20 Great Fireplace Mantel Decorating Ideas laurel home blog

Historical fire pits were sometimes constructed in the floor, within caves, or in the center of a hut or home. Evidence of prehistoric, man-made fires exists on all five inhabited continents. The disadvantage of premature indoor flame pits was that they produced hazardous or annoying smoke inside the house.Fire pits developed into elevated hearths in buildings, but ventilation smoke relied on open windows or holes in roofs. The great hall typically needed a centrally situated hearth, where an open fire burned with all the smoke climbing into the port in the roof. Louvers were developed throughout the Middle Ages to enable the roof vents to be covered so rain and snow would not enter.

Additionally during the Middle Ages, smoke canopies were invented to stop smoke from dispersing an area and vent it out through a ceiling or wall. These can be put against stone walls, rather than taking up the center of the room, and this enabled smaller chambers to be heated.Chimneys were invented in northern Europe from the 11th or 12th centuries and mostly fixed the issue of fumes, more faithfully venting smoke out. They made it possible to provide the fireplace a draft, and made it feasible to put fireplaces in multiple rooms in buildings conveniently. They did not come into general use immediately, however, since they were expensive to develop and maintain.

In 1678 Prince Rupert, nephew of Charles I, raised the grate of the fireplace, improving the venting and airflow system. The 18th century saw two major developments in the history of fireplaces. Benjamin Franklin developed a convection room for the fireplace that greatly improved the efficacy of fireplaces and wood stoves. In addition, he enhanced the airflow by pulling air from a basement and venting a lengthier area at the very top. At the later 18th century, Count Rumford made a fireplace with a tall, shallow firebox that has been better at drawing up the smoke and from the construction. The shallow design also improved greatly the amount of radiant heat projected to the room. Rumford's design is the basis for modern kitchens.

Instead it relied on simple layouts with small unnecessary ornamentation. In the 1890s the Aesthetic movement gave way to the Arts and Crafts movement, where the emphasis was still placed on supplying quality stone. Stone fireplaces now have been a sign of prosperity, which to a degree remains the idea today.A fireplace is a construction made of brick, stone or metal made to include a fire. Fireplaces are used for its relaxing ambiance that they create and for heating a space. Modern fireplaces vary in heat efficiency, based on the design.

Historically they have been utilized for heating a home, cooking, and heating water for laundry and domestic uses. A fire is contained in a firebox or firepit; a chimney or alternative flue allows exhaust to escape.

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On the exterior there is often a corbeled brick crown, where the projecting courses of brick function as a drip route to keep rainwater from running down the exterior walls. A hood, cap, or shroud functions to keep rainwater from the exterior of the chimney; rain in the chimney is a much larger difficulty in chimneys lined with impervious flue tiles or metallic liners compared with the standard masonry chimney, that divides up all but the most violent rain. Some chimneys have a spark arrestor integrated into the crown or cap.

The EPA writes"Smoke may smell great, but it's not great for you.

Types of fireplacesManufactured fireplaces are made out of sheet glass or metal fire boxes.Electric fireplaces could be built-in replacements for either gas or wood or retrofit with log inserts or electrical fireboxes.A couple of kinds are, wall mounted electric fireplaces, electric fireplace stoves, electrical mantel fireplaces and fixed or free standing electric fireplaces.

Masonry and prefabricated fireplaces can be fueled by wood, natural gas, biomass and gas fuel sources. In the USA, several states and local counties have laws restricting these types of fireplaces. There are also air quality management issues due to the amount of moisture they discharge into the room atmosphere, and oxygen detector and carbon monoxide sensors are safety essentials. Direct vent fireplaces have been fueled by either liquid propane or natural gas. They are totally sealed in the area that is heated, and port all exhaust gasses to the outside of the structure.

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AccessoriesA vast assortment of accessories are used with fireplaces, ranging between states, regions, and historical periods. For the inside, common in current Western cultures include grates, fireguards, log boxes, andirons, bark baskets, along with fire dogs, all of which cradle gas and quicken burning. A grate (or fire grate) is a framework, usually of iron bars, to maintain fuel to your fire. Heavy metal firebacks are occasionally used to catch and re-radiate heat, to safeguard the back of the fireplace, and as decoration. Fenders are low metallic frames set before the fireplace to include embers, soot and ash. For fireplace tending, tools comprise pokers, bellows, tongs, shovels, brushes and tool stands.

As time passes, the intent behind fireplaces has transformed from one of requirement to one of visual interest. Early ones were more fire pits compared to contemporary fireplaces. They have been used for warmth on cold days and nights, as well as for cooking. They also functioned as a gathering place inside the house. These fire pits were generally centered within a room, allowing more people to collect around it.

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20 Great Fireplace Mantel Decorating Ideas laurel home blog

Many flaws were found in early fireplace designs. Together with the Industrial Revolution, came big scale housing developments, requiring a standardization of fireplaces. The most famous fireplace designers of this period were the Adam Brothers. They perfected a kind of fireplace design that has been used for generations. It had been smaller, more brightly colored, with an emphasis on the level of the substances used in their construction, as opposed to their dimensions.

By the 1800s newest fireplaces were composed of 2 components, the surround as well as the insert. The surround comprised of the mantlepiece and sides supports, usually in wood, marble or granite. The insert was fire burnt, and was constructed of cast iron often backed with decorative tiles. In addition to providing heat, the fireplaces of the Victorian era were thought to bring a cozy ambiance into houses.

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Some fireplace units incorporate a blower that transports more of the fireplace's heat to the atmosphere via convection, resulting in a more evenly heated area and a decrease heating load. Fireplace efficiency can also be increased with the use of a fireback, a sheet of metal that sits behind the fire and reflects heat back into the room. Firebacks are traditionally produced from cast iron, but are also made from stainless steel. Efficiency is a complex notion though with open hearth fireplaces. Most efficiency tests consider just the impact of heating of the atmosphere. An open fireplace is not, and never was, intended to warm the atmosphere. A fireplace with a fireback is a radiant heater, and has done so as the 15th century. The ideal way to estimate the output of a fireplace is if you detect you are turning the thermostat down or up.

Most elderly fireplaces have a relatively low efficiency rating. Standard, contemporary, weatherproof masonry fireplaces though have an efficiency rating of 80% (legal minimum requirement such as in Salzburg/Austria). To improve efficiency, fireplaces may also be modified by adding special heavy fireboxes designed to burn much cleaner and can reach efficiencies as high as 80% in heating the air. These modified fireplaces are usually equipped with a large fire window, enabling an efficient heating process in two phases. During the first stage the first heat is provided through a large glass window while the flame is burning. During this time period the construction, built of refractory bricks, absorbs the warmth. This warmth is then equally radiated for many hours during the next phase. Masonry fireplaces with no glass fire window only offer heat radiated from the surface. Based on outside temperatures 1 to 2 daily firings are sufficient to ensure a constant room temperature.fireplace mantel decorating ideas