What do you think is behind the backs of these people? That's right, an oven, not speakers, as it seems at first glance. This photo was taken in the middle of the 20th century in Germany, when such stoves no longer became one of the main household items and receded into the background. The definitions of the qualities of people of those times according to the principles of "careless" and "secured" have already passed into ordinary common nouns, into the meaning of which no one has particularly delved into.
The topic of such strange-looking furnaces has already been repeatedly paid attention to by many researchers, including your humble servant. And nevertheless, you have to return to it for one simple reason, namely, as you immerse yourself in the materiel, you realize more and more that everything is not as simple as you imagined earlier. Indeed, the archives give out photos of many furnace designs that defy logic, for example, these.
This is not a museum interior, but an ordinary stove in a middle-class house in the second half of the 19th century in Germany. It is not even the absence of a firebox and a pipe that confuses, but the upper part of this stove. For those who are not familiar with ancient architecture, this construction most likely will not remind you of anything. But for knowledgeable people, this will immediately lead to a visual similarity with some architectural elements, such as such.
These are the Samarkand antiquities at the time of their discovery by Von Kaufmann in the 19th century, exactly how they looked then without any restorations. There is the same cellular structure of concave tiles, only the scales are different, apparently the purposes are also different. We can only state one thing - our ancestors knew how to control infrared radiation and some other similar radiation just as easily as lighting technicians do in theaters now. But in order to control infrared radiation, it must at least be received. And how did you manage it, and even in ovens with a strange shape? The upper part of such ovens does not answer this question, for example, this:
Or like this:
Promotional video:
Or even such a dream of Emelya with a strangely raised upper part:
What is the outlined element for these ovens? It is a dead end for hot air, and it is unlikely that its surface worked to transfer heat from collecting radiation from the fuel burning inside. And if suddenly the surface of this superstructure from the inside is covered with a thick layer of soot, then it falls out of the heating system almost completely. Nevertheless, she had some functionality. This fact is supported by an accidentally discovered painting by an unknown artist of the early 20th century.
As you can see, for some reason, the stove was not quite elegantly modified with a stove, obviously just for burning firewood. The firewood stove in the background is not intended. The principle of its operation is completely different, but once a pipe was cut into it, there was still some kind of air channel there. The case of such a clumsy modification of furnaces is not at all isolated.
What does it mean? Only one thing - at the end of the 19th century, the principle of operation of such stoves was changed, and which could be adapted, adapted for firewood. The firewood combustion chamber was located in the lower part, and the upper part was left either for beauty, or to disguise the pipe, or it simply could not be dismantled without destroying the single furnace structure.
Here it is, that very stove-stove in a good sense of the word. Only wealthy people who did not have to go to fetch firewood could afford such a thing. Such a design warmed itself, sleeping and cooking on it was bad form, and there was no need. There were special places and specially trained people for this. Its main feature is that it stood in the rooms not built-in anywhere (and as a rule in niches), only chimneys came out of it (or into it). By analogy, revolutionary lumpen began to call stoves everything that visually resembled such a structure, even if it was an iron barrel, adapted for firewood, with a pipe in the window. Actually, this luxurious stove in the photo was also finalized. What caused this ubiquitous refinement of stoves (this also did not bypass Russia)?
Another interesting detail is that in German a similar oven is called ofen (the Russian equivalent is oven). Immediately reminiscent of the Russian slang name for small street traders - ofenya. It is they who are credited with the emergence of a specific slang called fenei. Their other name is peddlers. They were famous for the fact that they have a full-full box, there is both chintz and brocade. With the cultivation of the consumer market in Russia in the 19th century, these boxes were transferred to trade enterprises, and they can be seen in numerous photos. These boxes were not at all the ones worn over the shoulders, but something like that.
Something suspiciously these boxes resemble our ovens. I wonder if this is an oven, what kind of perfume did she collect there? But this is so, by the way.
There were a lot of furnace designs. There were even combined types.
The firebox door in the bottom photo is most likely also a revision for firewood. The original versions of the ovens never had them. Why were such ovens made so unaesthetically from two halves? Most likely, this is the very separation of properties. The lower part was used to generate heat, and the walls were made of a thermally conductive material. But the upper part served for the extraction of what gave rise to this heat. And only the edges of this structure were used. The space in the center was not needed, it was even opened, apparently to increase the heat transfer area.
Don't be surprised, this is also an oven, although it looks more like a chest of drawers. This is just the design work of the time. Well, it's probably time to delve into the materiel. Accordingly, all furnaces are of this kind:
By default, we will consider it simply as a successfully shot angle, and we will reduce their secrets approximately to those in this picture:
and we will assume that these are ordinary ovens (although questions remain for many of them). And we will consider only those furnace designs where the unusual technical characteristics are obvious and irrefutable. There are also such, for example this one:
As practice shows, if on old artifacts in a certain part of them there is a cross or a sickle & a hammer, then it is there that you need to look for a catch. Once upon a time, the effects of ancient technologies manifested themselves in these places, and when they were destroyed, some ideologists stuck their symbols there, and those that replaced them with their own (if they considered it necessary to leave this artifact at all). The effect was calculated on the peculiarities of the human visual perception of certain objects, such as now car numbers (psychologists have proven that information from car numbers is read by almost all people and forms a certain image in the head, and you can use this well by sticking, for example, a Latin alphabet or a blue square into the numbers EU flag background). A crown with a cross on this stove immediately suggests the idea of domes of Gothic temples,which are quite often made in such a lightweight form. So our oven is a mini-temple? It is not excluded. The discovered drawing added even more mystery.
