toscas_kiss (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
toscas_kiss) wrote2011-05-01 01:56 am
toscas_kiss) wrote2011-05-01 01:56 am
Britpick note to "Sherlock" writers - domestic fires/fireplaces
It is illegal to have a smoking domestic fire in London (that is, a lit fire in a fireplace that emits smoke).
This is why London no longer gets the dense 'pea soup' smogs (which I think are mentioned a couple of times in the original Sherlock Holmes stories). They were caused by the smoke from wood and coal fires, and the pollution led to so many deaths that in the late 50s that type of domestic heating was outlawed. I remember my father saying he got lost in a peasouper when he first arrived in London in the very early 60s, but by the mid-60s they were no longer happening.
When you rent a flat, old chimneys are blocked up and often the fireplace is plastered over, and new housing is built without fireplaces. Heaters or liquid-filled radiators (or in some lucky cases like mine, underfloor heating) which are run by gas or electric is used instead. You can burn other non-smoking fuels such as coke or oil, but they tend to be expensive both fuel and appliance-wise, so aren't common.
So I am afraid that having a lit (smoke-emitting) fire in the flat at Baker Street might sound homey or romantic, but would be glaringly incorrect.
This is why London no longer gets the dense 'pea soup' smogs (which I think are mentioned a couple of times in the original Sherlock Holmes stories). They were caused by the smoke from wood and coal fires, and the pollution led to so many deaths that in the late 50s that type of domestic heating was outlawed. I remember my father saying he got lost in a peasouper when he first arrived in London in the very early 60s, but by the mid-60s they were no longer happening.
When you rent a flat, old chimneys are blocked up and often the fireplace is plastered over, and new housing is built without fireplaces. Heaters or liquid-filled radiators (or in some lucky cases like mine, underfloor heating) which are run by gas or electric is used instead. You can burn other non-smoking fuels such as coke or oil, but they tend to be expensive both fuel and appliance-wise, so aren't common.
So I am afraid that having a lit (smoke-emitting) fire in the flat at Baker Street might sound homey or romantic, but would be glaringly incorrect.
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Although, actually, I've never lit a fire at my place - can't be bothered to faff around with laying a fire and then having to sort out the mess afterwards (I used to have to deal with the fire in the living room at my parents' house all the time when I lived there). But I think it's useful to have, in case gas and electricity become (even more) prohibitively expensive, although I'd have to have the chimney swept first before using it.
But I could have a lit fire in London if I wanted to, so it's not necessarily incorrect in a Sherlock story.
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Not a real fire, though. I don't know anyone who lives in London who has a real fire.
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