In a book of this kind there is no particular need for dwelling at length on the desirability of having a fireplace. That will be taken for granted. It is enough to say that in these days a home can scarcely be considered worthy of the name if it does not contain at least one hearth. There is some inexplicable quality in a wood fire that exerts almost a hypnotic influence upon those who eagerly gather about it. The smoldering glow of the logs induces a calm and introspective mood that banishes all the trivialities and distractions of the day’s work and gives one an opportunity to replenish his store of energy for the coming day.

The open fire, unlike most of the comforts that we demand in a modern home, has been associated with the race as far back almost as the home itself. At first, of course, it was as a necessity and the development from that to a luxury has been an exceedingly slow one extending over the years down to the present time.

There are two forms of the open fire—a possible third one, the gas log, being a subject on which the less said the better. We have, therefore, a choice between the open fireplace designed for wood and the basket grate in which to burn coal, preferably cannel coal. This latter fuel is not nearly so well known in this country as in England where the scarcity of wood necessarily makes coal the more commonly used fuel. With our own abundance of wood, however, there will perhaps be little hesitancy in choosing the open fireplace rather than the basket grate for coal, although in certain cases, for example an apartment where the flue has been built too small, or in a house where an available chimney offers only a small flue area for fireplace use, the basket grate will prove a welcome solution of the problem. Of course there is no excuse whatever for building a modern home with a chimney too small for the sort of fireplace you want, but where the chimney has already been built without this provision it may possibly be found that a small terra cotta flue lining may be inserted in the larger flue without seriously damaging the latter’s power of draft. In that event the addition of a basket grate fireplace to an old house would be an interesting possibility.

However fully we may appreciate the desirability of some sort of fireplace, there seems to be a rather widespread impression that the attainment is largely a matter of chance. Too many home-builders have instructed their architects to provide a fireplace or two in the fond hope that the matter was then practically closed—a mere matter of time until they might be sitting before the fire’s cheerful glow. Too frequently the result has been a disappointment when the first few trials introduced into the room more smoke than heat or cheer. The reason for this is that there is a scientific basis for fireplace building which is frequently ignored absolutely by an over-confident and stupid mason. Where the work of building the home has been entrusted to an architect’s hands the latter usually appreciates the fact that the building of the fireplaces is liable more than any other part of the house to be taken into the mason’s own hands with, if he is not watched, disastrous results. Undoubtedly every mason would resent most strongly any insinuation as to his lack of knowledge regarding fireplace construction. Each mason not only thinks that he knows how a fireplace should be built, but it is almost as general a rule that he feels that his particular method is the only correct one.

In view of this it might be well for any man building his own home to give some attention to the matter of his fireplaces, to insist on knowing how they are designed and to follow their construction throughout so that there is no chance for a blunder; and this chance is not so slight as might be supposed. In a house in which the author had carefully shown every detail of construction in the drawings, it was found when the building was nearly completed that the cast-iron throat flues, which ordinarily prevent any possible mistake of construction on the mason’s part, had been put in reversed and it was necessary to tear down the whole face of the chimney breast in each case to replace them properly.

The matter of construction is not at all a complicated affair, as the next chapter will aim to show.