A crematory (which is
often also known as a crematorium) is a machine in which people's bodies or in
some cases, remains are burned…leaving only bones behind… the process eliminates
all soft tissue…these facilities…these crematories are most likely to be
located in funeral homes, but sometimes one can find them in cemeteries, chapels,
or even in stand-alone facilities…a place which houses the actual crematory is
referred to as a crematorium…now in the old days, outdoor pyres were used and
are still used often in many places of the world today…most cremation in the
so-called industrialized nations now takes place within enclosed chambers with
equipped with furnaces…furnaces which are designed to maximize utilization of what
is called thermal energy while minimizing the emission of smoke and odors…everything
is about efficiency these days…the time it takes to end the cremation process
start-to-finish is anywhere between a little over an hour to three and a half
hours…some crematories used to run on timers…in fact, some still do, and the
body of weight would have to be determined…calculations made… to determine how
long the body had to be cremated for and the timers were set accordingly to the
calculations…there are other, less ‘high-tech’ types of crematories that merely
have a start and a stop function for the cremation…therefore, the end of the
cremation has to be judged by the operator who in turn stops the cremation
process when they think it is completed…some factors that could affect
cremation time are body weight, the container that is used to place the body
in, the amount of body fat compared to muscle mass, and of course…the
temperature of the chamber itself.
