Rumford Fireplaces

As an old house fan, I really like a roaring fire in an open fireplace. Nothing beats the smell of wood smoke and the radiating heat. Unfortunately, fireplaces are incredibly inefficient, in some cases putting more heat up the chimney than into the room.

In the stone house I grew up in, built around 1820-30, there were no fireplaces but lots of evidence of wood stoves on the wood floors. The Franklin stove, invented (or perhaps perfected) by Benjamin Franklin in 1742 offered far greater efficiency than open fireplaces.

When my parents renovated, they put in a metal insert fireplace. Great looking but not really capable of heating anything. Masonry fireplaces have the advantage of thermal mass over the metal "heatilator" inserts, but they require far more skill to build so that they draw well and don't smoke.

One person who felt it was possible to improve open fireplaces was Sir Benjamin Thompson, or Count Rumford who in 1796 and 1798 published specifications for the Rumford fireplace that featured a tall sloping fire box to reflect heat and a narrowed chimney to improve draw.

I've dreamed of putting a Rumford fireplace in the house but there are few masons with the know-how to build one. There are some good resources available, including the website Rumford.com, the website of Buckley Rumford Fireplaces.

Two new alternatives to the laborious masonry required are prefab options.

You can buy prefab masonry components from Superior Clay Corporation. They also have some interesting chimney pots for that European look.

I also came across a Canadian company recently called Renaissance Fireplaces that makes a metal prefab unit that weighs several hundred pounds (how's that for thermal mass!) but features innovative features such as a hidden firescreen and a drop-down glass door to close off the firebox, converting it a high efficiency heating unit. It is also the first EPA-certified open wood burner. They have an amazing video showing how the unit operates on their web site at http://www.renaissancefireplaces.com/en/Videos. Considerable engineering has apparently gone into this fireplace unit. You can also find the video on YouTube .

With options like this, I might just get my fireplace!