Factory chimney

“ Nearly all the factory buildings combine in their structure a power plant, not the least important feature of which is the chimney. There are two things to consider in the design of a power chimney—first, its capacity for providing the necessary draft and the conduction of the requisite volume of gases from the furnace or boiler, and second, its stability. The first requirement regulates its diameter and height, and these dimensions, together with its construction, determine also its stability. ”

“ A large separate structure sprang up at the same time, and there came gangs of pale-faced men from London with much extraordinary machinery, vast cylinders, wheels and wires, which they fitted up in this outlying building. The great chimney which rose from the centre of it, combined with these strange furnishings, seemed to mean that it was reserved as a factory or place of business, for it was rumoured that this rich man's hobby was the same as a poor man's necessity, and that he was fond of working with his own hands amid chemicals and furnaces. ”

“ Wide chimneys are not so liable as narrow ones to have their draught affected by strong winds. In a factory, many furnace flues are often conducted into one vertical chimney stalk, with great economy in the first erection, and increased power of draught in the several fires.
Vast improvements have been made in this country, of late years, in building stalks for steam boilers and chemical furnaces. ”

“ A piece of land had just been laid out{514} in the building of mansions of a superior class—not one of them valued at less than seven or eight thousand pounds—when lo and behold the purchasers of the newly erected edifices find to their consternation that the tall chimney of an unexpected factory has begun to belch volumes of black smoke into their back-windows all day long! The chimney—that of a perfectly respectable flour-mill, we believe—is unexceptionable as regards chimney architecture. ”

“ Once a man put his hand to the hole and it was stuck fast like a sucker on a stone. Before we could get him loose we had to draw the charge and extinguish the fire. This made us very careful. When we first started smelting we had the chimney forty feet higher, and then there was a draught. My eye, how it roared! The first charge of ore we put in the furnace disappeared right up the chimney. The directors told us it wouldn’t do, and the shareholders said that letting all their ore fly up the chimney was bad management, so we cut it down twenty feet. ”

“ The latest chimney practice is to build two or more small chimneys instead of one large one. A notable example is the Spreckels Sugar Refinery in Philadelphia, where three separate chimneys are used for 1960 one boiler plant of 7,500 horse power. ”

“ A forty per cent. pyritous or other sulphide ore should be roasted in a revolving furnace in thirty to forty minutes, and without any auxiliary fuel.
For ordinary purposes a 40-foot chimney is adequate for furnace work; such a chimney four feet square inside at the base, tapering to 2’ 6” at the summit, will require 12,000 red bricks, and 1500 fire-bricks for an internal lining to a height of 12 feet from the base of the chimney shaft.
When second-hand Lancashire or Cornish boiler flues are available, they make admirable and inexpensive chimneys. ”

“ There is a great fascination, too, in standing near the furnace and watching the sparkling, hissing mass of metal being withdrawn by the crane, or seeing the heated bars removed from the oil forge and clapped quickly on the steel dies to be beaten into shape. No one can withstand the attraction of the steam-hammers; even those who have spent a lifetime in the shed like to stand and watch the stampers and forgers at work.
Forging and smithing are, without doubt, the most interesting of all crafts in the factory ”

“ The most efficient chimney is one built perfectly straight with a round or nearly round flue and a smooth interior surface. There is no advantage in reducing the sectional area toward the top. The cross section and height are determining factors. The transverse area must be sufficient to pass the volume of air required to burn the fuel properly, and the height must be great enough to insure against interference with the draft by adjoining buildings or projections of the same building and to produce a sufficiently strong draft. ”

“ It is strange, methinks, that though chimneys have been so long in use, their construction should be so little understood till lately, that no workman pretended to make one which should always carry off all smoke, but a chimney-cloth was looked upon as essential to a chimney. This improvement, however, by small openings and low breasts, has been made in our days; and success in the first experiments has brought it into general use in cities, so that almost all new chimneys are now made of that sort, and much fewer bricks will make a stack of chimneys now than formerly. ”

“ There are hundreds of belching chimneys, but they are kept out of sight in the valleys behind, where each factory stands isolated in the fields, often in a planted enclosure: this leaves the city proper free of traffic, smoke, and the whirr of machinery. ”

“ Even though the unit is well designed, it will not operate properly if the chimney is inadequate; therefore the rules for correct chimney construction must be adhered to with the modified unit as well as with the ordinary fireplace.
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Manufacturers claim labor and materials saved tend to offset the purchase price of the unit; also that the saving in fuel justifies any net increase in first cost. A minimum life of 20 years is claimed for the type and thickness of metal commonly used today in these units. ”

“ Thus too are tested the young and untried chimneys, which, should they smoke, are to be examined by a practical man before anything else can be done. They may smoke through faulty construction. In this case new grates must be had from Haines & Co., 83 Queen Victoria Street, who have a grate that can easily deal with this desperate strait. Or they may require tall chimney-pots, or a mere ‘blower,’ which is best when made of a clear thick sheet of glass. ”

“ A bricklayer might here observe, “Admitting you can sweep chimneys with the machine, how would you core them?” More effectually and with greater facility than boys can possibly do it. Chimneys that are straight, or nearly so, do not require coring, and the rubbish that falls on the diagonal part of the flue, where the angles are obtuse, can easily be dislodged by a stiff brush attached to the machine, and introduced into the top of the chimney. ”

“ The coal you use in your glass factories has to be mined and hauled from the mine to you. That’s what makes it cost you so much. I—I know you burn a lot of it, and this year especially, with all the labor trouble and the shortage, it is getting to be awful expensive. And—and I’ve been thinking—why couldn’t the coal be burned in the ground right where it is, and put the factory there—instead of mining it? The heat would come up from below, you know.”
Jimmy paused, a little out of breath. ”

