fires

[hannah333]

How do you build the most heat effective fire?

[Clanad]

If you are referring to a fire built in a fireplace, the key fto obtaining the most heat out of a given fuel supply is to keep the pieces of the fuel, wood or coal, for example, as close together as possible and provide as much oxygen as you can. In our fireplace using oak or birch firewood, the wood is ricked, i.e., laid in alternating courses. The flue is opened all the way wuntil achieving a good bed of coals and then closed down until causing the flame to be as bright yellow , approaching white, as possible. Having been around Native Americans (every tribe's name for themselves translates the same: The People) in the western U.S., I find an amusing saying..."The white man (was'ichu) builds a big fire and sits far away, while the TsiTsiTas builds a small fire and sits close"...

[jake-the-peg]

I don't think this is quite what you meant but this was a topic of great fascination to a guy called Count Rumford about 200 years ago.

He did endless studies into how to make fireplaces most effective and wrote essays on it. What we think of as a typical "victorian fireplace" is pretty much down to him.

http://www.rumford.com/Rumford.html

Definately deserves more recognition than he gets