Kiva Geometry

Buckley Rumford Fireplaces
Kiva Geometry

Our Kiva-Rumfords are based on our standard Rumfords. They use all the same components that our regular Rumfords do. The difference is that the Kiva-Rumford involves a rounded firebox and an arched opening.
The picture of the Small Kiva-Rumford on our website is based on our 24" Rumford. You could base you Kiva-Rumford on our 30", 36", 42" or 48" Rumford plans just as well. The sketch below shows how you might lay out the firebox and arched opening for a Kiva based on our 42" Rumford.

One day a few years ago while I was leading a sparsely attended fireplace workshop in New Mexico, Fred Rodrigues, a man who built most of the kivas around Santa Fe (and who's family had been building them for 400 years) told me his "secrets" for building a good kiva. The relationships were remarkably similar to our Rumford - the firebox only miss-matched our 30" throat by about 1/2". From then on we've promoted the Kiva-Rumford as combining the best in 18th century English fireplaces and even older Mexican fireplaces.
Because most kivas are small, we have promoted the small Kiva-Rumford based in the plan on our "plans" page. But you could scale up and base the kiva on any of our sizes as seen above.
For more precise German or Swedish masons who don't have any beer handy the shape of the arch is really an elipse, explains Craig Stiteler