CONSERVATORIES, GREENHOUSES, VINERIES AND FRUIT HOUSES. 



Lean-to 

 houses. 



Three- 

 quarter 

 span 

 houses. 



Span- 

 roofed 

 houses. 



usually have their roofs square pitched, i.e., sloping at an angle of forty-five degrees to 

 the horizontal. Needless to say, under all ordinary circumstances, the whole of the lean-to 

 houses in a continuous range should, if possible, be made with roofs of one pitch. 



A feature common to all classes of glasshouse is the substructure of wood, stone or 

 brick, on which the glass structure stands. This may vary from a dwarf wall only a 

 foot high from the ground level in the case of steep-pitched peach houses, to one three 

 feet six inches or even four feet high. Of the three materials mentioned, brick is by 

 far the best if built in good strong mortar, as it gives a wall of a convenient thickness 

 which is heat retaining and has a surface which can easily be kept clean. Most stone 

 walls become dirty and encourage insect pests, some friable sandstones, such as that 

 used so extensively in South Yorkshire, being particularly bad, while wooden substruc- 

 tures should never be used unless it is absolutely necessary that the greenhouse should 

 be so constructed as to form a tenant's fixture, as such walls allow heat to escape 

 rapidly, need constant repainting, and are liable to rot away at the ground level. 



The simplest form of glasshouse possible, as distinct from frames and pits, is the 

 lean-to house, in which the roof rises directly from the wall in front without any glazed 

 front, or " front lights " as they are called. Such houses used to be common for 

 plant stores or vineries, but very few are being erected nowadays, and, under ordinary 

 circumstances, the writer would never advise their adoption as the extra cost of a glass 

 front is always so small compared with the vast improvement it makes in the house both 

 practically and in appearance. There is, however, a form of peach cover or late peach 

 house which is very similar in appearance to a lean-to house without front lights, and 

 which may be erected with advantage in the South of England where the summer days 

 are hottest. In such houses the roof consists of a series of loose glazed frames each 

 long enough to form a complete cover for a section of the roof from eaves to apex, 

 and which can be removed at pleasure, leaving the whole of the interior, with its fruit 

 bushes, open to the hot sun and air of a sultry Summer day. 



Illustrations Nos. 282 and 283 show sections through the better sort of lean-to houses, 

 the dotted lines indicating how the ventilators in the front and top open, thus providing 

 through ventilation. This provision of both inlet and exit ventilators is an important 

 point and must be so contrived that the cold air entering comes into contact with the 

 radiating pipes before it reaches the foliage or fruit. All the sections given illustrate 

 how this is done, the small circles representing radiating pipes seen in section and so 

 placed as to meet the incoming air. 



Illustration No. 284 shows what is practically a variation of the ordinary lean-to 

 house, known as a " three-quarter span house." It has the practical advantage of 

 allowing of ventilators on each side of the ridge so that, whichever way the wind is 

 blowing, one or the other will be sheltered from it, and also gives the range of glass a 

 better appearance by allowing of a broad house which is not so much higher than the 

 lean-to houses on either side as to spoil their appearance, and at the same time, does 

 not necessitate such an exceptionally high back wall as a lean-to house would. 



The remaining usual form of glasshouse is the span-roofed house, which is shown in 

 section in illustrations Nos. 285, 286 and 287. For market gardening purposes the}^ are 

 often built without front lights in the manner described for the simplest form of lean-to 

 house, but in a garden this is hardly ever done, as it would prevent the flowers being 

 seen from without the house, which is always desirable. As will be seen from the 

 illustrations they have ventilators in both side walls and both sides of the ridge, but the 

 piping is not, in the instances shown, carried so as to intercept the air coming through the 

 former as in the case of the lean-to houses already described, as they would then be very 

 much in the way. Instead of this, they are placed under the staging close to box 

 ventilators in the brick substructure. These box ventilators are openings in the wall 



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