Hypocaust

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Hypocaust

A hypocaust (Latin hypocaustum) is an ancient Roman
Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
system of central heating
Central heating

File:Boiler and Cylinder.jpgFile:Panna.jpgA central heating system provides warmth to the whole interior of a building from one point to multiple room s....
. The word literally means "heat from below", from the Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
hypo meaning below or underneath, and kaiein, to burn or light a fire. They are traditionally considered to have been invented by Sergius Orata
Sergius Orata

Sergius Orata was a Roman merchant and hydraulic engineer who was famous during the Roman Republic.Sergius was well-known by his contemporaries because of the breeding and commercialization of oysters, in which he can be considered as a pioneer....
, though this is not fully confirmed.

causts were used for heating public baths
Thermae

The terms balnea or thermae were the words the Ancient Rome used for the buildings housing their public baths.Most Roman cities had at least one, if not many, such buildings, which were centers of public bathing and socialization....
and private houses.

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Encyclopedia

A hypocaust (Latin hypocaustum) is an ancient Roman
Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
system of central heating
Central heating

File:Boiler and Cylinder.jpgFile:Panna.jpgA central heating system provides warmth to the whole interior of a building from one point to multiple room s....
. The word literally means "heat from below", from the Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
hypo meaning below or underneath, and kaiein, to burn or light a fire. They are traditionally considered to have been invented by Sergius Orata
Sergius Orata

Sergius Orata was a Roman merchant and hydraulic engineer who was famous during the Roman Republic.Sergius was well-known by his contemporaries because of the breeding and commercialization of oysters, in which he can be considered as a pioneer....
, though this is not fully confirmed.

Operation

Hypocausts were used for heating public baths
Thermae

The terms balnea or thermae were the words the Ancient Rome used for the buildings housing their public baths.Most Roman cities had at least one, if not many, such buildings, which were centers of public bathing and socialization....
and private houses. The floor was raised above the ground by pillars, called pilae stacks
Pilae Stacks

Pilae Stacks are stacks of pilae tiles, square thin tiles, that were used in Roman times as an element of the underfloor heating system, common in Thermae, called the hypocaust....
, and spaces were left inside the walls so that hot air and smoke from the furnace
Furnace

File:Piec krepa.JPGA furnace is a device used for heating. The name derives from Latin fornax, oven. The earliest furnace was excavated at Balakot, a site of the Indus Valley Civilization, dating back to its mature phase ....
(praefurnium) would pass through these enclosed areas and out of flues in the roof, thereby heating but not polluting the interior of the room. Ceramic box tiles were placed inside the walls to both remove the hot burned air, and also to heat the walls. Rooms requiring the most heat were placed closest to the furnace, whose heat could be increased by adding more wood. It was labour-intensive to run a hypocaust as it required constant attention to tend the fire, and expensive in fuel, so it was a feature of the villa
Villa

A villa was originally an upper-class country house, though since its origins in Roman Republic times the idea and function of a villa has evolved considerably....
and public baths.

Vitruvius
Vitruvius

File:Vitruvius.jpgMarcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Ancient Rome writer, architect and engineer , active in the 1st century BC. By his own description Vitruvius served as a Ballista , the third class of arms in the military offices....
describes their construction and operation in his work Sergius Orata
Sergius Orata

Sergius Orata was a Roman merchant and hydraulic engineer who was famous during the Roman Republic.Sergius was well-known by his contemporaries because of the breeding and commercialization of oysters, in which he can be considered as a pioneer....
in about 25 BC, adding details about how fuel could be conserved by designing the hot room or caldarium
Caldarium

A Caldarium was a room with a hot plunge bath, used in a Roman bath complex.This was a very hot and steamy room heated by a hypocaust, an underfloor heating system....
for men and women to be built next to one another, adjacent to the tepidarium
Tepidarium

The tepidarium was the warm bathroom of the thermae heated by a hypocaust or underfloor heating system.The specialty of a tepidarium is the pleasant feeling of constant radiant heat which directly affects the human body from the walls and floor....
so as to run the public baths efficiently. He also describes a device for adjusting the heat by a bronze
Bronze

Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive, but sometimes with other chemical element such as phosphorus, manganese, aluminium, or silicon....
ventilator in the domed ceiling.

