Here’s what I hope is an interesting and fun example of colonial stonework. I have lots of questions, but I’m optimistic someone will be interested enough to endure my descriptions and offer some thoughts or feedback. I recently bought a home in NH that was built in 1742. One intriguing feature is a massive brick edifice built into the kitchen, containing a brick oven and two other locations for either cooking or heating. I love to cook and want to fully understand what we have here and what's needed to do to bring it into full working condition.
Here's an image showing multiple views and close-ups of the features. I’ve labeled them for ease of discussion, and provided full descriptions as best I can.
A. The Brick Oven seems to be in perfect condition. Behind the cast iron door is a cavernous dome-ceilinged oven at least 4 feet deep. The door is in great shape and the oven is clean
B. Directly below the brick oven is a solid cast iron door. Opening the door reveals a plain rectangular cutout in the brick face that opens into a square vertical chimney shaft. I’m not sure what the function of this door is – it doesn’t seem to be ash cleaning, as there’s no flat surface anywhere for debris to collect. This would also preclude building any fire there either. The door itself is in good shape except for one corner which is broken off. We have the broken piece, but it doesn’t affect the functionality of the door at all.
C. A 24.5†diameter round cutout on the flat top of the construct. There is a slight chamfer/taper at the edge of the brick circumference, so I’m wondering if this was sized for a large pot that would be used to heat water. There is a fairly rough cutout in the face of the adjacent wall that is one brick width deep– maybe added after the fact to allow the pot to be removed and replaced easily? It’s hard to see in the photo so I added black rectangles to indicate where there is a channel in the brick that connects this recess through to the chimney. A close-up is shown in Image 5.
D. This appears to be a wood-loading cutout to allow a fire heating feature C to be fed and maintained. Image 6 is a close-up of this feature. There is no door to this cutout, though. There is easy access to a rectangular slot at the bottom of the cavity (which can be seen in Image 5).
E. This appears to be a woodstove pipe connection into the chimney. It is closed off at the moment, but appears fully functional.
F. This feature (shown in close-up in Image 8) is a 14†x 21.5†rectangular cutout on the top surface. Unlike the round cutout C, there is no exhaust channel leading out of the cavity, which leads me to believe it housed a cover (cast iron flat cooking surface, perhaps?) that vented via a chimney to the connection E.
G. Another rectangular cutout (shown in Image 7) similar to D is located beneath feature F. This likewise appears to be feed door for adding wood to a fire.
H. Lastly, the opposite side of the whole thing houses a brick fireplace, which can be seen in the inset Image 4. Presumably all of the chimney lines (B, the channel in C, and E) connect into this main chimney.
Inspections were recently completed, and confirmed that all of the chimneys have recently be relined and are in pristine condition. I also grew up with woodstoves and have been heating with them through New England winters for my entire adult life, so the prospect of maintaining some good cooking/heating fires isn’t frightening me off. But now what do we do? It’s challenging for a neophyte to this old-style construction to identify what is needed to get everything up and running, or even to feel confident that we have figured everything out. Here are some questions (in no particular order):
1. Do I have anything grossly wrong in my descriptions above, or my conclusions about the function and use of each element?
2. Feel free to correct/educate me on terminology! I suspect I’m sounding like a fool with the names I’m using for the various features - luckily it’s comfortable territory for me
3. What is the purpose of the door B?
4. Are there supposed to be cast iron doors, akin to the one on the brick oven A or the access port B, on the feed boxes D and G? It seems to me that you’d want something like that?
5. In the view shown in Image 5, what is the purpose of the rectangular cutout at the bottom of the cavity? Would that contain the actual fire, with the pot setting on the corner blocks shown? That would allow smoke and heat to escape from the channel through the angled chamfers. That would make for one huge pot though - where does one go to find/commission such a thing? Could we alternatively commission a large cast iron deep skillet to provide a flat cooking surface?
6. Can anybody point me to a reference describing the piece that would sit on F and connect to E? As before, where does one go to find/commission such a thing?
