Photoguide

The stack and the stork - typical fellows of our towns and villages. One of the very old octagones with low base and decorative head. Inner bilighorze only. Stack of the Alexander Mine in Ostrava. Low and massive square base with decorative octagonal connection to body. Inner bilighorze only. Demolished 78m tall octagonal stack of distilery in Mlada Boleslav. Extraordinary without any head. Equipped with massive steel bands around the body and three bilighorze - two outer and one inner. Tacks of inner b. are orbiting around the body making a spiral shape. Sugar factory stack in Dymokury. Octagonal base and demolished head (8.8X) Year of errection - span of three centuries.
Inner wall of octagonal stack. Bricks have almost standard shape. Bilighorze (tack) of an octagone. Rock solid till our times when maintained properly. Edge brick of a smaller octagone (Slavoňov brewery). Edge bricks were crafted manually to match the shape. Edge brick of a big octagone (Klotz brickyard Plzeň). Specialy shaped brick allowing specific brickwork connection at the edges. Prominent stages of an inner space of the octagonal stack. Inner hole of an octagone can be octagonal, circular or square-shaped.
Edges and roof of the stack-base made from stone. Four octagones of the glass manufactory (Desná). The stack pinning out of the roof. Under the roof we can find rest of the body and the base. Octagonal stack of Vinohrady brewery. Octagones are used frequently for ventilation of malt-houses. Octagone bases are usually massive. Bilighorze is straight, without protection.
Rare square shaped old brick stack (Chýnov brewery). Head of a stack built from full radial bricks - transition between classical brick and modern radials. Circular blower of octagonal stack (Boleslav distilery). Nice example of 4.0:0-type stack. Brick stack with base, decorated circular body and head. Note the patterns on the body - partly painted, partly build from different bricks. Western-bohemian specialty - high base, massive and decorative head transiting to the body.
Radial brickery. Typical pattern calling for maintenance. Blower of circular brick stack made by hollow radial bricks. Typically covered by concrete shield (relicts on the left). Detail of stack-bricks. Grout should fill the holes in the brick to increase stability and durability of the stack. Simple stack of limestone manufactory in Horažďovice. The stack architecture is very clean: tiny circular base, simple body and small. Tacks are (probably) inside. Simple stack with refurbished head. Regular steel bands, unprotected bilighorze.
Textile manufactory stack from north Bohemia. Full-brick base, circular body and head from radials. Simple octagonal head of massive stack. Simple circular head with ledge bellow. More decorative head (with parasitic plant). Massive and extremely decorative head from radials.
Radial head with black paint (the paint has no other reason than avoiding complains - not to have dirty stack). Hungry throat. Wide brick head with steel stiffeners. Hypnotizing straight shape of an octagone. Octagonal body with a belt above the base. Octagonal body tightened with steel bands.
Decorative ledges and their legacy on the body (very rare). Decorative niches in the base filled with stones. Bricked niches the octagonal base, circular body. Prominent octagonal connection between rectangular base and circular body. Multiple ledges on the base. Interesting rectangular frames above the tacks.
Beautiful circular stack with a mosaic. Small ledges. Niches and ledges. Color paints. Extra-decorative base cover.
Coat of arms on the stack base - a symbol of whole manufactory. Unmatched smokestack architecture. Mosaic on a massive stack. Circular decks. Example of renovated mosaic. Tacks in three-bricks step (four-brick is more usual).
Slavonín brickyard - cultural heritage site. One of the most atypical stacks ever seen. Detail of decorative ledge covered by stone. Nonstandard profile of brick stack. Simple but huge and tall stack of the sugar-factory Čakovice. Beauty in simplicity. Recent stacks are less decorative, their design is strictly functional.
Big brick stack are still in charge after the WWII. They were simple without any decorations. Using the stack as a supporting structure for antennas rises the budget for maintenance, but aesthetics suffers. The most massive brick stack in the Czech Republic. Height: 101m, blower diameter 8m, base diameter 13m. Larger plants for processing mineral sources had usually plenty of stack - but very simple. Creativity was not appreciated in the communistic era. Typical brick stack of the local heating station - fuelled by coal or oil.
Detail of an iron crown. Breweries had also malt-house stacks apart from regular heating/machinery ones. Malt-house is easily to recognize by a tower-style building with special kind of stack on the top. There is a fireplace in the bottom and couple of dryer stages. First Prague malt-houses, build in many phases adding more and more stacks. The stacks have no smoke flues but they have revolving heads (bába) on the top to boost the ventilation effect. One can find examples of maltery-house stack with built-in smoke flue. The head is destroyed by rust in this particular case.
Looking through the maltery-house (stages are removed). Inside the maltery-house stack: the intake of the smoke flue. The cover regulates the thrust of the flue. Rare octagonal stack with a water tank: Prokop-Grube mine, Zahořany Sexy tumor-stack with cone-shaped tank. Door to another dimension. When searching for the complete different world, the interior and exterior of a smokestack are great examples.
