Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/265

 433 ^^- COTTAGE DWELLINGS IN VARIOUS STYLES. 241 Design L XX IX. — Twelve or more Cottages in a Row, with a Kitchen, Wash-house, and other Conveniences, in common; the whole heated by the Fires in the public Kitchen. 486. The object of this Design is to sliow how the modes of heating under the ground floor, and of having a common kitchen and wash-house, may be apphed to a number of liouses together, so as to produce very comfortable dwellings at a very moderate expense. By rendering fireplaces and chimneys unnecessary, not only is the expense of buildmg them avoided, but also that of employing any other material than mud or earth m any part of the walls, or of having them, in any part, more than nine or ten feet high. It will be evident, after considering this Design in detail, that the domestic labours of a family living in one of these dwellings will be considerably diminished, and their com- forts, at the same time, greatly increased. 487. Ground Plan of the public Offices. The dweUings and offices may be either erected in a straight line, or in a curved line ; or they may form two or more sides of a qua- drangle. For so small a number as twelve, we prefer a straight line. At one end of this line we place the common kitchen, fig. 433, a ; in which there are two ovens for baking and roasting, b ; an open fireplace, c ; and three boilers for cooking and washing, d. The floor of this kitchen is four feet below the level of the floors of the dwellings, in order that flues from the ovens, and also from the boilers and the open fireplace in the centre, may be conducted under the floors of the drying- room and sitting-rooms, for heating them. Two ovens are shown, because, in the most severe weather in winter, the heat from one oven may not be sufficient for the floors. There are three boilers, in case of accident to one, and also because one boiler may be required for washing or brewing, while the others are being used, the one for boiling potatoes, and the other for making soup. The open fireplace is for the cooking of small articles by individuals. The roasting and baking is supposed to be carried on in the ovens, and the boiling meat chiefly in one of the boilers, in which also vegetables may be introduced to form soup ; while another boiler may be devoted exclusively to potatoes ; and the third to hot water. There may be a large table, with benches along its sides, in the centre of this kitchen, at which those who choose may dine. There are a cellar, e, and a store-room, /, adjoining, in which potatoes and other roots, flour, meal, barley, table-beer, &c., may be kept for sale to the occupiers. The cominon wash-house, g, is fitted up with washing-troughs, from h to i; and there is a pipe of hot water from the boiler in the kitchen, and another of cold water from a cistern over the wash-house ; both which com- municate by cocks with each trough. There is also a hole in the bottom of each trough, with a stopper, for emptying its contents into a common drain, connected with the cess-pool of the water-closets. There may be one of Siebe's pumps in the wash-house, where it would be completely protected from the frost ; and by this, the water might be raised from a well, either in the floor of the wash-house, or at any convenient distance from it, to the cistern. This cistern would also be completely protected from the frost ; and from it a pipe might be conducted along the upper part of the middle wall, which separates the sitting-rooius from the bed-rooms of the dwellings, so as to supply each house. Another pipe, with a ball cock, will give a perpetual supply to the hot-water boiler ; from which the water may be drawn for the use of the kitchen by one cock, as it is in the wash-house by several. This boiler, in- tended for the purpose of affijrding a perpetual supply of hot water, should be raised considerably higher than the cooking boilers, in order to supply the water at a sufficient height for the washing-troughs ; the floor of the washing-house being on a level with the floors of the dwellings, while that of the kitchen, as already observed, is four feet below them. Adjoining the wash-house is a drying-room, k, heated by the hottest part of the flues which proceed from the ovens, the open fireplace, i » i o j " j and the boilers; and, to increase this heat, a part of the flues L ' I - may be covered with cast-iron plates, over which may be a false floor, one inch distant from them, so contrived as to create a draught, on the