Part 12
In Binghamton fireplaces the side walls are on an angle and converge toward the back of the fireplace, as in Fig. 274. The back also pitches forward, as in Fig. 282. The great advantage of this is the reflecting of more heat into the room.
Fig. 281 shows the fireplace before which I am now working. The fire was started in last November and is now (April 1) still burning, although it has not been rekindled since it was first lighted. This fireplace is well constructed, and on very cold days I have the fire burning out on the hearth fully a foot beyond the line of the mantel without any smoke coming into my studio.
Fig. 282 shows a diagram with the dimensions of my studio fireplace and represents the vertical section of it. I give these for the benefit of the people who want to know how to build a fireplace which will not smoke. But, of course, even the best of fireplaces will smoke if the fire is not properly arranged. With smoke the angle of reflection would be equal to the angle of incidence did not the constant tendency of smoke to ascend modify this rule.
Throw a rubber ball against the wall and the direction from your hand to where it strikes the wall makes the angle of incidence; when the ball bounces away from the wall it makes the angle of reflection.
Management of the Fire
But, before we enter into the question regarding the structure of the flue we will take up the management of the fire itself. In the first place, there is but one person who can manage a fire, and that is yourself. Servants never did and never will learn the art, and, as I am writing for men, and the ladies are not supposed to read this article, I will state that the fair sex show a like deficiency in this line. The first thing a woman wants to do with a fire is to make the logs roost on the andirons, the next thing is to remove every speck of ashes from the hearth, and then she wonders why the fire won't burn.
The ashes have not been removed from my studio fire since it was first lighted last fall. Ashes are absolutely essential to control a wood-fire and to keep the embers burning overnight. Fig. 288 shows the present state of the ashes in my studio fire. You will see by this diagram that the logs are not resting on the andirons. I only use the andirons as a safeguard to keep the logs from rolling out on the hearth. If the fire has been replenished late in the evening with a fresh log, before retiring I pull the front or the ornamental parts of the andirons to the hearth and then lay the shovel and poker across them horizontally. When the burning log is covered with ashes and the andirons arranged in this manner you can retire at night with a feeling of security and the knowledge that if your house catches afire it will not be caused by the embers in your fireplace. Then in the morning all you have to do is to shovel out the ashes from the rear of the fireplace, put in a new backlog, and bed it in with ashes, as shown in Fig. 286. Put your glowing embers next to the backlog and your fresh wood on top of that and sit down to your breakfast with the certainty that your fire will be blazing before you get up from the table.
Don't make the mistake of poking a wood-fire, with the idea, by that means, of making it burn more briskly, or boosting up the logs to get a draught under them.
Two logs placed edge to edge, like those in Fig. 288, with hot coals between them, will make their own draught, which comes in at each end of the log, and, what is essential in fire building, they keep the heat between themselves, constantly increasing it by reflecting it back from one to the other. If you happen to be in great haste to make the flames start, don't disturb the logs but use a pair of bellows.
Fig. 287 shows a set of the logs which will make the best-constructed fireplace smoke. The arrow-point shows the line of incidence or the natural direction which the smoke would take did not the heat carry it upward.
Fig. 285 shows the same logs arranged so that the angle of incidence strikes the back of the chimney and the smoke ascends in the full and orderly manner. But both Figs. 285 and 287 are clumsily arranged. The _B_ logs in each case should be the backlog and the small logs _A_ and _C_ should be in front of _B_.
Fig. 281. Fig. 282. Fig. 283. Fig. 284. Fig. 285. Fig. 286.
Fig. 287. Fig. 288.
[Illustration: Proper and improper ways to build a fireplace and make a fire.]
In all of the fireplaces which we have described you will note that the top front of the fireplace under the mantel extends down several inches below the angle of the chimney.
Fig. 283 shows a fireplace that is improperly built. This is from a fireplace in a palatial residence in New York City, enclosed in an antique Italian marble mantel, yellow with age, which cost a small fortune. The fireplace was designed and built by a firm of the best architects, composed of men famed throughout the whole of the United States and Europe, _but the fireplace smoked_ because the angle of the chimney was below the opening of the fireplace and, consequently, sent the smoke out into the room. This had to be remedied by setting a piece of thick plate glass over the top of the fireplace, thus making the opening smaller and extending it below the angle of the chimney.
