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What Is A Rumford Chimney?

With spring in the air, many homeowners are clearing out ash from their fireplaces and calling it quits for the year. Warmer temperatures generally means less fireplace use, leaving our team with more availability until the busy fall season comes back around. With an open appointment book, we encourage homeowners looking for a new fireplace to contact us now!

Installation work can be a big job to tackle, but our professional and qualified crew is ready to handle the job. Find the perfect fireplace for you and your home by giving us a call today. We’ll set you up right so that, when cooler temperatures come back around, you’ll be able to enjoy endless fires night after night!

If you’re wondering what type of fireplace to invest in, why not consider a Rumford? Learn more about this design below, then give us a call today! We can’t wait to work with you!

Early History

Rumford chimneys originated back in the late 1790s when Benjamin Thompson, or Count Rumford of Woburn, Massachusetts, wrote essays about how heating and fireplace construction could be improved. These essays revolutionized the fireplace industry and introduced the world to the Rumford Fireplace.

It wasn’t long before nearly every homeowner owned a Rumford. Thomas Jefferson would later go on to build them, and he even wrote essays trying to improve their design after some building techniques got lost in translation. Unfortunately, Rumford’s original thoughts weren’t interpreted correctly as the years went on and Rumford Fireplaces soon decreased in popularity.

Going Back In Style

Fortunately for homeowners in today’s world, Rumford’s original texts are still accessible. By applying modern insight and technological advances to these essays, experts were able to bring Rumford’s vision back to life making these fireplaces a staple in many homes throughout the country. And, at SirVent Chimney, we’re happy to sell and install them for you!

Benefits Of A Rumford

What Rumford was well known for was his passion for pushing heat back into a living space. He aimed to produce designs that would radiate heat towards the fireplace opening and into the home, so that the residents would get the heat output and efficiency they were hoping for. If this sounds like something you need, then a Rumford would be an ideal choice for you!

Along with this, Rumford strived to ensure smoke escaped up and out of the chimney like it was supposed to, so no one was left with a smoke-filled room. Due to the Rumford Fireplace’s rounded breast, heat enters the room without bringing smoke and fumes in with it. In coming up with this unique design, Count Rumford truly made a name for himself and showed folks in the modern world that he was well ahead of his time!

We Are The Team To Trust

For installation and repair work, there is no crew more reliable than the CSIA-certified team here at SirVent Chimney & Venting Services. We love what we do, and when we can make a homeowner’s vision come to life, that’s a great feeling! Let us help you out by answering any and all of your questions, so that you find the right fireplace for your home, no matter what. Call today!

Why You Should Think About a Rumford Fireplace

Fireplaces have been around since the dawn of housing in one shape or another. For hundreds of years fire was the only way to heat buildings and with indoor fires you need a fireplace. It wasn’t until 1795 that an American named Benjamin “Count Rumford” Thompson perfected the fireplace. His work revolutionized fireplace and chimney construction. Strangely, most people today have never heard of Count Rumford even though most fireplaces built between 1796 and 1850 are Rumford fireplaces. The mystery is that after the 1850’s Rumford fireplaces were not built as often and by the 1900’s most masons had forgotten or never learned how to build one at all. Sadly, the modern fireplace is a poor substitute for the simple effectiveness of a Rumford fireplace.

Rumford Fireplace - Lake Norman NC - SirVent Chimney

Persistent Fireplace Design Problems

Before Rumford’s redesign, fireplaces had plenty of issues:

  • Chimney’s wouldn’t draw the smoke up and out properly
  • Fireplaces wouldn’t heat effectively
  • Fires couldn’t pull in enough fresh air to burn effectively

A Rumford fireplace cures all those problems with simple tweaks in design!

The Rumford Design

A Rumford fireplace is taller and shallower than a modern fireplace. When most people look at a Rumford fireplace they mistakenly assume that it has been bricked in and will no longer function properly because of how shallow it is, or that the fire would easily fill the room with smoke. Neither assumption is true. Rumford fireplaces draw smoke up and out the chimney better than any other design, and the heat they fill a room with is many times that of our modern fireplaces.

Rumford redesigned a few elements on the fireplace to make it work the way he wanted.

He determined that fireplaces warm a room through radiant heat. The more direct line of sight objects in the room had with the fire the more they would be heated. To accomplish this he made two changes:

  1. He changed the dimensions of the firebox giving it a much more shallow opening that set the fire out into the room and making it considerably taller.
  2. The other change he made was to the covings or sidewalls. On regular fireplace these are normally squared off to form a square firebox. Rumford designed his covings at a severe angle to reflect more heat into the room.

The next thing to fix was the poor drafting of fireplaces. Rumford redesigned the fireplace’s “throat” which is the space that draws smoke up into the chimney. By positioning and sizing it more precisely he was able to design a fireplace that effectively removes all the smoke from the fire below into the chimney. His design also called for a specific and slight slope to the wall at the back of the firebox.


With the introduction of boilers, radiators and eventually forced heat systems the fireplace was relegated to second-class status. No longer the primary source of heat architects, masons and builders gave little thought to its functionality. Fireplaces became more architectural element and less functional part of the home. Even though it was no longer a necessity, society has never been able to remove it completely from the home. If you have a modern fireplace don’t give up hope. Your fireplace can be remodeled to make it into a Rumford by a good mason without costing an arm and a leg. The fireplace is still the heart of the home. A place where we gather as a family and sit transfixed by the dancing flames and the warmth it brings on a cold winter night. That was what Count Rumford wanted, a simple fireplace that just worked.