7. What should I be asking that I’m not, and don’t realize I should be thinking about?
8. Can anybody point me to some good references or resource material? I’ve been eyeing David Lyle’s “The Book of Masonry Stoves: Rediscovering an Old Way of Warming†and would love some feedback as to if that might suit my needs. Also, online references, liks, or images are happily accepted
Any help/insight would be GREATLY appreciated. Let me know if any more information is needed and I’ll be happy to measure or examine to find an answer! Thanks! - Shaun
Here's an image showing multiple views and close-ups of the features. I’ve labeled them for ease of discussion, and provided full descriptions as best I can.
A. The Brick Oven seems to be in perfect condition. Behind the cast iron door is a cavernous dome-ceilinged oven at least 4 feet deep. The door is in great shape and the oven is clean
B. Directly below the brick oven is a solid cast iron door. Opening the door reveals a plain rectangular cutout in the brick face that opens into a square vertical chimney shaft. I’m not sure what the function of this door is – it doesn’t seem to be ash cleaning, as there’s no flat surface anywhere for debris to collect. This would also preclude building any fire there either. The door itself is in good shape except for one corner which is broken off. We have the broken piece, but it doesn’t affect the functionality of the door at all.
C. A 24.5†diameter round cutout on the flat top of the construct. There is a slight chamfer/taper at the edge of the brick circumference, so I’m wondering if this was sized for a large pot that would be used to heat water. There is a fairly rough cutout in the face of the adjacent wall that is one brick width deep– maybe added after the fact to allow the pot to be removed and replaced easily? It’s hard to see in the photo so I added black rectangles to indicate where there is a channel in the brick that connects this recess through to the chimney. A close-up is shown in Image 5.
D. This appears to be a wood-loading cutout to allow a fire heating feature C to be fed and maintained. Image 6 is a close-up of this feature. There is no door to this cutout, though. There is easy access to a rectangular slot at the bottom of the cavity (which can be seen in Image 5).
E. This appears to be a woodstove pipe connection into the chimney. It is closed off at the moment, but appears fully functional.
F. This feature (shown in close-up in Image 8) is a 14†x 21.5†rectangular cutout on the top surface. Unlike the round cutout C, there is no exhaust channel leading out of the cavity, which leads me to believe it housed a cover (cast iron flat cooking surface, perhaps?) that vented via a chimney to the connection E.
G. Another rectangular cutout (shown in Image 7) similar to D is located beneath feature F. This likewise appears to be feed door for adding wood to a fire.
H. Lastly, the opposite side of the whole thing houses a brick fireplace, which can be seen in the inset Image 4. Presumably all of the chimney lines (B, the channel in C, and E) connect into this main chimney.
Inspections were recently completed, and confirmed that all of the chimneys have recently be relined and are in pristine condition. I also grew up with woodstoves and have been heating with them through New England winters for my entire adult life, so the prospect of maintaining some good cooking/heating fires isn’t frightening me off. But now what do we do? It’s challenging for a neophyte to this old-style construction to identify what is needed to get everything up and running, or even to feel confident that we have figured everything out. Here are some questions (in no particular order):
1. Do I have anything grossly wrong in my descriptions above, or my conclusions about the function and use of each element?
2. Feel free to correct/educate me on terminology! I suspect I’m sounding like a fool with the names I’m using for the various features - luckily it’s comfortable territory for me
3. What is the purpose of the door B?
4. Are there supposed to be cast iron doors, akin to the one on the brick oven A or the access port B, on the feed boxes D and G? It seems to me that you’d want something like that?
5. In the view shown in Image 5, what is the purpose of the rectangular cutout at the bottom of the cavity? Would that contain the actual fire, with the pot setting on the corner blocks shown? That would allow smoke and heat to escape from the channel through the angled chamfers. That would make for one huge pot though - where does one go to find/commission such a thing? Could we alternatively commission a large cast iron deep skillet to provide a flat cooking surface?
6. Can anybody point me to a reference describing the piece that would sit on F and connect to E? As before, where does one go to find/commission such a thing?
7. What should I be asking that I’m not, and don’t realize I should be thinking about?
8. Can anybody point me to some good references or resource material? I’ve been eyeing David Lyle’s “The Book of Masonry Stoves: Rediscovering an Old Way of Warming†and would love some feedback as to if that might suit my needs. Also, online references, liks, or images are happily accepted
Any help/insight would be GREATLY appreciated. Let me know if any more information is needed and I’ll be happy to measure or examine to find an answer! Thanks! - Shaun