The hypocaust is generally regarded as a major Roman invention which improved the hygiene and living conditions of citizens, and was a forerunner of modern central heating
Central heating

File:Boiler and Cylinder.jpgFile:Panna.jpgA central heating system provides warmth to the whole interior of a building from one point to multiple room s....
.

After the Romans
The hypocaust continued to be used in the Mediterranean region
History of the Mediterranean region

The history of the Mediterranean region is the history of the interaction of the cultures and people of the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea —the central superhighway of transport, trade and cultural exchange between diverse peoples....
during late Antiquity
Late Antiquity

Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the transitional centuries from Classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world: generally from the end of the Roman Empire's Crisis of the Third Century to the Islamic conquests and the re-organization of the Byzantine Empire under...
and by the Umayyad caliphate
Caliphate

The caliphate represented the political leadership of the Muslim ummah in classical and medieval Islamic history and juristic theory. The head of state's position is based on the notion of a successor to the Prophets of Islam Muhammad's political authority....
, though Muslim engineers and inventors
Inventions in the Islamic world

A significant number of inventions were developed in the medieval Muslim world, a geopolitical region that has at various times extended from Al-Andalus and Africa in the west to the Indian subcontinent and Malay Archipelago in the east....
eventually replaced it with an improved central heating system where heat travels through underfloor pipes
Underfloor heating

Underfloor heating and cooling is a form of central heating and cooling which utilizes heat conduction and radiant heat or cold for indoor HVAC, rather than forced air heating which relies on convection....
from the furnace room by the 12th century.

A derivation of hypocaust, the gloria, had been in use in Castile
Castile (historical region)

A former Kingdom of Castile, Castile , gradually merged with its neighbors to become the Crown of Castile and later the Kingdom of Spain with the Crown of Aragon and the Crown of Navarre....
until the arrival of modern heating. After the fuel (mainly wood) has been reduced to ashes, the air intake is closed to keep hot air inside and slow combustion
Combustion

Combustion or burning is a complex sequence of exothermic chemical reactions between a fuel and an oxidant accompanied by the production of heat or both heat and light in the form of either a glow or flames, appearance of light flickering....
.

Korean traditional houses use an Ondol
Ondol

An Ondol, also called Gudeul, in Korean traditional architecture, is underfloor heating which utilizes direct heat transfer from wood smoke to the underside of a thick masonry floor....
which is similar to a hypocaust, drawing smoke from a wood fire typically used for cooking.

See also

De Architectura
De architectura

File:De Architectura027.jpg is a treatise on architecture written by the Ancient Rome architect Vitruvius and dedicated to his patron, the emperor Caesar Augustus as a guide for Caesar Augustus#Building projects....
Roman engineering
Roman engineering

The Roman Empire are generally famous for their advanced engineering accomplishments, although some of their own inventions were improvements on older ideas, concepts and inventions....
Roman technology
Roman technology

Roman technology is the engineering practice which supported Roman civilization and made the expansion of Roman commerce and Roman military possible over nearly a thousand years....
Ondol
Ondol

An Ondol, also called Gudeul, in Korean traditional architecture, is underfloor heating which utilizes direct heat transfer from wood smoke to the underside of a thick masonry floor....
Gloria in the Spanish Wikipedia.
Kachelofen in the German Wikipedia.
Kang bed-stove
Kang bed-stove

The Kang is a traditional long Bed made of bricks or other forms of fired clay. Its interior cavity, leading to a flue, channels the exhaust from a wood or coal stove....
Vitruvius
Vitruvius

File:Vitruvius.jpgMarcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Ancient Rome writer, architect and engineer , active in the 1st century BC. By his own description Vitruvius served as a Ballista , the third class of arms in the military offices....

External links

(referring to Sergius Orata
Sergius Orata

Sergius Orata was a Roman merchant and hydraulic engineer who was famous during the Roman Republic.Sergius was well-known by his contemporaries because of the breeding and commercialization of oysters, in which he can be considered as a pioneer....
), by William Smith.
Garrett G. Fagan's paper "Sergius Orata: Inventor of the Hypocaust?" published in Phoenix, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Spring, 1996), pp. 56-66
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