Roman Chimneys

[Cassius Tullius]

It is well accepted that wealthier Romans had access to the sophisticated hypocaust heating of some rooms. Romans of more modest means had kitchen hearth chimneys. It seems incongruent to accept that other home heating needs were left to moveable braziers without any means of evacuating the smoke.

I have a woodstove and I can attest to the fact that when smoke doesn't go up the chimney like it is supposed to it quickly makes the house unliveable. It takes a little while to get a fire going to really heat a room.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-fr ... 94669FD7CF

A chimney of earthenware pipes that fit exactly one into another makes sense from the standpoint of the Romans extensive use of brick and ceramic building materials. The following article even suggests that recoverd earthenware drainage pipes should be re-axamined for re-interpretation as chimney pipes. The article deals with "lamp chimneys" and the chimney pots that would have been incorporated into a buildings tile roof. I think it is reasonable to consider that suspended columns of chimney pipes were probably installed in rooms that would have been served by braziers with the fire being directly beneath the pipe.

http://cka.moon-demon.co.uk/KAR027/KAR027_lamp.htm

[Eleatic Guest]

Take a look at an earlier discussion here: Chimneys in Antiquity (and the Middle Ages)

I took from it that chimneys were no regular and well-known feature of Roman housing.

[Sean Manning]

Interestingly, the same was true of ships: the Yassi Ada wreck (7th century Byzantine) had its galley ventilated by a smoke-hole, not a chimney. Evidently the ancients learned to live with sore eyes from smoky air.

[Endre Fodstad]

Or they just had clever draft. Smoke-holes and hearths, in properly made iron age germanic/viking age houses at least, do not produce a London Smog ca 1880 interior, although I don't recommend jumping up to take a breath.

Chimneys are good stuff, but it doesn't handicap you all that much to live without. The draft might be tough on the lungs, though, so keep the fire going.

[Cassius Tullius]

The operative observation is that they did have kitchen hearth chimneys and the hypocaust systems also had a method of venting exhaust gasses. The notion that the romans had no more sophisticated means of venting exhaust/combustion gasses (SMOKE) than poking a hole in the ceiling when heating other spaces is based on an archeologists interpretation.

We, moderns, think of a chimney as a hollow masonry or field stone construction but the articles cited suggest a light construction that could have been supported by: wires, light chain, or a metal clamp attatched to an overhead beam. Those same holes that have been observed could easily have communicated a series of interconecting ceramic pipes.

The Yassi Ada is described as a 40 ton burden vessel. Presumably that means that the 62 foot long & 17 foot wide ( at its widest beam) vessel could be expected to carry 40 tons and still be seaworthy. It sank in 120 feet of water. That means that after it lost bouyancy it dropped like a stone for more than a hundred feet. A suspended ceramic pipe would likely have shattered.

In A History of Seafaring, Geaorge F. Bass General Editor, An Omega Book, Thames & Hudson, London, 1972:pg 141 : " The superstructure rose only some 2.3 feet above deck level and was roofed over with tiles. One of the pantiles had a hole through which smoke from the galley could escape. Cooking was done on a large tile hearth fitted into the port half of the galley interior. The hearth tiles, suspended above the floor by a system of iron bars embedded in clay, were well insulated from surrounding wood structures. The tile roof and insulated hearth minimized the possibility of accidental fire, one of the chief causes of disaster at sea in all periods."

[Sean Manning]

The Yassi Ada is described as a 40 ton burden vessel. Presumably that means that the 62 foot long & 17 foot wide ( at its widest beam) vessel could be expected to carry 40 tons and still be seaworthy. It sank in 120 feet of water. That means that after it lost bouyancy it dropped like a stone for more than a hundred feet. A suspended ceramic pipe would likely have shattered.

Many of the galley roof tiles were intact. If they had found some strange fragments of cylindrical clay pipes (and a clay hood to draw the smoke into the pipe!) I think it would have been mentioned. I'm not going to take the time to check the original archaeological reports, though!

Its interesting to hear that smoke holes can work well in a tall, well-designed building. On the other hand, eye problems were apparently chronic among the Iroquois because their longhouses didn't have sufficiently cunning drafts. But I trust that Roman engineers were skilled enough, and Roman householders prosperous enough, to solve the problems.