Rural Architecture - Lewis Falley Allen (books recommended by bts TXT) 📗

daughters, almost as pretty as their mother was at their own age, to knit a bead bag and work a fancy chair seat! And then we had apples and nuts, all of the very best—for Jocelyn was a rare hand at grafting and managing his fruit trees, and knew the best apples all over the country. We had, indeed, a capital time! To cut the story short, the next spring our friend sent his fancy furniture to auction, and provided his house with simple cottage furnishings, at less than half the cost of the other; which both he and his wife afterward declared was infinitely better, for all house-keeping purposes. He also threw a neat wing on to the cottage, for an upper kitchen and its offices, and they now live like sensible country folks; and with their healthy, frolicksome children, are worth the envy of all the dyspeptic, town-fed people in existence.

A long digression, truly; but so true a story, and one so apt to our subject can not well be omitted. But what has all this to do with ventilation? We'll tell you. Jocelyn's house was ventilated as it should be;—for he was a methodical, thoughtful man, who planned and built his house himself—not the mechanical work, but directed it throughout, and saw that it was faithfully done; and that put us in mind of the story.

To be perfect in its ventilation, every room in the house, even to the closets, should be so arranged that a current of air may pass through, to keep it pure and dry. In living rooms, fresh air in sufficient quantity may usually be admitted through the doors. In sleeping rooms and closets, when doors may not be left open, one or more of the lower panels of the door may be filled by a rolling blind, opening more or less, at pleasure; or a square or oblong opening for that purpose, may be left in the base board, at the floor, and covered by a wire netting. And in all rooms, living apartments, as well as these, an opening of at least sixty-four square inches should be made in the wall, near the ceiling, and leading into an air flue, to pass into the garret. Such opening may be filled by a rolling blind, or wire screen, as below, and closed or kept open, at pleasure. Some builders prefer an air register to be placed in the chimney, over the fireplace or stove, near the ceiling; but the liability to annoyance, by smoke escaping through it into the room, if not thoroughly done, is an objection to this latter method, and the other may be made, in its construction, rather ornamental than otherwise, in appearance. All such details as these should be planned when the building is commenced, so that the several flues may be provided as the building proceeds. In a stone or brick house, a small space may be left in the walls, against which these air registers may be required; and for inner rooms, or closets, they may pass off into the openings of the partitions, and so up into the garret; from which apertures of escape may be left, or made at the gables, under the roof, or by a blind in a window.

For the admission of air to the first floor of the house, a special opening through the walls, for that purpose, can hardly be necessary; as the doors leading outside are usually opened often enough for such object. One of the best ventilated houses we have ever seen, is that owned and occupied by Samuel Cloon, Esq., of Cincinnati. It is situated on his farm, three miles out of the city, and in its fine architectural appearance and finished appointments, as a rural residence and first-class farm house, is not often excelled. Every closet is ventilated through rolling blinds in the door panels; and foul air, either admitted or created within them, is passed off at once by flues near the ceiling overhead, passing into conductors leading off through the garret.

Where chambers are carried into the roof of a house, to any extent, they are sometimes incommoded by the summer heat which penetrates them, conducted by the chamber ceiling overhead. This heat can best be obviated by inserting a small window at each opposite peak of the garret, by which the outside air can circulate through, above the chambers, and so pass off the heated air, which will continually ascend. All this is a simple matter, for which any builder can provide, without particular expense or trouble.

INTERIOR ACCOMMODATION OF HOUSES.

Ground, in the country, being the cheapest item which the farmer can devote to building purposes, his object should be to spread over, rather than to go deeply into it, or climb high in the air above it. We repudiate cellar kitchens, or under-ground rooms for house work, altogether, as being little better than a nuisance—dark, damp, unhealthy, inconvenient, and expensive. The several rooms of a farm dwelling house should be compact in arrangement, and contiguous as may be to the principally-occupied apartments. Such arrangement is cheaper, more convenient, and labor-saving; and in addition, more in accordance with a good and correct taste in the outward appearance of the house itself.