Fig. 284 shows the most primitive form of fireplace and chimney. One that a child may see will smoke unless the fire is kept in the extreme back of the hearth.
The advantages of ashes in your fireplace are manifold. They retain the heat, keep the hot coals glowing overnight, and when the fire is too hot may be used to cover the logs and subdue the heat. But, of course, if you want a clean hearthstone and the logs roosting upon the andirons, and are devoid of all the camp-fire sentiment, have some asbestos gas-logs. There will be no dust or dirt, no covering up at night with ashes, no bill for cord-wood, and it will look as stiff and prim as any New England old maid and be as devoid of sentiment and art as a department-store bargain picture frame.
XLVI
THE BUILDING OF THE LOG HOUSE
How a Forty-Foot-Front, Two-Story Pioneer Log House Was Put Up with the Help of "Backwoods Farmers"--Making Plans with a Pocket Knife.
OUR log house on the shore of Big Tink Pond, Pike County, Pa., was built long before the general public had been educated to enjoy the subtle charms of wild nature, at a time when nature-study was confined to scientists and children, and long before it was fashionable to have wild fowl on one's lawn and wild flowers in one's garden. At that time only a few unconventional souls spent their vacations out of sight of summer hotels, camping on the mountain or forest trails. The present state of the public mind in regard to outdoor life has only been developed within the last few years, and when I first announced my intention of hunting up some accessible wild corner and there erecting a log house for a summer studio and home I found only unsympathetic listeners. But I was young and rash at that time, and without any previous experience in building or the aid of books to guide me and with only such help as I could find among backwoods farmers I built a forty-foot-front, two-story log house that is probably the pioneer among log houses erected by city men for summer homes. It gave Mr. Charles Wingate the suggestions from which he evolved Twilight Park in the Catskills. Twilight Park, being the resort of literary people and their friends, did much to popularize log houses with city people.
The deserted farms of New England offer charming possibilities for those whose taste is for nature with a shave, hair cut, and store clothes, but for lovers of untamed nature the waste lands offer stronger inducements for summer-vacation days, and there is no building which fits so naturally in a wild landscape as a good, old-fashioned log cabin. It looks as if it really belonged there and not like a windfall from some passing whirlwind.
When I make the claim that any ordinary man can build himself a summer home, I do not mean to say that he will not make blunders and plenty of them; only fools never make mistakes, wise men profit by them, and the reader may profit by mine, for there is no lack of them in our log house at Big Tink. But the house still stands on the bank overlooking the lake and is practically as sound as it was when the last spike was driven, twenty-seven years ago.
Almost all of the original log cabins that were once sprinkled through the eastern part of our country disappeared with the advent of the saw-mill, and the few which still exist in the northern part of the country east of the Alleghany Mountains would not be recognized as log houses by the casual observer, for the picturesque log exteriors have been concealed by a covering of clapboards.
To my surprise I discovered that even among the old mountaineers I could find none who had ever attended a log-rolling frolic or participated in the erection of a real log house. Most of these old fellows, however, could remember living in such houses in their youth, but they could not understand why any sane man of to-day wanted "to waste so much good lumber," and in the quaint old American dialect still preserved in these regions they explained the wastefulness of my plans and pointed out to me the number of good planks which might be sawed from each log.
Fig. 289.
[Illustration: Wildlands, the author's log house in Pike County, Pa.]
Fig. 290, _B_, shows the plans of the house, which will be seen to be a modification of the Southern "saddle-bag" cabin--two houses under one roof. By referring to Fig. 289 it will be seen that above the gallery there is a portico, which we called the "afterthought" because it did not appear upon the original plans. We got the hint, as "Jimmy" called it, when it was noticed that chance had ordained that the two "_A_" logs should protrude much farther than the others. "Don't saw them off," I exclaimed; "we will have a balcony"; and so the two "_A_" logs were left, and this gave us room for a balcony over the gallery, back of which is a ten-by-ten bedroom, while the two large bedrooms on each side have doors opening on the six-foot passageway, which is made still broader by the addition of the balcony.
It will be seen that there is a stairway marked out on the ground plan, but there was none on the original plan, for, to tell the honest truth, I did not know where to put the stairs until the logs were in place. However, it is just such problems that lend charm to the work of building your own house. An architect or a professional builder would have the thing all cut and dried beforehand and leave nothing to chance and inspiration; this takes the whole charm out of the work when one is building for recreation and the pleasure to be derived from the occupation.
