Jim,

With the proper basket grate could one burn coal in a Rumford fireplace? Have you ever heard of such?

Dean S. Blissman, usually dsb
North Huntingdon, PA

P. S. Are you still in Port Townsend, Wash?

Dean,

Yes. People burned coal in America and England when it was more readily available and when they heated homes with fireplaces a couple of hundred years ago. Fires were often started with wood or peat and then coal was added which produced more heat and lasted longer.

See http://www.rumford.com/coal.html Coal, like wood, was often burned right on the hearth but look at Fig. 7 at http://www.rumford.com/chimneyfireplacesp.html which depicts a small fireplace with a coal niche and basket.

Best,
Jim Buckley

Jim,

This is your old friend and Rumford fan Dean Blissman in North Huntingdon, PA, about 20 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

I was thinking of you when I hear all the news about the fires and smoke. The weather people are telling us here in western PA that smoke from the west coast fires is affecting our weather. A high overcast is blocking a blue sky and even causing the temp. to be a few degrees cooler. Since you are in Port Townsend, Wash. I hope you are not threatened by the fires and smoke. I heard that Malden, Wash. was destroyed but I realize that Malden is quite a bit east from you. (My daughter is in the Port Townsend, Port Angles, "Squim" area).

I hope you can get some westerly winds and slow, gentle rain to help clear the air and dampen the fires.

dsb

Dean,

Thanks for your concern and good wishes. As your daughter probably has let you know, we are lucky compared with California, Oregon and eastern Washington. We have some little controllable brush fires but nothing like those big fires. We do have some smoke apparently blown out to sea and back over the peninsula. With some rain predicted for this evening it should clear up.

Best,
Jim

dsb sent me his story, First Fire

Dean,

A very nice story that might have ended badly but instead ends with a warm cosy feeling. Nice to hear from you again especially in such a pleasant way. Have you a picture of that little basement fireplace that I can publish along with your story?

All the best,
Jim

The truth be told I made the entire story up. It is loosely based on personal experiences but I do not have a little Rumford fireplace. I would have one installed immediately if I had the money to do so. If you think you could use any part of my short story on your site, feel free to do so. If not, no problem, I simply thought you might enjoy the story. It made me feel good just to write it.

dsb

Dean,

I will publish the story without a picture. It's a good story. I just thought you had a Rumford. You are very knowledgeable about them.

Jim

dsb

10/6/21

Hi Jim, I hope this finds you, your Family, and the entire Rumford crew doing well. In reading on your site there is a lot of questions about outside air, balance, and etc. I have my own ideas about that but that is for another time. What I was curious about is the other end, the damper. Of course to start any fire one would be well advised to open the damper fully open. But what about when the flue is thoroughly heated up? Is there any study or information about shutting the flue to one half? Consider this: the evening fire has burned down and I want to "bank" the fire overnight with the objective of an easier start the next morning. Would it make any difference what position the damper is in? Have you any experience with various damper settings and with "banking" a fire?

Also, there seems to be a great following for the teepee style fire. I can understand that when it comes to starting a fire on a cold hearth. But as time goes by larger pieces of wood are added. But as these big pieces burn through could they make coals fall down? Could this pose a possible hazard? And what about us old fashioned guys that want a regular three log fire, laid horizontally like a pyramid? I have even imagined cutting firewood shorter to fit the back of the Rumford with incrementally longer logs toward the room.

What do you think?

Dean S. Blissman
North Huntingdon, PA

Dean,

Good questions that we have covered on the website but maybe not succinctly and easy to find.

I think we have covered the exterior make-up air issue at https://www.rumford.com/tech7.html but that's not your question anyway.

As for the damper. We made the Rumford throat as small a we could - about 1/20th of the fireplace opening. In the process we reduced the size of the throat incrementally until the fireplace started to smoke and then we backed it off a little. Sort of like adjusting the carburetor on an old car. During the process we noticed that it didn’t make much difference how big the fire in the fireplace was. A big fire, with a lot of power, drives a lot of smoke and air through the throat. A small fire with less power provides less smoke and needs less dilution air. In both cases we concluded that the throat should have a cross-sectional area about 1/20th of the fireplace opening. So I don't thank your idea of closing down the damper when you bank a fire in the evening will work in a Rumford. Maybe it works in a regular fireplace in which the throat is as big as the flue or about 1/10th of the opening area. All that means is that the throat is too big and you could find how far you can close the damper to bank a fire and leave it there all the time. I will point out that our tests were done sort of by the seat of our pants forty years ago. Good science is improved by replication. Why don’t you try it and see how far you can close down the damper? Remember that we backed off the minimum throat size by about ten percent because we wanted all our Rumfords to draw well. You may be able to close your damper down a very little - more if you have an exceptionally tall chimney - less if you don’t have control of the indoor air pressure. But once you see where your damper has to be, my prediction is that it will work in that position for all fires.

The tipi style fire is not new. Historically in the Middle Ages fires were built with the logs standing on end in a corner of the castle. Boy scouts and American Indians build tipi camp fires. The log cabin or pyramid fires you remember are really the new comers built low to fit in a modern low horizontal fireplace with a sloping fireback that made standing logs up against the fireback precarious. In the test lab we found that smoke rolls out of the ends of the logs as they get involved with the fire. In a vertical fire the smoke coming out at the bottom goes through the fire and is burned up and the volatile gasses coming out at the top of the fire are in the hottest part of the fire and they too burn up in the firebox. In log cabin fire where the logs are placed horizontally smoke pours out of the end of the logs too but on each side of the fire where the temperature is substantially cooler than in the middle of the fire and much of the smoke just flows around the fire and up the chimney to condense as creosote or pollute the air. We have found the vertical tipi firs to be very stable requiring less tending than horizontal fires. Try it. There is also a grate called the Great Wall of Fire that verticalizes the fire and improves efficiency - in a modern fireplace. Not in a Rumford where the tipi vertical log placement does the same thing only better.

Thanks for your good questions. I'd be interested in your ideas about exterior make-up air and balance and to know the results of any tests you run to prove right or wrong.

Best,
Jim

dsb sent me his story, First Fire again.

This time I published it.

Dean,

Nice to hear from you again.

Have you got a Rumford yet? For a picture I think it should have a fire, maybe people in it and you said it should not be too fancy for a basement apartment. How about tone of these? https://www.rumford.com/StonehouseMasonry.html or https://www.rumford.com/images/Haley.jpg or https://www.rumford.com/images/Schonberg1.jpg

Maybe we just have to pick a picture as a placeholder until we can get you a Rumford. Send me some pictures of your basement apartment and tell me what it would take.

Looking back over our correspondence I don’t think I did publish your story as I had promised. Okay, this time it's at https://www.rumford.com/Blissman.html

You are very knowledgeable about Rumford fireplaces. Have you had one? Are you an engineer? I'd be interested in your views on combustion air which we never got back to.

All the best,
Jim