The inner bilighorze is usually in bad condition due to extreme temperatures and chemical errosion. One can enter the main tunnel of the brick-furnance via smokestack. The holes host regulation valves for the chambers. Footprints from the past. Typical brickery of the small smokestack from radials. Poldi Kladno. The one stack stands today where dozen of them stood in the past. Rare example of hybrid stack. Steel tubes of different heights attached to a brick body.
The smokestack can be useful even after the work is over. Once called eko-ballast, natural reservation nowadays. The stork builds a nest. The nest fully inhabited in the middle of the summer. White storks are usually harmless to the climber (only clapping their beaks). Black ones are killers. There are places where the stork never nests in spite of having full support. Stork are common reason why to preserve unused smokestack however they can also do a lot of harm. The stork's nest can be pretty heavy so it's able to overweight the head of the stack dangerously. When the nest is put just on the crown it blocks inner ventilation, so the inner chamber can come wet and damaged. Loads of excrements can also be an issue.
Abandoned and unused smokestack are subject to fast or slow dilapidation. The head starts to crack, outer parts of the bricks fall down. The octagones have slight advantage over circular stacks - radial bricks are cracking more easily because of the inner holes. The stack can crack vertically, if bends are not present. Another case of vertical crack. Surface degradation, when brick-parts crack and separate, is also dangerous. The bilighorze become unsafe and tacks start to break off. Parasitic vegetation grows into the cracks and breaks the brickwork.
When the stack is not used anymore it runs out fast. The smoke heats and dries the body continuously while the stack works regularly. Wind and freezing water destroy the brickwork making typical waves on the silhouette of the body. The solution is to cover the top with a roof while preserving ventilation. Top parts of the stack is degrading quickly. In this case the bricks are kept on their place only by rests of the concrete crown. The damage can come fast with a lightning storm. Degradation of inner bilighorze. Tacks could completely evaporate with the time. The tack degraded this way could break very easily.
Partial demolition is the simplest solution when the head or upper part of the body is heavily eroded - 0X. SV>PV - when the repair is a bit overboard. Very primitive form of the ascend log. 4.80:0 - Beautiful example of substitution - octagonal head was replaced by circular one. Replacements are usually in worse state than original part. In this case the stack becomes higher. Example of substitution when the stack was lowered.
Some prekiontric objects are quite extraordinary - lime kiln in Závratec. Klam forge - the smokestack inside this tower is nothing but expected. One of the true rarities. Who says brick-stacks are easy to recognize? Typical block. Flat, odd and ugly. But we love them after all. Brick block camouflaged as a concrete one.
Multilevel block with full-caged bilighorze and one gallery. Simply - the block. CD - Bilighorze suited for old people and disabled: Tacks, full cage, summit just a step away. Sexy blockie - the gem of every town. The K2 - subject of weird cult.
Demolition in progress - Avia Kutná Hora. Standard iron crown of a concrete-block stack. Steel anchors for inner brickwork. Red warning light - off. Red warning light - on.
Wave-shaped segment curvatures. Shadow of the segment stackcluster. Prekiocaleidoscope made from four stacks and their caged ladders. Conversion of oil/coal heat stations to gas ones. The original stack has to be enhanced by stainless steel inlay. Hot gases and steam are able to destroy the concrete body in couple of seasons. Monolithic ulhorf (>100m) with several galleries.
The evolution from bricks to concrete is clearly visible in selected plants. Huge globonic ulhorfs (>200 m) are high, bold, striped and ... high, but lacking a kind of magic the brick-stacks apparently have. Standard combination of ladder and cage typical for monolithic concrete stacks. Safe but losing lots of ergonomy. One variant from the palette when comes to ulhorf crowns. Ulhorfs have also an inner bilighorze - half-protected in this particular case. But it's hard to believe somebody will ever use it.
Concrete cooling towers (megalofobia) - the dancing hyperbolic centipedes. Caged ladders are found here in most cases. The bigger ones have multilevel ladders with resting platforms. The cooling tower could surprisingly look like that. Wooden structure, plastic inner case and octagonal concrete base with a pond. Wood and plastic can be substituted with steel sheets and profiles. Under the hood of cooling tower (megalofobium). Historical steel tube with proper full-caged bilighorze and brick-base. Note the steel ropes for better stability. Modern not-self-carying steel tubes in two variants. Suited just for gas heating only.
Original brick-stacks of local heating stations were replaced by clusters of this kind in many districts. Fallen tube on the side of the block house. Self carying steel tube with welded tacks and motorized booster. The hybrid - steel structure supports laminate smokestack body. Clear example of J-type. Supporting wings of rocket-type smokestack built from concrete segments.
Bilighorze with half protection. Octagonal smokestack profile.