When our house was finished we had no shutters to the windows and no way of closing up the open ends of the gallery, and my helpers told me that I must not leave the house that way because stray cattle would use the house for a stable and break the windows with their horns as they swung their heads to drive away the flies. So we nailed boards over these openings when we closed the house for the winter. Later we invented some shutters (see _C_, Fig. 290) which can be put up with little trouble and in a few moments. Fig. 290, _C_, shows how these shutters are put in place and locked on the inside by a movable sill that is slid up against the bottom of the shutters and fastened in place by iron pins let into holes bored for the purpose.
Fig. 290.
[Illustration: Details of author's log house, Wildlands.]
Of course, this forms no bar to a professional burglar, but there is nothing inside to tempt cracksmen, and these professional men seldom stray into the woods. The shutters serve to keep out cattle, small boys, and stray fishermen whose idle curiosity might tempt them to meddle with the contents of a house less securely fastened.
A house is never really finished until one loses interest in it and stops tinkering and planning homely improvements. This sort of work is a healthy, wholesome occupation and just the kind necessary to people of sedentary occupations or those whose misfortune it is to be engaged in some of the nerve-racking business peculiar to life in big cities.
Dwellers in our big cities do not seem to realize that there is any other life possible for them than a continuous nightmare existence amid monstrous buildings, noisy traffic, and the tainted air of unsanitary streets. They seem to have forgotten that the same sun that in summer scorches the towering masonry and paved sidewalks until the canyon-like streets become unbearable also shines on green woods, tumbling waters, and mirror-like lakes; or, if they are dimly conscious of this fact, they think such places are so far distant as to be practically out of their reach in every sense. Yet in reality the wilderness is almost knocking at our doors, for within one hundred miles of New York bears, spotted wildcats, and timid deer live unconfined in their primitive wild condition. Fish caught in the streams can be cooked for dinner in New York the same day.
In 1887, when the writer was himself a bachelor, he went out into the wilderness on the shores of Big Tink Pond, upon which he built the log house shown in the sketch. At first he kept bachelor hall there with some choice spirits, not the kind you find in bottles on the bar-room shelf, but the human kind who love the outdoor world and nature, or he took his parents and near relatives with him for a vacation in the woods. Like all sensible men, in course of time he married, and then he took his bride out to the cabin in the woods. At length the time came when he found it necessary to shoulder his axe and go to the woods to secure material for a new _piece of furniture_. He cut the young chestnut-trees, peeled them, and with them constructed a crib; and every year for the last eight years that crib has been occupied part of the season. Thus, you see, a camp of this kind becomes hallowed with the most sacred of human memories and becomes a joy not only to the builder thereof but also to the coming generation. At the big, open fire in the grill-room, with the old-fashioned cooking utensils gathered from farmhouses on Long Island, I have cooked venison steaks, tenderloin of the great northern hare, the plump, white breasts of the ruffed grouse, all broiled over the hot coals with slices of bacon, and when done to a turn, placed in a big platter with fresh butter and served to a crowd who watched the operation and sniffed the delicious odor until they literally drooled at the corners of their mouths. As the house was built on a deer runway, all these things were products of the surrounding country, and on several occasions they have all been served at one meal.
XLVII
HOW TO LAY A TAR PAPER, BIRCH BARK, OR PATENT ROOFING
Preparing the Roofing for Laying
BIRCH BARK and patent roofing are more pliable than tin or shingles, consequently taking less time to lay and making it easier work. In very cold weather put your patent roofing in a warm room a few hours before using it. Never try to cut birch bark, tar paper, or patent roofing with a dull knife.
Roofing Foundation
No matter what sort of roofing material is used, do not forget the great importance of the roofing foundation (Figs. 296 and 298). If the foundation is poor or uneven the roofing will be poor and uneven, even if only the best roofing material is used. The sheathing boards should be matched if possible and of uniform thickness, laid close, and free from nails, protruding knots, and sharp edges. Do not use green lumber; the sun is almost certain to shrink and warp it. Sometimes it will even break the roofing material. On very particular work, where the rafters are wide apart, the best builders recommend laying a course of boards over the planking at right angles to it.
