Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/900

 876 COTTAGE, FARM, AND VILLA ARCHITECTURE. pipe, and 3^-inch cylinder, with oak standard plank, wrought-iron lift, and cheeks, complete. To provide and fix a set of Hardcastle's best water-closet apparatus, with service cistern and pipe, cranks, wires, &c., complete; and a 4 inch soil pipe to the culvert ; also a self-acting water-closet in the area below, with lead service pipe, wires, cranks, and soil pipe, as for the other water-closet. The conservatories, and the whole of the windows, to be glazed with the best crown glass, except those of the basement floor, which are to be of the best seconds. The whole of the work usually painted to be done three times over in oil, and the outside to have four coats in oil. 1809. Remarks. Considering this as a suburban dwelling, where the great object is concentration, we think its Architects have been successful in adopting an economical form ; and in making the most of the different floors. The arrangement of the base- ment story is very satisfactory, and the idea of adding to the width of the open area by vaulting, open in front, is worthy of imitation in other places. This might even have been carried farther, and a wash-house and cleaning-place might have been obtained in this manner at h h. The flue from the boiler might easily be carried across the area over an arch or buttress. The operation of washing ought never to be performed in the basement story of a house, if it can possibly be avoided, on account of the soapy steam which must inevitably ascend into the living-rooms. When washing must be carried on in the basement story, a hood shoidd be formed at a convenient height above the boiler, and from it there should be a funnel connected with an air-flue, built so close to the flue of the furnace, as that the warmth of the latter might create a di-aught in the former. Air-flues for ventilation should indeed always be formed in kitchens, sculleries, and wash-houses. The party wall between the two dwellings appears to be only nine inches thick, which seems to us to be dangerous, with reference to the chance of fire happening to break out in either house. About London, thepai-ty wall of such a building is required by law to be not less than eighteen inches in thickness ; but even that is too little, where this wall, as in the case before us, contains all the flues. The flues in this Design are carried up in thick projections, as indicated by the jambs of the fireplaces in fig. 1542. There are, however, no lath and plaster partitions, the absence of which is ft great impediment to the spread of fire, when it has once broken out. Whoever lives in a house, the interior of which is subdivided by lath and plaster partitions, and which has hollow boarded floors, with a wooden staircase, is scarcely safer that if he dwelt over a mine of gunpowder ; as, if any part of such a house should be accidentally ignited, it would be hardly possible to stop the rapid spread of the flames. The plan of arching over the whole of the basement story with brickwork, § 1803, is excellent, in point of strength, safety from fire, and for deadening the sounds proceeding from below. Indeed, we are persuaded that the time must shortly arrive when all houses will either have arched floors of this kind, or floors of some other description of masonry, to prevent the sjiread of fire either upwards or downwards from any apartment where it may break out. By means of iron girders, flat arches may be formed over wide apartments ; and, for small rooms of every kind, we see no objection whatever to semicircular arches, which, as they have no lateral tlirust, would require no extra thickness in the walls. A great object in point of external effect would be gained by highly arched ceilings ; because the character of strength would be heightened by the increased depth of space between the tops of the windows on one floor, and the sills of those over them. This is one grand cause of the expression of strength in ancient castles, and in the buildings of Florence and other cities of Tuscany. Great care is requisite in heating so small a house by hot air ; which, even when managed in the best manner, is, in a confined space, apt to come in currents, and the effect of a current, whether of hot or cold air, is much more powerful in suddenly raising or lowering the temperature than a greater degree of heat or cold without motion in the air. In consequence of this, we have observed that persons who live in houses heated by hot-air stoves are particularly liable to catch cold, even without going out of the house. Wc are quite satisfied on this point by our own experience, having had our own house heated several years since in the most scientific manner by the late Mr. Sylvester, and having been obliged, from the cause mentioned, to give it up, and adopt hot water. Mr. Sylvester's plan is by no means liable to the same objection, in the case of heating very large houses. The great extent of steps on each side of the entrance front seems out of proportion to the entrance itself; but these steps must be looked upon as a con- trivance to conceal the area, and more as a stage for plants in pots, than as a flight of steps. In point of taste, we should have preferred enclosing the two green-houses, or plant cabinets, with piers and flat arches, to employing either round or square columns ; but still we acknowledge that the round Doric columns, shown in the Design, admit more light, both to the plants and to the glass door which connects the green-house with tlie room. It will be observed by the plan, fig. 1541, that the glass case which encloses the plants is totally distinct from the circular'columns. This is highly proper, because nothing is more inconsistent with the princijdes of strength and fitness, than to