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Why have the chimney outside? It's very inefficient... https://www.quora.com/Why-do-American-houses-often-have-the-chimney-outside-and-not-in-the-middle-where-
by Gravityloss 5y ago
Why have the chimney outside? It's very inefficient...
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-American-houses-often-have-the-chimney-outside-and-not-in-the-middle-where-it-would-help-to-keep-the-house-warm?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Why-do-American-houses-often-have-the-...
- bigyellow 5y agoNot to mention wood fireplaces in the home and the noxious byproducts they produce is likely to shorten your lifespan considerably.
- wing-_-nuts 5y agoBah. Freezing to death in an ice storm can also 'shorten your lifespan considerably'. There's damned good reason to want a simple, off grid means of heating your home if you lose power.
- johtso 5y agoThis is not the case when using modern wood burning stoves though right?
- stevekemp 5y agoApparently they're not as great as people have been thinking https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/18/wood-burners-triple-harmful-indoor-air-pollution-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/18/wood-bur...
- mikeyouse 5y agoOr wood burning fireplace inserts that draw combustion air from outside and expel the fumes/combustion byproducts outside as well. Not ideal for local air quality, but essentially eliminates indoor pollution from them.
- sidewndr46 5y agoWell sure, if you are the only person for miles that uses a fireplace. Additionally, I think people who are outdoors still have to breathe air.
- mikeyouse 5y agoTo that point -- last summer, my friends moved from a mountain town under constant threat of wildfire to a pleasant spot by a lake in the Midwest -- their new neighbor keeps a fire burning 24/7, so they still get to enjoy the terrible air quality all winter long.
- elmolino89 5y agoUnless it does turn wood into a pure gas without a trace of sulfur, silica etc. it must emit such stuff. Or it comes with filters cleaning fine particles, nitric oxide etc. In the end it does emit CO2.
- c2h5oh 5y agoWood pellets largely solve this.
- beaconstudios 5y agothe smoke goes up the chimney.
- notahacker 5y agoMost of the smoke goes up the chimney. You still open it to light, relight and sweep away the ash and in that time you're going to breathe in some smoke or dust particles which you ideally shouldn't Mine's gone out...
- wing-_-nuts 5y agoWhy was that done traditionally? Because if you had a chimney fire, you could hook your mules to it, pull it down, and save the house.
- c2h5oh 5y agoIt also causes condensation because of rapid smoke cooling. Tar condensate will slowly seep through chimney wall. Stainless or ceramic chimney liner slows that process down, but neither will last a 100 years let alone a 1000.
- MichaelApproved 5y agoIf we're talking about chimney efficiency then we should talk about including heat exchangers within the chimney walls. Jamie Hyneman of Mythbusters added one to his house and talks about it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T3nIk3S8Wc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T3nIk3S8Wc
- flovec 5y agoI was wondering that too. If I wanted to design a wood-burning apparatus that would be efficient and last 1000 years, I'd use a design that was more like a masonry stove (centrally located on the inside of the house). In any future (I think), a backup source of heat in a cold climate is a necessary redundancy? I would use the most efficient tech now for the burn chamber (rocket?), but also design the burn chamber in such a way to allow for it to be replaced with better tech in the future (perhaps the masonry stove outer structure and thermal bank would support itself - steel exoskeleton? - etc.).