The Forgotten Art of Building A Good Fireplace

It describes how to build a Rumford fireplace. They give off heat which is not and Easy feat for any fireplace. For those burning wood only. From Vermont and there is a difference. The contemporary traditional box…. Looks good only

If you are building a firplace this is the book about the man of all men. This simple how to works. This isn't like a Sunset book that has pictures of all steps but it is kept simple. If you supplement this with the Rumford and get their step by step instructions off of their website then this will be simple for most fairly talented home do it your selfers. The end result works and makes since. The products from the web site are hard to get and are costly but they make it so simple to build that you will be surprised and happy. This book is tiny and about a one hour read. A lot of this book is on the history and how the science of Rumford is applied. The shallow box is the way to build a fireplace right . Good Luck

The book is a good read and covers the subject pretty well. However, it is short on specific building details and long on sermonizing about how Count Rumford was right over two hundred years ago and everyone since then is wrong. These are still two hundred year old designs and even the most efficient fireplace is still a far cry from a good airtight woodstove. The forgotten art pretty much consists of having a specific shape of firebox, and the configuration of the chimney and smoke throat- all very good and important considerations. But if you are designing and building a fireplace, you won't find what you need here. A good general reference, but go elsewhere for specifics.

My fiancé built our fireplace using the instructions in this book. It works extremely well! It draws the smoke so well, even when the fire is pushed out on the hearth a little bit it still draws it up. And it really does radiate the heat out instead of up much better than a normal firebox. You can easily feel the heat from 20+ feet away on the open firebox side. This book was a very cool find!

I am an American, living overseas, in Africa, and am in the process of designing my own home. The building standards here are far lower than the standards in America, and I'm looking to educate myself before hiring an architect.This book is the product of an interested layman's research, based on his own interest in finding out why some older, very unusual-looking fireplaces (by modern standards) seem to produce better, non-smoky fires than the modern fireplaces built in this century. The author researched the historical documents and designs left by the famous early-American fireplace builder Count Rumford. He shows us through explanations and diagrams the principles of Count Rumford's designs, and he does explain these principles clearly.I have two criticisms of the book. The first is that he spent the first 35 pages talking about Count Rumford and his life (obviously of great personal interest to the author, and of less interest to me). He spent only the last 20 or so pages specifically on the principles of fireplace design. Secondly, as a layperson, he has had to include in the book a disclaimer for the information. Therefore, this book is useful, but your architect or builder would have to read through it (it's short, and could be done) and pass his judgement upon the principles. Therefore, I don't know if the book will be that useful to me here in Africa, as I am in a French-speaking country. The book could have been greatly improved just by the addition of some comments by various architects added to it, in a separate section.

This is a fabulous little book about the open hearth fireplace, and in particular about a "Rumford" fireplace.The author talks about the beauty, ambiance and joy of a fire in the fireplace, and about the experiments and designs for fireplaces developed by Lord Rumford in the late 1700s. His research has never been bettered in 250 years.I am a builder and in years past I have purchased copies of this book and given them to my masons to show them about the "Rumford Fireplace".This small paperback that is very readable with excellent information.

Thanks for continuing to publish this book.

This is the second copy that I have bought. Both of the others were "lifted" by friends that were building a fireplace. This book has it all. A Rumford is the only way to go if you are going to have a fireplace. We have built two so far.

This is the second copy we have purchased. We are converting an existing fire place into a Rumford and this will help us.

Thank God I chanced upon and bought

This is a classic that is interesting to read and also has detailed drawings to study how to get it right.

Architects should all read this book!!!Simple and practical, it will be very useful weather you build a new fireplace or if feel your existing fireplace could do with behaving better.

It did,my show much but the small amount it good imformation