An especial love for home comfort has always been an English characteristic. It has formed a species of national taste and pride even among our working classes. The constant changes of our climate are injurious to every class; the chief point of attraction in the English dwellings, during winter’s wet, cold, and fog, is centred in the fireplace. This has long been deemed the favoured spot where

“Social mirth
Exults and glows before the blazing hearth.”

The fireplace suits our climate; it is cheerful and attractive, but it gives its heat only by radiation. We are warmed on one side and chilled on the other, but neither the warmth nor the chill is too great to bear, and the occupant of the room can move into any temperature that suits him. In more northern climates the use of the fireplace would not be tolerated; there the cold is so excessive that an equal warmth must be diffused throughout the apartments, and flues in hollow walls, and closed stoves either in iron or brick are in the ascendant, as already mentioned in an earlier part of this work. But such means, by which the air is heated, and not merely warmed—and there is a great difference between warmed air and heated—would not be tolerated here. A puff of air from a closed stove caused by a back draught is not pleasant, and is very different from the honest puff of smoke from an English fireplace, that gives as a natural product of combustion, carbonic acid gas. But not one of these stoves, nor those that are called “smoke-consuming stoves,” make a good companionable fire—and this is not liked.

The common open fireplace has held its own, and will continue to hold its own, against the best-contrived stove that can be introduced in lieu of it. But it still remains to find such a construction as will remedy its serious defects. These are chiefly such as pertain to the flue; it is not to the stove that these belong, for that, thanks to our excellent makers, is quite perfect.

In our sluggish winter atmosphere the smoke leaves the open flue with tolerable certainty unless the flue is foul with soot; but when high winds prevail and the atmosphere is anything but sluggish, it teaches us the faults of the open flue, and volumes of smoke descend into our apartments. There are few occurrences in domestic life more vexatious and annoying than this; the numerous unsightly appendages in the form of cowls, turncaps, and windguards which appear alike on our houses, churches, and palaces, whilst they exhibit the ingenuity of our builders and workmen in remedying the trouble of smoky chimneys, demonstrate also the frequency of the misfortune.

When flues are carefully constructed, with the best modern improvements, and a due supply of air is admitted into the stove, a smoky chimney is an exception; still the flue forms only a simple open funnel for the passage of the smoke, and failures will inevitably often happen. A construction on a good principle should render these defects as trifling as possible. In our best houses—those constructed within the last twenty or thirty years—two kinds of the common brick flue are mostly in use. One is of the old-fashioned kind, having a section of 14 by 9 in., which was made originally of that size for the accommodation of the poor sweeping-boys. This is now retained only for the kitchen fire, which makes a large quantity of smoke, and for the rest of the fireplaces the flue known as “Cubitt’s” flue is employed, which has a diameter each way of 9 in. The author prefers the small flue, and always uses it in the buildings he has constructed. There are many persons who still maintain that the old-fashioned flue is the correct one, and it is still very generally used. There is an old saying about the proof of the pudding. In Belgrave Square, all the houses first designed and erected have the old-fashioned flue, and there are scarcely a dozen of the old chimney-pots left; all have been changed for tall-boys and other similar contrivances; one house has about 24 in one stack. No. 49, built by Cubitt about 35 years ago, and having the descending or sweeping flue, has the stacks exactly as at first constructed, with the exception only of a little doctoring to the kitchen flue. In the house opposite, No. 48, one of the first, the external stack alone, next the street, has no less than 17 tall-boys, two of which appear to be broken off. On the opposite side of the Square, in Chesham Place, is No. 38, built by Cubitt about 30 years; it has all the original stacks untouched.

The Cubitt flue can be recognised by the small peculiar cap on the chimney-pot, and several of these stacks remain in their original state. In Eaton Place and Eccleston Square, where this flue is used, the roofs tell the same story. In the first buildings erected by the author he used the large flue, and he now finds several specimens of chimney-doctoring on the roofs. In some large houses he lately erected at Queen’s Gate, in which the sweeping flue is used, there are several houses together without any disfigurement at all on the roof. He considers that the appearance of a tall-boy on one of them would be rather a proof that there was something wrong about the servants’ management of the fires, than an error in the construction of his flues.

A representation of this flue, and the manner of introducing it into a building, is here given. Fig. 1

Flue construction.