The general introduction of cooking stoves, and other stoves and apparatus for warming houses, within the last twenty years, which we acknowledge to be a great acquisition in comfort as well as in convenience and economy, has been carried to an extreme, not only in shutting up and shutting out the time-honored open fireplace and its broad hearthstone, with their hallowed associations, but also in prejudice to the health of those who so indiscriminately use them, regardless of other arrangements which ought to go with them. A farm house should never be built without an ample, open fireplace in its kitchen, and other principally occupied rooms; and in all rooms where stoves are placed, and fires are daily required, the open Franklin should take place of the close or air-tight stove, unless extraordinary ventilation to such rooms be adopted also. The great charm of the farmer's winter evening is the open fireside, with its cheerful blaze and glowing embers; not wastefully expended, but giving out that genial warmth and comfort which, to those who are accustomed to its enjoyment, is a pleasure not made up by any invention whatever; and although the cooking stove or range be required—which, in addition to the fireplace, we would always recommend, to lighten female labor—it can be so arranged as not to interfere with the enjoyment or convenience of the open fire.

In the construction of the chimneys which appear in the plans submitted, the great majority of them—particularly those for northern latitudes—are placed in the interior of the house. They are less liable to communicate fire to the building, and assist greatly in warming the rooms through which they pass. In southern houses they are not so necessary, fires being required for a much less period of the year. Yet even there they may be oftentimes properly so placed. Where holes, for the passage of stovepipes through floors, partitions, or into chimneys, are made, stone, earthen, or iron thimbles should be inserted; and, except in the chimneys, such holes should be at least one to two inches larger than the pipe itself. The main flues of the chimney conducting off the smoke of the different fires, should be built separate, and kept apart by a partition of one brick in thickness, and carried out independently, as in no other way will they rid the house of smoky rooms.

An illustration in point: Fifteen years ago we purchased and removed into a most substantial and well-built stone house, the chimneys of which were constructed with open fireplaces, and the flues carried up separately to the top, where they all met upon the same level surface, as chimneys in past times usually were built, thus. Every fireplace in the house (and some of them had stoves in,) smoked intolerably; so much so, that when the wind was in some quarters the fires had to be put out in every room but the kitchen, which, as good luck would have it, smoked less—although it did smoke there—than the others. After balancing the matter in our own mind some time, whether we should pull down and rebuild the chimneys altogether, or attempt an alteration; as we had given but little thought to the subject of chimney draft, and to try an experiment was the cheapest, we set to work a bricklayer, who, under our direction, simply built over each discharge of the several flues a separate top of fifteen inches high, in this wise: The remedy was perfect. We have had no smoke in the house since, blow the wind as it may, on any and all occasions. The chimneys can't smoke; and the whole expense for four chimneys, with their twelve flues, was not twenty dollars! The remedy was in giving each outlet a distinct current of air all around, and on every side of it.

CHIMNEY TOPS.

Nothing adds more to the outward expression of a dwelling, than the style of its chimneys. We have just shown that independent chimney tops pass off their smoke more perfectly, than when only partitioned inside to the common point of outlet. Aside from the architectural beauty which a group of chimney flues adds to the building, we have seen that they are really useful, beyond the formal, square-sided piles so common throughout the country. They denote good cheer, social firesides, and a generous hospitality within—features which should always mark the country dwelling; and more particularly that of the farmer.

The style and arrangement of these chimney groups may be various, as comporting with the design of the house itself; and any good architect can arrange them as fitted to such design. Our illustrations will show them of different kinds, which are generally cheap in construction, and simple, yet expressive in their arrangement.

PRELIMINARY TO OUR DESIGNS.

We have discussed with tolerable fullness, the chief subjects connected with farm buildings—sufficiently so, we trust, to make ourselves understood as desiring to combine utility with commendable ornament in all that pertains to them. The object has been, thus far, to give hints, rather than models, in description. But as the point to which we have endeavored to arrive will be but imperfectly understood without illustration, we shall submit a few plans of houses and outbuildings, as carrying out more fully our ideas.

We are quite aware that different forms or fashions of detail and finish, to both outside and inside work, prevail among builders in different sections of the United States. Some of these fashions are the result of climate, some of conventional taste, and some of education. With them we are not disposed to quarrel. In many cases they are immaterial to the main objects of the work, and so long as they please the taste or partialities of those adopting them, are of little consequence. There are, however, certain matters of principle, both in general construction and in the detail of finish, which should not be disregarded; and these, in the designs submitted, and in the explanations which follow, will be fully discussed, each in its place. The particular form or style of work we have not directed, because, as before remarked, we are no professional builder, and of course free from the dogmas which are too apt to be inculcated in the professional schools and workshops. We give a wide berth, and a free toleration in all such matters, and are not disposed to raise a hornet's nest about our ears by interfering in matters where every tyro of