Hi all, we're doing a kitchen renovation and want to remove the fireplace in the kitchen which is in the garden level. We're trying to understand how our home's heating may have worked back in the olden days, I figured it would be easier to make a video, see below. Anyone have any idea? We have an old document from the 1930's/40's that we acquired from city hall that says the house was heated by a Baltimore heater if that helps. Also wondering if we can remove the ground floor fireplace and have some sort of support for the rest of the flue/chimney installed.
Fireplace Confusion 1880's Home
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Really the only way to remove the fireplace from the kitchen would be to remove the chimney from the top all the way down then that fireplace. How old is the house? I can tell you that the fireplace above the kitchen one was never a working fireplace it is a dummy and always was. the other one on the second floor may not be I cant tell from what is there now.
Oh sorry just saw the thread title in the 1880's I doubt they where heating with open fireplaces. Probably coal burners in some of those fireplaces and possibly a coal furnace maybe some parlor stoves.
Thanks for taking a look. So rooms with the dummy fireplaces weren't heated at all? Yikes. I'm guessing taking down the entire chimney is an expensive job? The wall over the flue in each floor would also need to be broken?
No you may very well have had a central furnace. Is there any evidence of old radiator pipes or it could have been an old gravity air system. Or there could have been parlor stoves in some rooms tapped into those chimneys. There would be evidence of any of those systems. If you really want to know call in a good sweep they can poke around and look for clues. They could tell you if there is any way to take out that fp without removing everything also.
I also found this definition of a Baltimore heater
"a stove for heating a lower and upper room, having its fire door in the lower room."
"a stove for heating a lower and upper room, having its fire door in the lower room."
The dummy mantles often were set up with a chimney behind them for a wood or coal stove to be connected. The pipe would pass through the opening. Back then they often had no hearth beneath the stove, they sat directly on the wood floor or a piece of sheet metal. When winter was over they would sometimes remove the stove. I didn’t have time to watch the whole video but I spotted a mantle that didn’t have the chimney directly behind it. You would have to look for evidence of a blocked thimble or a bricked up hole in the chimney where a pipe may have connected. My grandparent’s house had those type mantles. They were beautiful. Each mantle had a separate flue behind it. They never had central heating but had small gas heaters connected to each flue. Three in all. They actually worked very well. They were fairly modern heaters with sheet metal surrounds. The heat they produced was more like a hot air register. They could also be no more than a decoration for the wall built around the chimney.
Lake Girl
Moderator
Price to remove may be cost prohibitive which is why you have the voids plastered over. The upstairs marble mantles may have been part of a "fix" of a different vintage and a goal of symmetry between the two rooms. A different style heater may/may not have been removed. What source of heat are currently in the upstairs rooms?
For more info on Baltimore heaters try
https://books.google.ca/books?id=vQ...v=onepage&q=baltimore heater -heating&f=false
Looks like the upstairs "fireplace" is open to below with just a smoke pipe passing through it.
https://books.google.ca/books?id=vQ...v=onepage&q=baltimore heater -heating&f=false
Looks like the upstairs "fireplace" is open to below with just a smoke pipe passing through it.
Lake Girl
Moderator
That journal covers some interesting topics ... nice that Mr. Latrobe listened to the Mrs. when he revised his design
Here's a picture of a Baltimore heater. They typically ran coal, also the time period of the OP's house would make coal a good option. I missed where that house is located. If its on the East Coast of the US then coal would have been very available.
dj
![[Hearth.com] Fireplace Confusion 1880's Home](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/179/179020-5d539174ea837de0b6bd48a308bf9dd7.jpg?hash=W0gfqwPJgM "[Hearth.com] Fireplace Confusion 1880's Home")
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In houses from OP's time period, it was very common to have multiple either fireplaces, baltimore heaters, small stoves all attached to the same flue. In the case of a fireplace, typically the fireplace may have it's own smoke shelf and that could be off-set from the flue and connect into it above the fireplace. The fireplace with the metal flue is clearly an add-on when they converted that fireplace into a gas fireplace. It may well be that they modified the second floor connection into the flue and your metal pipe actually goes into the flue that runs to the roof. Hard to know exactly.
The second floor fireplace in the bedroom looks to me to be an artistic addition done at some point during a remodel and was not original to the the house. It wouldn't surprise me if it was never actually functional.
As far as removing the chimney in the kitchen, that would be a big job. I'd suggest you take a look from another point of view and perhaps see if that chimney may actually still be in-tact and could be usable. If that house were mine, I'd look into making a nice open fire that could be used in your kitchen as a BBQ or other wood burning cooking appliance. I used to live in a house in France that had that and it was frankly wonderful!
dj
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Lake Girl
Moderator
Interesting, if you go to the first page of that Old-House Journal, you will see a marble mantel very similar to the ones in the OPs video.
BTW, the rest of the story on the Baltimore stove, the Mrs. got her efficient design alterations because she moved back to Mississippi for the winter
BTW, the rest of the story on the Baltimore stove, the Mrs. got her efficient design alterations because she moved back to Mississippi for the winter
Interesting, if you go to the first page of that Old-House Journal, you will see a marble mantel very similar to the ones in the OPs video.
BTW, the rest of the story on the Baltimore stove, the Mrs. got her efficient design alterations because she moved back to Mississippi for the winter
HaHaHa - and no one knows if she ever came back to Baltimore
It's warmer in Mississippi...dj
Lake Girl
Moderator
The Mrs. (Charlotte) came home to Baltimore and they proceeded to have about 6 kids. John was a attorney as was his namesake and another brother per the 1870 census. One of my hobbies is genealogy...HaHaHa - and no one knows if she ever came back to Baltimore
dj
Hi guys, sorry I didn't realize there were so many replies as I stopped receiving notifications. I've had several people come take a look and the general consensus is that it would be a big and expensive job to remove the fireplace/chimney, however most of the people that have taken a look are sweeps and aren't too familiar with older houses or with doing this type of masonry/structural work. I had a contractor who is a friend of a friend come over today and he said that it could be done by installing a beam to support the front portion of the flue since the back is already supported by a brick wall. He is going to get back to me with an estimate.
If we leave the fireplace we're thinking of having the bricks restored and maybe installing a wood burning stove or gas fireplace/insert. One of the goals of the renovation is to provide better heating to the kitchen and rest of the ground floor as it is currently lacking in that department so this option would help.
If we leave the fireplace we're thinking of having the bricks restored and maybe installing a wood burning stove or gas fireplace/insert. One of the goals of the renovation is to provide better heating to the kitchen and rest of the ground floor as it is currently lacking in that department so this option would help.
Now from where I grew up, we used to say about families that had lots of kids - must have been a lot of cold winters... so maybe those Baltimore heaters don't throw out all that much heat.... LOL
It's pretty awesome you were able to find that info so quickly. Impressive...
dj
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