I40 



The Country Gcntlcmniis Ma^^a.zinc 



expedients be adopted to prevent damp from 

 attacking walls. The modes in which it does 

 attack them are two First, rising from the 

 ground and proceeding up the walls in 

 a vertical direction; second, proceeding 

 through the thickness of the wall in a 

 horizontal direction, this arising from the 

 action of long-continued battering rainy 

 winds on the outside of walls. To pre- 

 vent the operation of the first cause a good 

 foundation is primarily essential. Where 

 any doubt exists on the subject, we would by 



height of the walls and condition of the soil, 

 yet in ordinary cases it may be said that 1 2 

 inches are much more like the thing than 6 

 inches. In fig. 2 we give an illustration of a 

 mode of making foundations of cottages, re- 

 commended by an eminent authority : Where 

 a is the pavement of the floor of the room, 

 resting upon broken stones or concrete ; b, 

 the broad gravelled walk before the door 

 along the front of wall ; c, the surface of the 

 road ; and d, the drain to carry off the water 

 which may fall upon and percolate through 

 the soil of the walk. This plan we think 

 good; but one objection Avhich it possesses 

 we must point out as being one which is too 

 often a characteristic of ordinary plans — that 

 is, the nearness of the floor-level to the ground- 

 level. We maintain — and no small observa- 

 tion has in all cases tended to quicken our 

 belief in the fact — -that no house-floor on the 

 ground-floor can be thoroughly dry unless it is 



Fig. I. 



all means advise the use of concrete — the 

 thicker the layer the better — in the trenches. 

 Where efficiency, not economy, is thought of 

 — the distinction between these terms is too 

 often lost sight of in building— the more com- 

 pletely the " footings," as the lower courses 

 of walls are termed, are surrounded by and 

 rest upon concrete the better ; as thus, in 

 which a d (fig. i) represents the trench filled 



Fig. 2. 



with concrete. A word here, by the way, 

 may be permitted upon the use oi concrete in 

 foundations, especially in unstable soils. Do 

 not make the lower layer too thin. We have 

 known walls made to rest upon a 6- inch layer 

 of concrete, with what result as adding to the 

 stability of a wall may be guessed. The ex- 

 pense such as it was, might almost as well 

 have been saved, and no concrete used. The 

 thickness will of course depend upon the 



Fig. 3- 



raised some inches above the ground-level, and 

 a space left, as a a, fig. 3, between the floor- 

 ing-boards and the ground or soil. Every 

 ground-floor should therefore be approached 

 by a flight of three or four steps. We have 

 no hesitation whatever in saying that a most 

 prolific source of damp in houses in the prac- 

 tice of making the floor on a level, or nearly 

 on a level, with the ground level, or what is 

 worse, below it — a monstrosity in house-build- 

 ing which it is scarcely possible to conceive 

 of, were it not that it has its exemplars in not 

 a few districts of our country. 



Another of the expedients in use to prevent 

 damp rising vertically up walls, is to have just 

 above or at the ground-level a course of 

 "slate," or "sheet lead," or "gas tar and 

 sand mixed," the object of all of them being 



