Charles Nijman

Many people experience problems with the fireplace draft of the open fireplace, even when the fireplace is newly constructed. Here you can find a number of tips in order to reduce the fireplace smoke in a smoky fireplace, starting with the least drastic measures and ending with the most drastic measures.

A fireback is a beautifully decorated cast iron plate placed against the back wall of a fireplace or behind a wood-burning stove. It serves various purposes, including as a kitchen backsplash or a decorative piece on the wall.

A fireplace screen is necessary to protect people, animals, and the house from the sparks coming off the fire. Finding the perfect beautiful fireplace screen is essential, as you wouldn't want to detract from the beauty of your fireplace with a screen that doesn't complement it. Many new fireplace screens produced today lack aesthetic appeal and are of poor quality.

When the wall behind a wood stove becomes excessively hot, it poses a risk of damage or fire. Replacing the back wall with heat-resistant materials, like heat-resistant stones or a specialized wood stove heat shield, can be cumbersome and aesthetically displeasing. A simpler, more elegant solution is to use a cast iron fireback as a heat shield for the wood stove. Not only does this protect the wall, but the cast iron's slow heat conduction and radiation improve the stove's heat efficiency. The effectiveness increases with the thickness of the fireback.

How to attach a fireback to the back wall of the open fireplace? It is undesirable for a fireback to be able to fall over. First for the safety of you and your housemates, and cast iron can also break if it falls. It is therefore advisable to secure a fireback against falling with a few attachment brackets.

The most important function of fireplace screens is increasing safety. On the one hand, by preventing sparks from the fire from getting into the room and on the other hand by preventing children and pets being able to get to the fire.

It is possible to light a fire on the floor of the fireplace. For thousands of years, though, fires have been lit off the ground with the help of andirons and later also with a fire basket. What is the purpose of this? First, a brief history of the andiron and the fireplace basket. The first fireplace andirons were found with the Romans thousands of years ago. They usually consisted of a single rod or block with one or two elevations. This resulted in better air circulation to the wood, and the fire remained in its place. Since the 16th century, andirons for fireplaces have been used in pairs, which greatly improved their function.

Which size of fireback fits in my open fireplace? In the search for a fireback, it is very important that the size of the fireback is appropriate. How big a fireback should be depends on a number of things described in this blog.

Ash pans are commonly found in fireplaces from the late 19th to early 20th centuries across various countries. They are often integral to fully built-in fireplaces and are also seen in fire baskets with matching designs or as separate units placed under a fire basket.

Roasting jacks were used in the kitchen to facilitate grilling meat or other dishes on a spit in an open fire by rotating (or turning) the spit. The simplest rotating spit has been used since the first century BC. This is a turnspit in which the spit was turned by hand by means of a lever.

The doofpot is a typical Dutch example of frugality. It consists of a pot with a lid that can be sealed as airtight as possible. The pot often stands on small legs. The burning or smoldering pieces of wood were put into this when the inhabitants left the fire. The lack of air caused the wood to extinguish and char. The doofpot was also used to extinguish peat or coal, both fuel for use in a stove.

How to use a fireback so that it works and doesn't crack due to thermoshock.

Pro Patria stands for the fatherland. It is one of the first political fireplace plates in the world. It originates from rebellious Holland, which in the 17^th century fought for political and republican independence amidst other feudal European neighboring countries.