air adjustments in the stove, nothing in the flue. Ah, I did see one post somewhere that someone called them "air inlet dampers", but that isn't the norm. You can call them what you want and I'm most likely know what you are talking about, so being finicky about the correct term doesn't matter much to me. I simply haven't seen a stove manufacturer call the air inlets dampers. Maybe I don't get out enough. ;-)
mm wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
snip
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No, dampers are not universal. My Heat N Glo Northstar doesn't have one. It's airtight and fire is controlled by air in, not restricting smoke out. I thought it was strange when it was installed a couple years ago, but it works fine.
A more newsworthy question is when did they start putting doctors in chimneys?
I've always wonder just how smart some doctors are and how they got their medical license. Now I have even more reason to wonder . . .
-- Bobby G.
=3D=3D Getting stuck you say?...has no one ever warned Santa Claus of this danger? =3D=3D
The most unsettling part of that story: "Moodie=92s housekeeper noticed a strange smell and fluids leaking from the chimney" Eww.
R
Well, I've seen at least in magazines, fireplaces, metal I guess, with a fan to blow air behind them to heat up the air for the room. I have no idea how many have been sold.
It's the mid 80's since I was in London and I noticed that the apartment was sort of chilly, by US standards. Maybe if hot air escapes out the fireplace chimney, because of no damper, the British are used to that??
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