A Forgotten Feature of Old Apartments
October 19, 2025
Source: Reddit
In many older apartments, you may find a curious circular protuberance on the wall, usually painted over. It is at a slight elevation and very evidently out of place. This is probably an old stove vent, closed up and sealed, a remnant of a time when independent heating and cooking systems required direct venting.
Before the days of electric ranges and central heating, homes depended on heating and cooking from coal, wood, or gas stoves. These stoves had to have some outlet for smoke and gases. This was usually a flue pipe leading to a chimney. The stove pipe vent made this possible, as it was connected directly with the flue by a circular opening made in the wall or ceiling.
A Glimpse Into the Past
In early twentieth-century apartments, builders equipped each apartment with a stove that needed a vent. They usually provided the opening with a metallic chimney thimble. This not only protected the wall but also guided the stove pipe into the flue. With the passing years, as the stove vents passed out of general use, the connection was stopped up. Yet, the outlines are still visible.
How to Detect Them.
Common indications are:
- Circular protuberance in the wall about 8–12 inches in diameter.
- Raised ring, or layered plastered areas.
- Central cap, or fellow, usually metallic.
- Heavy coats of paint, producing a noticeable texture.
Such appearances are usually in kitchens or in the neighborhood of chimney walls.
Why They Were Left
As building laws changed and electric appliances became widely used, people no longer needed stove vents. Instead of removing the pipe connection and repairing the wall, many simply stopped them up and plastered over them. In rental buildings where workers made repairs quickly, the original outline often became more visible.
Not a Mere Quirk
The old stove vent on the wall is a historic remnant. It indicates the manner of heating and ventilating homes when apartments in the buildings had a direct connection with a flue. The remains are a part of the architectural development of buildings intended for human habitation.
Story in the Walls
When people ask about the origin of the silly circle in the wall, others give them the answer. It indicates the time when fire warmed the house and cooked the goodies. It is a visible reminder of days of daily routine preserved in walls of the present.