“ They’ve built one of the new factories out there, a great red brick town of sheds they tell me it is, with a tremendous chimney. It’s not been finished more than a month or six weeks. They plumped it down right in the middle of the fields, by the line, and they’re building huts for the workers as fast as they can but up to the present the men are billeted all about, up and down the line. ”

“ If possible the scrap-washing machine should be placed outside the wall of the factory, and tanks for the reception of scrap rubbers may then be situated in convenient proximity.
Economy of labour is obtained by grouping all factory buildings as closely as possible, but it should be borne in mind that smoke-houses should be regarded as a possible source of danger from fire. ”

“ The dimensions of a flue for adequate draft depend principally on the grate area and type of heating plant [1] and on the kind of fuel to be burned, both of which should be determined before construction is begun. If a chimney is found to be inadequate the only method of improving it, short of reconstruction, is to increase its height. ”

“ I have known thousands of factories; and every factory I have known that is really strong or efficient has scales like a snake, and casts off its old self. All the people in it, and all the iron and wood in it, month by month are being renewed and shedding themselves. Any live factory can always be seen moulting year after year. A live spirit goes all through the machinery, a kind of nervous tissue of invention, of thought.
We already speak of live and dead iron, of live and dead engines or half-dead and half-sick engines, and we have learned that there is such a thing as tired steel. ”

“ As previously stated, the chimneys are all supported upon the steel structure of the building at an elevation of 76 feet above the basement floor and 63 feet above the grates. The supporting platforms are, in each case, carried on six of the building columns (the three front columns of two groups of boilers on opposite sides of the center aisle of the boiler room) , and each platform is composed of single-web plate girders, well braced and surmounted by a grillage of 20-inch I-beams. The grillage is filled solidly with concrete and flushed smooth on top to receive the brickwork of the chimney. ”

“ Don’t you see?”
“There ain’t any factories over coal-mines,” said Anne.
“No, but there could be just as easy as not. It don’t make so much difference where a factory is, so long as it’s got a railroad. That’s the idea—I’m going to build a factory where the coal is instead of taking the coal to where the factory is.”
“How you going to burn the coal in the ground?” Anne wanted to know.
Jimmy thought a moment.
“Why, just—just burn it,” he answered finally. “You see, Anne,” he hastened to add, “the heat will come up in pipes to the factory boilers at the top—just like the heat comes up.” ”

“ And these best possible conditions, as far as the employees are concerned, are also the best possible conditions from the manufacturing standpoint. One could not put a great plant on a little stream. One can put a small plant on a little stream, and the combination of little plants, each making a single part, will make the whole cheaper than a vast factory would. There are exceptions, as where casting has to be done. In such case, as at River Rouge, we want to combine the making of the metal and the casting of it and also we want to use all of the waste power. ”

“ The cotton-factories themselves are not so agreeable nor so healthful to work in as they used to be. Once they were light, well ventilated, and moderately heated; each factory-building stood detached, with pleasant sunlit [209] windows, cheerful views, and fresh air from all points of the compass. But these buildings are now usually made into a solid mass by connecting “annexes,” and often form a hollow square, so that at least one-half of the operatives can have no outlook except upon brick walls, and no fresh air but that which circulates within this confined space. ”

“ Not only so; the very presence of the coolies is a hindrance to the efficient working of the factory, and considerable floor-space and time are wasted.
This feature in factory working is all the more annoying because the necessity for it could so easily be obviated. All that is necessary is the erection of a wide, open verandah outside the wall of the factory. Here all latex could be received and strained, scrap-rubbers could be received and passed through an opening into tanks placed in convenient position. ”

“ As the warm air rises, the cold air rushes in through the opening at the bottom of the shaft, and in this way a draft is created which supplies the fire at the foot of the chimney with the oxygen it needs to support combustion.
Simple chimneys are constructed of logs and mortar, or of stones and mortar, such as those built for log cabins; of brick, also of cement and of iron pipes made for the purpose. Since a long column of hot air produces a stronger current than a short one, the tallest chimneys, other things being equal, produce the strongest draft. ”

“ If it should be necessary to diminish the opening of a large Chimney in order to prevent its smoking, it is much more simple, economical, and better in all respects, to do this with marble, fire-stone, or even with bricks and mortar, than to make use of iron, which, as has already been shown, is the very worst material that can possibly be employed for that purpose ”

“ The door should be placed just below the smoke pipe opening, and care must be taken to see that it fits snugly and is always closed so tight that no air can get in.
SUPPORTING THE CHIMNEY.
All chimneys should be built from the ground up. None of the weight should be carried by any part of the building except the foundation. Proper foundations should be provided at least 12 inches wider all round than the chimney. If the chimney is an exterior one, and there is no basement or cellar, its foundation should be started well below the frost line. ”

“ It is easier to handle than galvanized sheet-metal, which is more often used because of its lesser cost, but which will corrode in time, both from inside and outside exposure. Tin or black iron are cheaper but will rust quickly unless frequently painted. Lead and zinc are expensive and should not be used for chimney flashings, for in case of fire under the roof they will melt and leave an opening to create a draft by which the intensity of the fire will be increased. ”

“ The fabrique is built like the rest of the cottages, and only differs from them in size, and the shape and height of its chimney, which emitting only wood smoke, has none of the dense sulphuric cloud which blackens and poisons the neighborhood of coal-fed factories: it is never that ostentatious building for whose magnitude and embellishments the public are obliged to pay, in the increased charges on its productions. ”