A furnace is a structure in which heat is produced with the help of combustion. Furnace may also refer to:

Appliances

Buildings

Furnace (central heating) A furnace (American English), referred to as a heater or boiler in British English, is an appliance used to generate heat for all or part of a building. Furnaces are mostly used as a major component of a central heating system. Furnaces are per ...

: a furnace , or a heater or boiler , used to generate heat for buildings *

Boiler A boiler is a closed vessel in which fluid (generally water) is heated. The fluid does not necessarily boil. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications, including water heating, centr ...

, used to heat water; also called a furnace in American English when used for heating and hot water in a building *

Jetstream furnace Jetstream furnaces (later tempest wood-burning boilers), were an advanced design of wood-fired water heaters conceived by Dr. Richard Hill of the University of Maine in Orono, Maine, USA. The design heated a house to prove the theory, then, with g ...

or Tempest boiler, a design of wood-fired water heater

Industry

Industrial furnace An industrial furnace, also known as a direct heater or a direct fired heater, is a device used to provide heat for an industrial process, typically higher than 400 degrees Celsius. They are used to provide heat for a process or can serve as r ...

, a device used in industrial applications ** Glass melting furnace **

Muffle furnace A muffle furnace or muffle oven (sometimes retort furnace in historical usage) is a furnace in which the subject material is isolated from the fuel and all of the products of combustion, including gases and flying ash. After the development of ...

or retort furnace **

Solar furnace A solar furnace is a structure that uses concentrated solar power to produce high temperatures, usually for industry. Parabolic mirrors or heliostats concentrate light ( Insolation) onto a focal point. The temperature at the focal point may ...

Vacuum furnace A vacuum furnace is a type of furnace in which the product in the furnace is surrounded by a vacuum during processing. The absence of air or other gases prevents oxidation, heat loss from the product through convection, and removes a source of co ...

* Metallurgical furnace, a device used to heat metal and metal ore **

Basic oxygen furnace Basic oxygen steelmaking (BOS, BOP, BOF, or OSM), also known as Linz-Donawitz steelmaking or the oxygen converter processBrock and Elzinga, p. 50. is a method of primary steelmaking in which carbon-rich molten pig iron is made into steel. Blowing ...

Bessemer converter The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass production of steel from molten pig iron before the development of the open hearth furnace. The key principle is removal of impurities from the iron by oxidation w ...

** Blast furnace ** Bloomery **

Electric arc furnace An electric arc furnace (EAF) is a furnace that heats material by means of an electric arc. Industrial arc furnaces range in size from small units of approximately one-tonne capacity (used in foundries for producing cast iron products) up to ...

Electric induction furnace An induction furnace is an electrical furnace in which the heat is applied by induction heating of metal. Induction furnace capacities range from less than one kilogram to one hundred tons, and are used to melt iron and steel, copper, aluminu ...

Open hearth furnace An open-hearth furnace or open hearth furnace is any of several kinds of industrial Industrial furnace, furnace in which excess carbon and other impurities are burnt out of pig iron to Steelmaking, produce steel. Because steel is difficult to ma ...

Puddling furnace Puddling is the process of converting pig iron to bar (wrought) iron in a coal fired reverberatory furnace. It was developed in England during the 1780s. The molten pig iron was stirred in a reverberatory furnace, in an oxidizing environment, ...

Reverberatory furnace A reverberatory furnace is a metallurgical or process furnace that isolates the material being processed from contact with the fuel, but not from contact with combustion gases. The term ''reverberation'' is used here in a generic sense of ''re ...

Places

United Kingdom

* Furnace, Argyll, a village in Scotland * Furnace, Carmarthenshire, a village in Carmarthenshire, Wales * Furnace, Ceredigion, a village in Ceredigion, Wales

United States

* Furnace, California, a former settlement * Furnace, Indiana, a small town * Furnace, Kentucky * Furnace, Virginia * Furnace, West Virginia * Dover Furnace station, New York *

Furnace Creek, California Furnace Creek is a census-designated place (CDP) in Inyo County, California, United States. The population was 136 at the 2020 census, up from 24 at the 2010 census. The elevation of the village is below sea level. Furnace Creek holds the recor ...

, a town in Death Valley, California

Arts, entertainment, and media

Films

* ''Furnace'' (film), a 2006 horror film * ''The Furnace'' (1920 film), a film based on the novel ''The Furnace'' by "Pan" * ''The Furnace'' (2020 film), an Australian adventure drama film

Literature

* Furnace: Lockdown, series of books by author Alexander Gordon Smith * ''The Furnace'' (magazine), a literary magazine * ''The Furnace'', a 1907 novel by

Rose Macaulay Dame Emilie Rose Macaulay, (1 August 1881 – 30 October 1958) was an English writer, most noted for her award-winning novel '' The Towers of Trebizond'', about a small Anglo-Catholic group crossing Turkey by camel. The story is seen as a spiritu ...

Music

* ''Furnace'' (Download album), 1995 album by the industrial music group Download * ''Furnace'' (Keith Hudson album), 1972 * ''Furnaces'' (2016), album by

Ed Harcourt Edward Henry Richard Harcourt-Smith (born 14 August 1977) is an English singer-songwriter. To date, he has released six studio albums, two EPs, and thirteen singles. His debut album, ''Here Be Monsters'', was nominated for the 2001 Mercury Priz ...

Other uses

* , four ships of the Royal Navy * Walt Furnace (born 1943), American businessman and politician