Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/1135

 ARCHITECTURAL FITNESS. 1111 is to he wanned by its admission, then the lower sash of the window ought to be raised up ; but as this description of ventilation is seldom required, little need l)e said about it, farther than observing that when any material, such as a coil of steam or hot-water pipes, &c., in a room, is to be heated in order to increase the temperature of that room, the heated body ought to be placed on the floor, or as near to it as possible. In like manner, when a room is to be heated by the admission of heated air from a stove, that air ought to enter through the floor, or by the skirting or bottom part of the walls. The most convenient means for carrying oflf the air of tlie room, so as to induce a perpetual current of entering and escaping air, is the chimney ; for which purpose, it is desirable that the chimney breast should be somewhat higher than it generally is. As a high chimney breast is, however, inconsistent with a good draught, and with the throwing out of a maximum of heat from a given quantity of fuel, builders generally content them- selves with leaving this part of ventilation imperfect ; though they might remedy it by taking the trouble of forming openings close under the ceiling of the room, communi- cating with vertical air flues, placed in close contact with smoke flues, in order to create a draught. This last improvement comprehends all that is necessary, for the most per- fect ventilation of a room which can be conceived ; as a proof of which, we need only refer to !Mr. Tredgold's excellent treatise on the subjects of warming and ventilation, already mentioned. 2193. The Deafening, or Pugging, of Partition If'aHs, aiid of Floors in Houses of more than one Sti>ry, is a subject that the critic ought not to lose sight of, in judging of the fitness of the construction of a house for the end in view. There are two modes of eflfecting this object ; first, by filling the interstices between the joists of the floor, and the quartering or studwork of the partition, with some description of light material, such as sawdust, wool, charcoal, ashes, moss, or even earth ; and, secondly, by introducing interpartitions. The latter mode is by far the best, where lightness is the object ; and where it is necessary to preserve ventilation, in order to guard against the dry rot. This mode is also fully as eflicacious against the spread of fire as the former. Supposing a floor to be deafened in this way, the mode is, after the joists are laid down and fixed in their places, to nail slips of wood an inch square along their sides, within two inches of the bottom, and within three inches of the top. On these slips are laid short laths, which are afterwards plastered on each side, care being taken that the coats of plaster are not thicker than to leave a clear inch and a half between them and the lower and upper edges of the joists. When the boards of the floor are nailed to such joists above, and the lath and plaster of the ceiling is put on below, a section across the joists will show, between each pair, one large cell in the centre, and two long nairow cells, the one over the centre cell, and immediately under the boards of the floor, and the other mider the centre cell, and immediately over the lath and plaster of the ceiling. Through such a floor no ordinary sounds will be found to pass, whether to persons above from people talking in the room below, or to persons below from any one walking on the floor above. Partitions may be treated in the same manner ; but, in general, one vertical stratum of lath and plaster in the centre will be found sufficient. In extraordinary cases, two will render a partition wall of nine inches thick as impenetrable by sound, as a solid brick or stone wall of the same thickness. It must not be forgotten, that these measures for pre- venting the spread of soimd are known to be equally effective in preventing the spread of fire ; while, at the same time, they admit of complete ventilation to protect the timber of the partitions and floors from the dry rot. — Such are a few of the particulars which the architectural critic ought to attend to, in judging of the fitness of the construction of a dwelling-house for the end in ^■iew ; for a great many others, as well for dwelling- houses as for agricultural and other buildings, we must refer him to the three preceding Books of this work. 2194. T7(e Adjustment of the Construction of a Building to the pecuniary Means at the Command of the Architect supposes an intimate practical knowledge, Ln the latter, of the most advantageous manner of disposing of forms and quantities. Every architectural critic ought to know that the cube is a form that encloses more useful space, with a given quantity of walling, flooring, and roof, than any other. This was long ago ex- plained at great length, and applied to the designs of a number of dwellings, by ]Iorris, an arcliitectural writer of the last century : but a short extract from Gwilt's Rudiments will be sufficient for our purpose here. '' Suppose a square, the sides of which are forty feet in length : it is manifest that the walling required to enclose this figure will be 160 feet in length, and the area enclosed wUl be equal to 1600 square feet: whereas, in a building, the form of which, on the plan, is that of a parallelogram, and the opposite sides of which are sixty feet and twenty feet respectively ; the same quantity of walling will be required to enclosse it, as was necessary for the square ; though its ai-ea will be equal to only 1200 feet, or one fourth less than that of the square. Thus the square is proved to l>e superior to the parallelogram, though inferior in capacity to the circle.