Shoutout to the old brick chimney at the Smithfield Mill

I was doing a walkthrough in that old mill building downtown last Tuesday and noticed their main chimney still has the original clay flue liners from 1920. Has anyone else worked on those old industrial chimneys with the tapered bricks?

3 comments

3 Comments

hannahsingh25d ago

Wait, those clay liners from 1920 are still holding up? That's nuts. I mean, you'd figure after a hundred years of smoke and heat and who knows what else they'd be cracked to pieces by now. But you're telling me they're still solid? That's wild. I always figured old masonry was tough but that's on another level entirely. No modern tools, just a level and a trowel like you said, and they still built something that lasts a century. Hard to wrap my head around that kind of skill.

jake98625d ago

You ever just take something for granted until you actually stop and look at it? I used to think all those old chimneys were just piles of bricks slapped together, but seeing the tapered bricks up close changed my mind completely. The craftsmanship is incredible when you realize they were laid by hand with no modern tools, just a level and a trowel. Those clay flue liners from 1920 are probably still in better shape than the ones we install today, which is a real testament to how things were built back then. Makes you wonder what we're leaving behind for the next hundred years.

kellyjones25d ago

Funny you mention that @jake986, because it's the same thing with old barn beams. Those hand-hewn timbers with the adze marks still hold up better than anything from a lumber yard today. It's humbling to realize that without a single machine they built stuff that outlasts what we can do now.