Rumford fireplace
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Rumford fireplace is a tall, shallow fireplace designed by Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, born 1753 in Woburn, Massachusetts, an Anglo-American physicist who was known for his investigations of heat.
Rumford applied his knowledge of heat to the improvement of fireplaces. He made them smaller and shallower with widely angled covings so they would radiate better. And he streamlined the throat, or in his words "rounded off the breast" so as to "remove those local hindrances which forcibly prevent the smoke from following its natural tendency to go up the chimney..."
Rumford wrote two papers detailing his improvements on fireplaces in 1796 and 1798.* He was well known and widely read in his lifetime and almost immediately in the 1790s his "Rumford fireplace" became state-of-the-art worldwide.
Today, with the extensive restoration of old and historic houses and the renewed popularity of early American and classical architecture in new construction, Rumford fireplaces are enjoying a comeback. Rumford fireplaces are generally appreciated for their tall classic elegance and their heating efficiency.
Rumford fireplaces are tall and shallow to reflect more heat, and they have streamlined throats to eliminate turbulence and carry away the smoke with little loss of heated room air.
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[edit] Principle of action
The Rumford fireplace created a sensation in London when he introduced the idea of restricting the chimney opening to increase the updraught. He and his workers changed fireplaces by inserting bricks into the hearth to make the side walls angled and added a choke to the chimney to increase the speed of air going up the flue. It effectively produced a streamlined air flow, reducing turbulence so the smoke would go up into the chimney rather than lingering and often choking the residents. Many fashionable London houses were modified to his instructions, and became smoke-free as well as more efficient. Thompson became a celebrity when news of his success became widespread. Such a simple alteration in the design of fireplaces was to be copied everywhere in an age when fires were the principle source of heat.
Rumford fireplaces were common from 1796, when Count Rumford first wrote about them, until about 1850. Jefferson had them built at Monticello, and Thoreau listed them among the modern conveniences that everyone took for granted. There are still many original Rumford fireplaces, often buried behind newer renovations. He also invented a cast iron stove which competed successfully with the famous Benjamin Franklin stove. Both devices gave much more control over the air flow into the fire, and were both much more efficient users of fuel. Such stoves were expensive, but saved so much fuel as to justify the cost of installation very quickly.
He also conducted experiments on the insulating properties of various materials including furs and clothing textiles, showing that air was a poor conductor of heat and by designing clothes so as to produce very small pockets of air, the insulating properties were incressed dramatically.
[edit] Career
Count Rumford, from who the fireplace is named, was born as Benjamin Thompson in Woburn, Massachusetts in 1753 and, because he was a loyalist, he left (abruptly) with the British in 1776. He spent much of his life as an employee of the Bavarian government where he received his title, "Count of the Holy Roman Empire." Rumford is known primarily for the work he did on the nature of heat, research which led to the new subject of thermodynamics. He is also remembered for helping to found the Royal Institution in London.
[edit] External links
- rumford.com
- Dr. Hugh C. Rowlinson "The Contribution of Count Rumford to Domestic Life in Jane Austen’s Time" An article not only detailing the Rumford fireplace, but also Rumford's life and other achievements.
[edit] Bibliography
- G I Brown, Count Rumford: The Extraordinary Life of a Scientific Genius, Sutton Publishiong (1999).
