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Historical fire pits were sometimes constructed in the ground, in caves, or at the center of a hut or home. Evidence of ancient, man-made fires exists on all five inhabited continents. The drawback of premature indoor flame pits was that they generated hazardous or irritating smoke inside the house.Fire pits developed into elevated hearths in structures, but ventilation smoke relied on open windows or openings in roofs. The great hall typically had a centrally located hearth, where an open flame burnt with all the smoke rising to the port in the roof. Louvers were developed during the Middle Ages to enable the roof vents to be coated so rain and snow would not enter.

Additionally throughout the Middle Ages, smoke canopies were invented to stop smoke from spreading through an area and vent it out through a ceiling or wall. These could be placed against stone walls, instead of taking up the middle of the room, and this enabled smaller chambers to be heated.Chimneys were invented in northern Europe from the 11th or 12th centuries and largely fixed the problem of fumes, more reliably venting smoke outside. They made it possible to provide the fireplace a draft, and also made it feasible to place fireplaces in numerous rooms in buildings handily. They did not come into general use instantly, however, as they were more 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. Benjamin Franklin developed a convection chamber for the fireplace which greatly enhanced the efficiency of fireplaces and wood stoves. He also improved the airflow by pulling air from a cellar and venting a longer area at the very top. At the later 18th century, Count Rumford designed a fireplace using a tall, shallow firebox which has been better at drawing up the smoke and out of the construction. The shallow design improved greatly the amount of radiant heat projected into the room. Rumford's design is the foundation for modern fireplaces.

Instead it depended on simple designs with small unnecessary ornamentation. In the 1890s the Aesthetic movement gave way into the Arts and Crafts movement, in which the emphasis was still placed on providing quality gems. Stone fireplaces at this time were a symbol of wealth, which to some degree remains the idea today.A fireplace is a structure made from brick, stone or metal made to contain a fire. Fireplaces are used for the relaxing ambiance that they create and also for heating a room. Modern fireplaces vary in heat efficacy, depending on the plan.

Historically they were 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 other flue allows exhaust to escape. A fireplace might have the following: a foundation, a hearth, a firebox, a mantelpiece; a chimney (used in laundry and kitchen fireplaces), a grate, a lintel, a lintel pub, house overmantel, a damper, a smoke chamber, a throat, a flue, and a chimney filter or afterburner.

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On the exterior there's frequently a corbeled brick crown, in which the casting courses of brick act as a drip course to keep rainwater from running down the outside walls. A cap, hood, or shroud serves to keep rainwater from the exterior of the chimney; rain at the chimney is a much larger difficulty in chimneys lined with impervious flue tiles or metallic liners compared with the traditional masonry chimney, which soaks up all but the rain. A few chimneys have a spark arrestor integrated into the cap or crown.

Organizations such as the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington Department of Ecology warn that, according to different studies, fireplaces can pose a substantial health risk. The EPA writes"Smoke may smell great, but it's not great for you.

Kinds of fireplacesArtificial fireplaces are made out of sheet glass or metal flame boxes.Electric fireplaces can be built-in replacements for wood or gas or retrofit with log inserts or electric fireboxes.A couple of types are, wall mounted electric fireplaces, electric fireplace stoves, electric mantel fireplaces and fixed or free standing gas fireplaces.

In the United States, several states and local businesses have laws restricting these kinds of fireplaces. They need to be properly sized to the area to be heated. There are also air quality control problems due to the amount of moisture that they release into the room atmosphere, and oxygen detector and carbon monoxide sensors are security essentials. Direct vent fireplaces have been fueled by liquid propane or natural gas. They are totally sealed in the place that's heated, and vent all exhaust gasses into the outside of the structure.

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

Over time, the intent behind fireplaces has changed from one of requirement to one of visual interest. Early ones were fire pits than contemporary fireplaces. They have been used for warmth on cold days and nights, in addition to for cooking. They also functioned as a gathering place within the house. These fire pits were usually based within a room, allowing more people to gather around it.

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Many defects were found in early fireplace designs. The most famous fireplace designers of the period were the Adam Brothers. They perfected a kind of fireplace design that was used for generations. It had been smaller, more brightly colored, with an emphasis on the quality of the materials used in their construction, instead of their dimensions.

By the 1800s most new fireplaces were composed of two parts, the surround as well as the add. The encircle consisted of the mantlepiece and sides supports, usually in wood, marble or granite. The fit was fire burnt, and was built of cast iron often backed with decorative tiles. As well as providing warmth, the fireplaces of the Victorian era were believed to add a cozy ambiance into houses.

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Some fireplace components incorporate a blower that transfers more of the fireplace's heat to the atmosphere via convection, resulting in a more evenly heated space and a lower heating load. Fireplace efficiency can also be enhanced with the use of a fireback, a sheet of metal which sits behind the fire and reflects heat back into the room. Firebacks are traditionally produced from cast iron, but can also be manufactured from stainless steel. Efficiency is a complicated concept 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 air. The ideal method to gauge the output signal of a fireplace is if you detect you're turning the thermostat up or down.

Most older fireplaces have a comparatively low efficiency rating. Standard, contemporary, weatherproof masonry fireplaces still possess an efficiency rating of 80% (legal minimum requirement such as in Salzburg/Austria). To improve efficiency, fireplaces may also be altered by inserting special heavy fireboxes developed to burn cleaner and may reach efficiencies as large as 80% in heating the atmosphere. These modified fireplaces are usually equipped with a massive fire window, enabling an efficient heating process in two stages. During the first stage the first heat is offered through a big glass window while the fire is burning. During this time the structure, constructed of refractory bricks, absorbs the warmth. This warmth is then equally radiated for several hours during the second phase. Masonry fireplaces with no glass fire window just offer heat radiated from its surface. Based on temperatures 1 to 2 daily firings are sufficient to guarantee a constant room temperature.fireplace media console