The Smokeless Fireplace 
AN EXPERIENCE WITH A CHIMNEY THAT WOULD NOT DRAW AND A FLUE THAT WAS TOO 
SMALL—HOW THE DEFECTS WERE REMEDIED—HINTS ON HOW TO BUILD A FIRE 
I F there is a moment in 
the experience of the 
builder of a home that is 
fraught with greater trag¬ 
edy than the moment in 
which he faces the reali¬ 
zation that the fireplace 
will not draw, I do not 
know when it is. Many 
kinds of despair and rage 
consume him at different 
times as the different lit¬ 
tle difficulties which await 
him are met, but the fire¬ 
place that emits only 
smoke is the crowning ca¬ 
lamity. I know, because 
I have suffered them all— 
and suffered this, too. at 
the end. 
All of our sentiment 
about home centered in 
the fireplace; most peo¬ 
ple's does. We had al¬ 
ways felt ourselves before it, watching the 
glowing, crackling logs while we heard the 
sweep of winds outside and the beating of 
an icy branch against the pane, and saw 
through the casement the drifting, scudding snow. Never was 
there greater joy of anticipation! 
So the lighting of the first fire on this home altar became 
an event—a ceremony—and we approached 
it accordingly. We placed the backlog 
as it should lie, then the smaller forestick 
that goes at the front of the andirons; and 
then we laid the kindling, remembering to start 
with the two mystical crossed sticks, for their 
ancient symbolic meaning. The hickory was 
just right, dry enough to burn and green 
enough to last, so the torch (really it was a 
safety match, but we called it a torch) was 
applied with keen enthusiasm. 
Then—my goodness! Did human beings ever 
before or since succeed in lighting such a 
smudge, I wonder? Doors and windows had to 
be thrown wide, and we finally had to carry 
that wretched fire bodily outdoors, stick by stick, 
and dump it into the snow. 
Then we sneaked upstairs to scrub off the 
soot, nurse scorched fingers, go to bed to get 
warm and be alone to curse the mason and the 
contractor and the architect, not alone of this 
house but of all houses ; individually, collectively 
and universally! 
Of course we went to studying about fire¬ 
places after this, but so far as we were able to 
find out, there was nothing for ours but to tear 
the chimney down and build it all over. And as 
this was very much the same as tearing down 
the house, owing to the chimney’s location, we 
did nothing and tried to ignore the fireplace. 
Then someone suggest¬ 
ed building up a hob at 
either side and raising the 
bed of the fireplace- by 
laying one row of brick 
all over it. This was to 
make the opening smaller ; 
we had a vague notion 
that this was what it 
needed. We went enthu¬ 
siastically to work, and 
when we finished the 
thing looked like the 
drawing and smoked just 
as diabolically as ever. 
Then we studied the 
flue. Of course this is 
what we should have done 
at the very start, but one 
is likely to delude himself 
very often into not doing 
the right thing first be¬ 
cause he hopes something 
else will answer. Noth¬ 
ing else will answer when it comes to balky 
fireplaces; there is not a particle of use in 
trying to botch one up unless the flue is all 
right, and all efforts in this direction are 
time and money wasted. If your fireplace smokes, look at 
the flue first of all. 
Compute the flue area and the fireplace opening area, for 
purposes of comparison. The area of the 
former should be from one-tenth to one- 
twelfth of the area of the latter, according to 
the very best fireplace experts, never less than 
one-twelfth. If the flue, for instance, is 8 x 8 
inches across, its area is 64 inches. 
This will carry a fireplace opening having an 
area of 768 square inches. Very well. Now, 
as a pleasing proportion is usually insured by 
making the opening about two-thirds as high 
as it is wide, a little figuring will develop for 
this area, 23 inches for the height with 33 
inches for the width, ignoring the fractions. 
No larger opening should be attempted. 
But our fireplace was 26 inches high and 
36 inches wide, with an arching top, as the 
drawing shows. With a flue 8x8 inches, 
this gave us a flue area of about one-fifteenth 
the fireplace opening! No wonder the smoke 
could not get up the chimney. And added to 
this we found that our flue was away over at 
the side instead of being in the center, that 
there was no throat whatsoever, and no smoke 
shelf, consequently no smoke chamber. It was, 
in short, nothing but a crooked, bent opening, 
up through to the sky, starting in 8 inches 
square right at the top of the fireplace. I never 
would have believed that any mason could or 
would have done such a thing if it had not 
(Continued on page 398) 
With the new throat and smoke chamber the fire burns perfectly and the new fin¬ 
ish of the mantel was found more satisfactory than the former one 
BY E. O. C A L V E N E 
Photographs by the author 
The small, misplaced flue was 
cut short and attached to an 
iron smoke chamber and throat 
(368) 
