We all know that hot air rises. That is why during the last decade of the 19th C. houses chose to have high ceilings...often 12 or 14 ft. This had worked fine in antebellum plantation like homes where rooms were hugh. but in small workmans cottages where rooms were often 12 X 14 ft. or even less, ceilings of such height made one feel like they were at the bottom of a well. That was the reason for tripartite walls, where a large frieze, often as much as a ft. and a half high, separated the wall from the ceiling treatment. Thus, even in small houses with small rooms, a door might be as much as 98ft. high instead of the more common 67 which we generally consider as standard height. Transoms (small windows which opened above doors were even introduced to allow rising hot air to escape from the room. More realistic proportional relationships were rather soon introduced but that is one of several ways of determining the date of construction for smaller homes. They also had very high, steep roof lines. An advantage there was that even when the roof developed small holes, the surface tended not to leak , as the rain quickly raN OFF AND ONLY ALLOWED LEAKS TO OCCUR DURING BLOWING RAIN STORMS AND WHEN THE HOLES BECAME EXCESSIVELY LARGE.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 23:39:38 +0000
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