Valleys
If there are valleys in the roof (Fig. 298) use a long strip of roofing and lay it up and down in the direction of the valleys. Press the strip into the hollow so that it takes the shape of the valley itself. Allow the edges of the roofing to overlap the strip in the valley an equal distance on both sides of the valley (Fig. 298).
How to Lay the Roofing
Begin at the eaves to lay the roofing (Fig. 299). Always lay the roll of patent roofing with the inside surface to the weather and in the same direction that the boards run--not at right angles to them. Begin nailing at the centre of the edges of the strips and work both ways to the ends--never the reverse, as the roofing may become wrinkled, twisted, or crooked. Always set caps even with the edge of the laps about two inches apart between their centres.
Gutters
To finish gutters, fasten and carefully cement with the pitch or tar or prepared composition the edge of the strip about half-way to the gutter. Bring the other edge onto the roof, then lay the next strip over this strip so that it will overlap at least two inches. Proceed to lay the balance of the roofing in the same way. Never nail the middle of the strips; nail only along the edges. The end strips should always be lapped over the edges of the roof and fastened (Figs. 297 and 299).
Before fastening laps paint a two-inch strip with the tar or pitch cement which comes with all patent roofing in order to stick it to the lower strip of roofing and to make a tight joint when put in place.
Do not drive nails carelessly or with too much force and be sure the cap fits snugly against the roofing. If nails go into holes or open cracks, do not remove them but thoroughly cement around them. Allow six inches for overlaps for joints where one strip joins another (Fig. 299, _B_). Be sure that two strips of roofing never meet at the ridge leaving a joint to invite a leak over the ridge-pole. Examine the diagrams if you fail to understand the description.
How to Patch a Shingle Roof
The reader must not suppose that the roof of my camp was made of flannel because it shrank, for the whole house, which was made of logs, diminished in size as the wood became seasoned; so that now each log averages a quarter of an inch less in width than it did when the house was built twenty odd years ago. There are just one hundred logs in the house, which makes the house twenty-five inches smaller than it was when it was built, but I cannot point out the exact spot where the two feet and one inch are missing. Neither do I know that this had anything to do with the opening in the roof about the chimney; but I do know that the opening gradually became wider and wider until it not only admitted the entrance of numerous flying squirrels and other varmints but also let in the rain and snow and consequently it had to be remedied. Neither the flying squirrels nor the elements can now enter at that point.
The Connecticut Yankees stop the leaks around the big chimneys of the old farmhouses with mortar or concrete, but at permanent camps cement is not always handy, and even if one is living in a farmhouse it will probably necessitate quite a long drive to procure it. If, however, there happens to be on hand some strips of the various tar roofing compounds, some old tin, or even a good piece of oilcloth--by which I mean a piece that may be so worn as to have been cast aside and yet not so perforated with holes that it will admit the rain--it may be used to stop the leak.
Fig. 291. Fig. 292. Fig. 293. Fig. 294. Fig. 296. Fig. 297. Fig. 298. Fig. 299.
[Illustration: How to lay a composition roof and how to cover space around flue. (Fig. 295 is on next plate.)]
Fixtures for Applying Roofing
The complete roofing kit consists of cement, caps, and nails. The galvanized caps and nails are the best to use; they won't rust. Square caps have more binding surface than the ordinary round ones; but we can mend "with any old thing."
Fig. 291 shows a chimney from which the roof of the house is parted, leaving a good-sized opening around the smoke-stack. To cover this, take a piece of roofing compound, tin, oilcloth, tar paper, or paroid and cut as is shown in the upper diagram (Fig. 292). Make the slits in the two ends of the material of such a length that when the upper ends are bent back, as in the lower diagram (Fig. 292), they will fit snugly around the chimney. You will need one piece like this for each side of the chimney. Where the ends of the chimney butt against the ridge of the roof you will require pieces slit in the same manner as the first but _bent differently_. The upper lobe in this case is bent on the bias to fit the chimney, while the lower one is bent over the ridge of the roof (Figs. 293 and 294).
To better illustrate how this is done, Fig. 293 is supposed to show the chimney with the roof removed. Fig. 294 is the same view of the chimney with the two pieces in place. You will need four pieces, two at each end of the chimney, to cover the ridge of the roof.
With all the many varieties of tar paper and composition roofing there come tacks or wire nails supplied with round tin disks perforated in the centre, which are used as washers to prevent the nail from pulling through the roofing.