Fireplace in a shed?!

I came across a shed today, 8x6m, brick built, with a slate roof, and a chimney! Not a boiler or wood burning stove type thing, but a traditional brick chimney. Any idea as to why someone would do that? It was seperate from the house, by a distance of about 8m.

That was where they heated the water in a big tub called a copper to do the laundry. As recently as the 1920s, apparently, as a house I lived in had one, and my mum remembered using one. When washing machines and domestic hot water arrived the coppers were removed but the chimneys remained.

Enthusiastic woodworkers often burn offcuts to keep their workshops warmer in winter. Brick built stack is a bit OTT but if they are building the rest out of bricks, they might choose to use all bricks.

There is one in my brother's garden. It was apparently originally provided for the gardener.

Chris

In the late 1940's, our neighbours had something similar not far from their back door. It was a wash-house, and had a large iron cauldron-like tub for boiling the laundry, I think heated from underneath by a fire.

Ah, I knew about coppers (for taking a bath in), but I thought they were filled from kettles on stoves in the kitchen.

This shed had a slate roof so was either very old, or as you say built by an enthusiast.

The house I saw it in was not big enough to have a gardener.

I'm 43 you know! (Shakes walking stick)

Presumably it's used as a workshop and it's handy to be able to warm it in winter or rent it out etc.

My 30 sqm workshop has a slate roof over concrete blocks clad with timber mainly for appearance. No heating needed as it is very well insulated and comfortable to work in all year round. I think I fit into the "enthusiast" group too or maybe that is OCD?

That is correct, My old grans house had one and even when I was a kid in Wandsworth the flat we had had one and we used to bath in a tin bath filled from jugs from the copper. It was great fun watching my parents trying to lift the tin bath to the drain to tip the water away as well. Brian

Pizza oven? Beer brewing? Small forge?

Owain

How can insulation provide heat?

Sounds like a lot of hassle, I would have just walked to the nearest river to take a bath.

Oh well you won't remember, like I do my mother boiling up in the washouse to the rear of the tenement flat we lived in to do the weekly wash ......And I demolished hundreds of dangerous ones over the years before I retired ........sand lime mortar ...they just fell down on their own not much help required......

the good old days.....no washing machine....no 'fridge......town gas mantle in the scullery ....stairhead cludgies ..........

newspaper torn into squares on hairy string ......wooden cludgy seats .......no hot water

People throw them away nowadays. I have THREE fridge freezers which I got for nowt on freecycle in the space of a month. If I wanted to, I could get about 15 sofas. WTF are people doing? Buying new furniture when the old stuff looks like new?