Fireplaces and Chimneys — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Fireplaces and Chimneys
John Stuart Mill · en
[Illustration: Figure 39.--Diagram showing front view and cross section
of an entire chimney such as is commonly built to serve a furnace,
fireplace, and kitchen stove. Two sets of dimensions are given, those in
rectangles refer to the approximate sizes of the voids or openings; the
others refer to the outside dimensions of the brickwork. These are used
in estimating the number of bricks in a chimney. The letters _A_-_F_
indicate sections used in estimating the quantities of brick required
(See p. 44.)]
Flue
The area of lined flues should be a twelfth or more of the fireplace
opening, provided the chimney is at least 22 feet in height, measured
from the hearth. If the flue is shorter than 22 feet or if it is unlined,
its area should be made a tenth or more of the fireplace opening. The
fireplace shown in figure 34 has an opening of 7.5 square feet, or
approximately 1,080 square inches, and needs a flue area of approximately
90 square inches; a rectangular flue, 8% by 18 inches, outside dimensions,
or a round flue with a 12-inch inside diameter might be used, as
these are the nearest commercial sizes of lining (table 2). It is seldom
possible to obtain lining having exactly the required area, but the inside
area should never be less than that prescribed above. A 13- by
13-inch flue was selected for convenience when combining with the
other flues. If the flue is built of brick and is unlined, its area should
be approximately one-tenth of the fireplace opening, or 108 square
inches. It would probably be made 8 by 16 inches (128 square inches)
because brickwork can be laid to better advantage when the dimensions
of the flue are multiples of 4 inches. The principles of construction
given under Chimneys (p. 7) apply to fireplace flues.
Table 4 is convenient in selecting the proper size of flue or for
determining the size of fireplace opening for an existing flue. The area
of the fireplace opening in square inches is obtained by multiplying the
width, _w_, by the height, _h_, (fig. 34), both measured in inches.
COST ESTIMATE
A convenient method for estimating the number of bricks in a chimney
is to calculate the volume of the various sections which differ in
outside dimensions and then subtract the voids or cavities resulting
from ash-pits, fireplace, and flues. This will be the total cubic feet of
brickwork which, when multiplied by 22.5, is converted to number of
bricks. For convenience, inches as indicated in figure 39 have been
converted to decimals of a foot.[6]
[6] Inches and fractions of an inch are converted to feet and decimals by
multiplying by 0.0833; thus 2 X / inches × O.0833 equals 0.208 feet.
Table 4.--_Sizes of fireplace flue linings_[D]
Outside
dimensions Inside
Area of of standard diameter of
fireplace rectangular standard round
opening flue lining flue lining
--------- ----------- --------------
_Square
inches_ _Inches_ _Inches_