Life in New England during the winter was hard. Many of the homes there were literally built around a fireplace to keep all the heat generated and stored within it’s masonry in the home.
Here’s a great illustration on the importance our ancestors placed on a stone chimney when building their homes.
We gained a heat pump, but lost so much.
Originally posted 2015-08-24 13:17:34.
Yeah….now we got all these different systems. in my wifes old house where she grew up, they had and old coverted kitchen stove which was a combo wood / gas burner. They replaced the wood section with kerosene sleeve burners, and still use it today. People talk about how inefficient it is, but they heated their hot water with it, cooked with it, and continuously heated the house with one appliance. There was always a pot of beans on the burner simmering.
The old ways are the best ways.
Folks have told me for years that a fireplace will draw more heat than it provides for a room… nonsense. Sure a wood stove is better for heating… but the idea all those pioneers in the past were actually cooling their homes in the winter is ridiculous.
They are not even building that many brick chimneys anymore. Everyone is using steel chimneys or power vents. I see the old bricks for sale or sometimes free on craigslist. All that masonry in those old center fireplace homes must have really retained the heat
Its worth designing a house (if a person has the space and budget) around a large masonry heater / fireplace.
Agreed Chuck. What was once essential… for millennia, until just recently, in our lifetime, has been tossed aside. I can’t help but wonder if future generations will wonder what we were thinking.
Thanks for the info! Its interesting to have a central chimney.