ONE of my readers has written to me asking what to do about a fireplace
that smokes. Not knowing the fireplace in question, I cannot prescribe for
that particular invalid, but I have a long acquaintance with many
fireplaces that smoke and fireplaces that do not--in other words, healthy
fireplaces with a good digestion and diseased fireplaces functionally
wrong with poor digestion--so perhaps the easiest way to answer these
questions is to describe a few of my acquaintances among the fireplaces
which I have studied.
There is an old fireplace in Small Acres, Binghamton, N. Y., of which I
made sketches and took measurements which furnished me data by which I
built the fireplaces in my own houses.
In Binghamton fireplaces the side walls are on an angle and converge
toward the back of the fireplace, as in Fig. 274. The back also pitches
forward, as in Fig. 282. The great advantage of this is the reflecting of
more heat into the room.
Fig. 281 shows the fireplace before which I am now working. The fire was
started in last November and is now (April 1) still burning, although it
has not been rekindled since it was first lighted. This fireplace is well
constructed, and on very cold days I have the fire burning out on the
hearth fully a foot beyond the line of the mantel without any smoke coming
into my studio.
Fig. 282 shows a diagram with the dimensions of my studio fireplace and
represents the vertical section of it. I give these for the benefit of the
people who want to know how to build a fireplace which will not smoke.
But, of course, even the best of fireplaces will smoke if the fire is not
properly arranged. With smoke the angle of reflection would be equal to
the angle of incidence did not the constant tendency of smoke to ascend
modify this rule.
Throw a rubber ball against the wall and the direction from your hand to
where it strikes the wall makes the angle of incidence; when the ball
bounces away from the wall it makes the angle of reflection.