Talk:Chimney

Curious
I'm curious: why is it you don't see more chimney pots in the US, especially when considering that many of the people who settled there originally came from Europe? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.67.205.73 (talk • contribs) 23 October 2005 (UTC)


 * With the exception of historically important ones, homes are not kept for hundreds of years in the US. Most homes were built in the last 50 years. Fireplaces in most US homes are strictly for decorative purposes and rarely used. - mbeychok 19:34, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Physics
Can someone please elaborate on the physics section? The variables aren't clearly defined? Is "V" volume per unit time? Specifically, how does a taller chimney improve the "draw"? (I know it's in the formula, but it's not clear to me why.) Thanks! Samw 04:18, 31 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, I've fixed the details up a little (I hope). Is that better?


 * If you fix the area of the chimney then increasing the height increases the chimney volume, which of course increases the amount of lighter hot gas and thus the pressure differential driving the lift. --njh 07:41, 31 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for defining V correctly. Any chance you can provide a derivation for the formula (or a reference to the derviation)?  Thanks. Samw 01:46, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I got it third hand, though it does seem right. I believe it might be described in the ASHRAE handbook, which I don't have. --njh 08:53, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


 * After spending over an hour with Google, I can find no derivation for the draft flow equation or any explanation as to how the factor $$\kappa$$ was derived. In my opinion, the entire Physics section really adds nothing in any way to the actual subject matter discussed in the article.  In any event, the given equation does not take into consideration the frictional flow resistance inside the chimney nor does it take into account the heat loss as the gases flow through the chimney (and that will vary with the chimney construction materials as well as the different tpes of insulation, if any). Unless others chime in here with reasons why I should not delete the entire Physics section, I intend to delete it within the next 2-3 days.
 * mbeychok 06:05, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I have finished re-naming the Physics section (to Chimney Draught or Draft) and re-writing it completely. Any comments? - mbeychok 07:39, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Additional image
Hi fellows, maybe someone wants to put this image in the article (old industrial chimney, covered by a climbing plant) <-- --80.123.44.48 16:57, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Roman hypocaust; Why are chimneys so late, historically?
1. The comment about Roman bakeries can be extended: all Roman floor heating (hypocaust) for bathhouses/villas used hollow wall bricks to conduct sub-floor smoke to the venting gutters, which is why a Roman bath-house smoked at the eaves. Experimental archaeologists have rebuilt such items in eg Turkey and made them run. 2. what is it about chimneys that made them so late historically? The 12th century?

Need more about history/construction of residential chimney/fireplace
Either here or in the "fireplace" article --

Very significant in the development of chimneys and fireplaces was a change that occurred somewhere around 1500, when someone in England (IIRC) figured out what made fireplaces smoke. Up to that point the fireplace was a rectangular box and the chimney was an open rectangular tube above that. The things smoked badly and would rarely draw well.

Someone (I believe his identity is known) realized that the smoking was due to cold drafts coming down the chimney. His main innovation was the "smoke ledge" just above the fireplace, nearly blocking the flu opening. This allowed hot air from the fireplace to only enter the chimney along the front edge, and this set up a circulation in the chimney so that any downdraft was caught by the updraft and kept from blowing into the fireplace. Also, this inventor added the sloped face below the smoke ledge, so that heat from the back of the fire would be reflected outward. Similarly, the sides were generally angled vs being at right angles as before.

I'm thinking I may have read all this in a Smithsonian article ca 1980-1985.

Remarkable chimneys
I like the list of remarkable chimneys, but most of those listed don't have any remarks to tell us why they are remarkable. I suggest removing those without anything in the remarks column. Please fill in justifications for those chimneys listed, or risk losing them from this article. Thanks, Gwernol 19:35, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Gwernol, I agree with you. Also, we now have about 70 or more chimneys in that table. Personally, I think that is more than enough!! Can we somehow call a stop to adding any more names? Perhaps, we could also delete power plants that don't have a Wikipedia article to which they can be linked ... in other words all of those red-linked names. - mbeychok 20:27, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Done. Gwernol 15:55, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Converting metres to feet and vice versa
I found many errors in the stack height conversions. I corrected them by using 1 metre = 3.281 feet.

For USA stacks, I assumed that the feet were correct and then converted to metres.

