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For the place in Oxfordshire, England, see Chimney, Oxfordshire.

Chimney stacks on a building in Newcastle upon Tyne, England

Chimney pots in London, England, seen from the tower of Westminster Roman Catholic cathedral

A chimney is a system for venting hot gases and smoke from a boiler, stove, furnace or fireplace to the outside atmosphere. They are typically almost vertical to ensure the hot gases flow smoothly, drawing air into the combustion through convection. the space inside the chimney is called a flue. Chimneys may be found in buildings and steam locomotives and ships (for the latter, the US term is smokestack)

The term chimney may also be applied to natural features, particularly in rock formations.

Contents 1 History 2 Construction 3 Drawbacks 4 Dual-use chimneys 5 Cooling Tower used as chimney 6 Remarkable Chimneys 7 Weblinks

History

Romans used tubes inside the walls to draw smoke out of bakeries but real chimneys appeared only in northern Europe in the 13th century. Industrial chimneys became common in the late 18th century.

Chimneys have traditionally been built of brick, both in small and large buildings. Early chimneys were of a simple brick construction. Later chimneys were constructed by placing the bricks around tile liners. To control downdrafts venting caps (often called chimney pots) with a variety of designs are sometimes placed on the top of chimneys.

Construction

Due to brick's limited ability to handle traverse loads, chimneys in houses were often built in a "stack", with a fireplace on each floor of the house sharing a single chimney, often with such a stack at the front and back of the house. Today's central heating systems have made chimney placement less critical, and the use of non-structural double-wall metal piping allows it to be bent around obstructions and through walls. In fact, modern high-efficiency furnaces do not require a chimney and can vent sideways through a wall.

Industrial chimneys were typically external structures, as opposed to being built into the wall of a building. Most often they were located near a central boiler, and the gases carried to it with external ductwork. Today the use of single-pour concrete has almost entirely replaced brick in this role. They can be quite tall. The height is to ensure the pollutants are dispersed over a wider area to meet legislative or safety requirements.

An exhaust pipe serves a similar function to a chimney in moving machinery. The crucial difference is that, in an exhaust pipe, the waste gases are forced out under pressure, while in a chimney, the gases are carried out by convection.

Drawbacks

A characteristic problem of chimneys is they develop deposits of creosote on the walls of the structure when used with wood as a fuel. Some types of wood, such as pine, generate more creosote than others. Deposits of this substance can interfere with the airflow and more importantly, they are flammable and can cause dangerous chimney fires if the deposits ignite in the chimney. Thus, it is recommended—and in some countries even mandatory—that chimneys be inspected annually and cleaned on a regular basis to prevent these problems. The workers who perform this task professionally are called chimney sweeps.

Masonry (brick) chimneys have also proved particularly susceptible to crumbling during earthquakes. Government housing authorities in quake-prone cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles now recommend building new homes with stud-framed chimneys around a metal flue. (Bracing or strapping old masonry chimneys has not proved to be very effective in preventing damage or injury from earthquakes.) Perhaps predictably, a new industry provides "faux-brick" facades to cover these modern chimney structures.

Other problems include "spalling" brick, in which moisture seeps into the brick and then freezes, cracking and flaking the brick and loosening mortar seals.

Dual-use chimneys

Some very high chimneys are used for carrying antennas of mobile phone services and low power FM/TV-transmitters. Special attention must be paid to possible corrosion problems if these antennas are near the exhaust of the chimney.

In some cases the chimneys of power stations are used also as pylons. However this type of construction is not very common, because of corrosion problems of conductor cables.

Cooling Tower used as chimney

At some power stations, which are equipped with plants for the removal of sulfur and nitrogen oxides, it is possible to use the cooling tower as a chimney. (At plants without flue gas purification, strong corrosion would arise in the cooling tower). This is realized in Germany at the Power Station Staudinger Grosskrotzenburg and with the Power Station Rostock.

Remarkable Chimneys

Chimney	Year	Country	Town	Pinnacle height		Remarks
GRES-2 Power Station	1987	Kazachstan	Ekibastusz	419.7 m	1362 ft	Tallest chimney in the world
Inco Superstack	1971	Canada	Copper Cliff	385 m	1263 ft	Tallest freestanding chimney
Kennecott Smokestack	?	United States	Garfield, Utah	380 m	1263 ft
Chimney of Homer City Generating Station	1977	USA	Minersville, Pennsylvania	371 m	1219 ft
Chimney of Mitchell Power Plant	1971	USA	Moundsville, West Virginia	367,6 m	1207 ft
Trbovlje Chimney	1976	Slovenia	Trbovlje	364 m	1207 ft
Endesa Termic	1974	Spain	La Coruña	356 m	1207 ft
Chimney of Syrdarya Power Plant	1975	Uzbekhistan	Syrdarya	350 m	1149 ft
Chimney of Teruel Power Plant	?	Spain	Tereul	343 m	1149 ft
Chimney of Plomin Power Station	?	Croatia	Plomin	340 m	1149 ft
Chimney of Power Station Westerholt	1997	Germany	Gelsenkirchen	337.5 m	1107 ft
Chimney of Power Station Jaworno	?	Poland	Jaworno	300 m	984 ft
Chimneys of Power Station Belchatow	1979	Poland	Belchatow	300 m	984 ft
Chimney of Power Station Kozienice	?	Poland	Kozienice	300 m	984 ft
Chimney of Power Station Warszawa-Kawcyn	?	Poland	Warszawa-Kawcyn	300 m	984 ft
Chimneys of Navajo Generating Station	?	United States	Page, Arizona	236 m
Anaconda Smelter Stack	1919	USA	Anaconda, Montana	178.3 m		built of bricks

Weblinks

• Power Station Konakovskaya GRES, at which chimneys serve as electricity pylons

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