Not only does the definition of a stove mention some charges, but also contrary to all the laws of physics, the heat from the stove goes from top to bottom and heats up the food standing on the stove. And this is not a typo. This is clearly reflected in the thermal engineering diagrams of palaces of that time.
Our ovens, standing in niches, heat the air and forcibly supply it to different rooms through a system of hidden channels. It turns out that these are the very pneumatic ovens or Ammosov ovens that everyone seems to be hearing, but whose schemes are not available anywhere. But just somehow their description in the source does not fit with the photos posted above.
Even if we abstract from the given device and the dimensions of this very Ammosov furnace, the description clearly says about the firebox and walking smoke. Where can you find them here?
Or here:
Or even here, where the oven itself is hidden behind partitions:
For all descriptions, these stoves are called earthenware stoves, and there can be no firebox inside them, by definition, and of walking smoke, for obvious reasons, too. This, apparently, is the secret of secured people - a similar heating device, imperceptibly hidden in a niche, could heat a significant part of a house or palace. And these are the very coils that are described here. But back to the Ammosov ovens.
Why was it necessary to reinvent the wheel in 1835, if it had already worked all over the world before, and had a more perfect design? Either Nicholas I deliberately went for a technical regression and started with himself, or about Ammosov's ovens in history, he was wrong with those three boxes (well, except for the fact that they really were). And most likely, the fight against these fuel-free stoves began in the Russian Empire (after 1812), and it was then that these Ammosov stoves arose as an adaptation of what was for wood heating. And all this went in sync with other obscure reforms that are described here. The question is - who won that war? In Europe, they began to fight these furnaces a little later, apparently there were reasons for that. And almost until the 20th century, these ovens continued to work there safely.
How could this oven drive air? Actually, there is nothing complicated here. Something similar was described in the technological process of manufacturing the lamp gas, when the injected hot air or steam caused the dry distillation of the raw material. Technically, this is not difficult to do. Stirling engines were known as early as the 17th century. Another question - what was the source of heating there? Obviously not firewood. Looking at the earthenware stoves, you might think anything, but not this.
This is another modified example of a faience stove. It can be seen that there are cracks along the body of the structure. Obviously, either they tried to set something on fire inside, or, most likely, they caused external mechanical damage. The weight of this oven is quite decent. Why isn't it falling apart?
The same is here. Crackellures go all the way down. This furnace is not in its design position, apparently, it was removed for disposal and temporarily placed in a corner. A persistent feeling that there is an armature inside this faience. What could heat this stove? There are also such designs of furnaces.
Both stoves are clearly tiled. The lower part, although it also contains traces of revision, has a very narrow upper part, which is also made of tiles and under a slope. How could these tiles be held there so as not to fall apart from the heat? Stop, let's start thinking. And for this we again use sites selling antiques, where you can find detailed photos of what you need from all sides.
As you can see, our tiles have holes on the tiller. Actually, this is not news, everyone knows that they are attached to the masonry with iron rods and wire. Corner tiles have horizontal holes, simple vertical ones. One small But - what if there is no masonry? The answer is obvious - these rods can be connected into a completely rigid metal frame and the tiles can be strung on it so that they will last forever. In addition, I have always thought about why the tiles are made with rump, and thus lean against the masonry of the stove with an almost guaranteed air gap, which impairs heat transfer. The diagnosis is clear - in this case, tiles are not needed for heat transfer, but to cover the iron metal frame. In old stoves of this kind, the tiles did not work at all to heat the ambient air, or it was a side effect. And one more small detail - few people know that ceramics has increased magnetic permeability. Thanks to her, archaeologists are even looking for underground conduits of past civilizations. Now let's take another look at the main photo, and we will understand that the ceramic tiles there are lenses for infrared rays. And all our earthenware stoves are nothing but a model of an ordinary temple, and all the walls in them are the same as in the temple, with a metal frame.
This stove, as well as others, has all the components of the temple building, such as a cross, a dome, a drum and a building. And inside this "building", which was below and which was being finalized with fire doors, the process of heating the air was going on. The circled symbols directly indicate that there are reinforced columns both in the furnace and in the niche in which it stands. And in the end we get the same type of free heating as described here, with a few minor differences. Above niches in buildings, as a rule, there were always the same chimneys above the roof, from which smoke never came out. Indeed, why should he go somewhere?
P. S. For those interested, I attach some more types of old stoves.
Ortskatalog zur Kunst und Architektur.
Author: tech_dancer