For all other countries, I assumed that the metres were correct and then converted to feet. - mbeychok 16:00, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * If I had just waited a few minutes, until user:Gwernol had deleted most of the listed stacks, I would have saved myself a lot of converting. Ah, well! - mbeychok 16:09, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry about that, I wasn't trying to wipe out your good work, just get us down to a list of actually remarkable chimneys. Your edits should still be in the history, so we can get back to them if we need to restore any of the chimneys previously list. Best, Gwernol 16:11, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

More on Remarkable Chimneys
Gwernol, why did you leave two "dismantled" chimneys in the list? I don't see how that makes them remarkable. - mbeychok 16:05, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Liners
How about more info on chimney liners? What are they made of, what do they do, and do people really need them? Deepfryer99 (talk) 16:39, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Maintenance
This section says that creosote collects in chimneys and that chimney sweeps are employed to remove the creosote. The elephant in the room is that chimney sweeps remove SOOT from chimneys and soot isn't mentioned at all!

Fences
I'm surprised that there is no mention of the helical fences found at the top of many industrial flues to affect the airflow. I believe they stabilise the chimney as discussed in Vortex shedding and also cause the combustion products to rise higher into the air before dispersing.

Vandalism?
The following passage looks strange: "Industrial chimneys are commonly referred to as things with smoke coming out of them that spell like crap"... --Daha6439 (talk) 11:53, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Suprising what some people will vandalise is'nt it? I guess it can be removed altogether. Elcaballooscuro (talk) 11:03, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

"draught or draft"
At this writing there is a section with the awkward title of Chimney draught or draft, and the draught or draft phrasing is repeated in the text. That's just silly. Someone needs to look back in the history and figure out whether the earliest non-stub version of the article was written in UK English or US English, and revise accordingly. At first reference (in the text, not in the section heading) it would be OK to mention the other spelling parenthetically, for example
 * ...That movement or flow of combustion air and flue gas is called "natural draught" (US: "draft")...

if the UK version is chosen, or the reverse in the other case. See WP:ENGVAR. --Trovatore (talk) 20:57, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Why chimney stacks?
I came here to find out why buildings in UK have chimney stacks, while in other countries there is just one chimney that is shared by all fireplaces from different floors. Does anyone know? In the parts on stacks I did not understand where transverse loads come from. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.101.22.212 (talk) 19:11, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Who is Malik?
See: "Later chimneys were constructed by placing the bricks around tile liners, a system invented by Malik" - please excuse my ignorance, but I assume this is no serious reference? If so, some kind of link or explanation would be needed. I assume this could be removed, though.ASchudak (talk) 09:58, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

More history
Alliance for Green Heat provides a much richer history than this article, but I haven't been able to corroborate those dates (yet) on the Internet. The Chinese version of this article also mentions chimney-like structures going back thousands of years in India and China. Does anyone have more information on the history of chimneys? --BB12 (talk) 10:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Encyclopaedia of the History of of Science... has a bit of corroboration. --BB12 (talk) 10:24, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

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much more history
I'm more than shocked that this entire piece seems to be a hijack attempt over the subject of industrial smokestacks and its century plus history of pollution. I was expecting to find dramatic pictures of severe levels of pollution connected with smokestack industries only to find this sanitized "chimney" discussion as if there was no real historic connections between pollution by industrial societies. I have no idea how smokestack history got cut into one sentence here, but its an environmental travesty of monumental proportions that this has happened. Energynet (talk) 22:12, 9 April 2019 (UTC)


 * The following sentence was pulled due to lack of citation on its claim -

In the case of chemically aggressive output, a sufficiently tall chimney can allow for partial or complete self-neutralization of airborne chemicals before they reach ground level.

It should stay out until said claim is documented. Energynet (talk) 17:53, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Foot chimney?
We have one link foot chimney? Is it existing term? I also founded in etwiki et:mantelkorsten--Estopedist1 (talk) 09:05, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 06:50, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * GRES-2 wide.jpg

Second para ‘in the United States…’ should go
1) None of this seems relevant. 2) ‘also known as smokestack in in the United States’ somewhere else would be sufficient 3) there is no risk of confusion with the lesser-known term ‘smokestack industry’ and the reference here is odd 4) I don’t edit much so will wait a week before changing anything 2A00:23C7:A825:6101:2538:773D:1C4C:228E (talk) 00:50, 14 October 2022 (UTC)