HOUSE AND GARDEN 
39 
January, 1910 
Do not obstruct cellar windows by 
too close planting 
If the house sets low on the ground, areas 
will allow larger cellar windows 
Lead the water from rain conductors 
away from the foundations 
of the Black Hole of Calcutta. Even if old walls are damp, sanitary 
engineers have devised ways of correcting this peril, and the 
householder cannot afford to neglect investigating the matter. 
As one must always anticipate and obviate the possibility 
of a'new house falling into an unsanitary condition as years go by, 
it is best to have all the horizontal house drains and connections 
thereto laid in conduits that will have been left in the floor of 
cement. Cast-iron cover-plates, flush with the floor level, can 
cover them, thus leaving everything where it may easily be 
accessible and inspected at a moment’s notice. In fact, nothing 
should be placed under the cement floor, generally speaking, but 
the open-jointed tile drains for the sub-soil. 
Cellar pipes that have to be run anywhere through the 
cellar or along its walls should never require protective cov¬ 
erings such as asphalt, coal tar, etc. Pipes should not rust in a 
dry cellar. 
The drainage of the cellar floor is also a matter of the greatest 
importance, and the level should be so graded and drained as to 
permit the floor to be cleansed frequently. How many people 
in old-fashioned houses wash their cellar floors? And yet they 
would be horrified at the thought of a speck of dust in the draw¬ 
ing room. Above all things plan for a cellar floor that can be 
scrubbed often and conveniently. 
The ancient and decrepit practice of letting the furnace turn 
everything else in the cellar topsy-turvy is vanishing from the 
list of home-building abuses. There was a time when vegetables, 
preserves, food, milk, and butter had to take a back seat and 
yield their throne to clumsy coal-bins, overflowing ash barrels, 
and all the debris the nether world of the old-time cellar could 
attract through the course of various generations. 
Now all that is different. The heating-plant is given plenty 
of room, but modern systems have been kind to the needs of the 
potato as well, and the designer of a modern heating-plant works 
in harmony with the architect, no matter how small and unpre¬ 
tentious the dwelling is to be. Thus there is always left proper 
room for a well planned dark closet for winter vegetables, a fruit 
closet and a food room, a laundry, and often store and other 
rooms. Indeed in one hillside house that has come to the writer’s 
notice there is a fine play-room for the boys of the family, built 
on the side of the higher wall. 
This suggests that, in the properly constructed cellar, it is 
often advantageous to place a work-bench and tool-chest, espe¬ 
cially if there are no outbuildings that can be utilized in this way. 
There is always much “puttering” and amateur carpentering 
of all sorts to be done around a house, month after month, 
and it is, therefore, convenient to have a place where work of 
this sort may be carried on. 
Your architect should plan for the storage of fuel if this is to 
be kept in the cellar. If you have a ten-room house your bin for 
furnace coal should have a capacity of twelve tons, if you plan 
to put in your winter’s supply at one time. The iron-lined chute 
should, when possible, be built into the house, to conduct the coal 
to the center of the bin. This chute will have to be planned with 
reference to its being accessible from the street when the coal 
wagon drives up. The old practice occasioned dumping the coal 
in through a window over the bin, but this is anything but a tidy 
or convenient mode of handling fuel. 
Let the walls of the coal-bin be dust proof, as well as the ceiling 
overhead. The additional cost, if added before the contract is 
awarded, is very small. Another thing to plan for is the sloping 
of the floors of coal bins towards the opening, so the fuel will 
“flow” to the front of the bin as needed. 
The cellar’s outdoor entrance should, of course, be as near 
the ash-barrels as possible, in order to facilitate their removal. 
We often see cellar windows all grimy and dusty, if, indeed, 
they let in enough light to enable us to see them at all. Moreover, 
lighting from the outside should never be permitted to be inter¬ 
fered with by the training of vines over the window openings, 
although this is often done. Then every cellar window should 
move easily upon its hinges, preferably swinging in and up, to 
facilitate proper ventilation. 
Of course the problem of remodeling the old cellar is one that 
quite as often confronts us as that of planning a new cellar for 
the-house-to-be. If one has an old-fashioned cellar and cannot 
go to the expense or inconvenience of extensive remodeling, at 
least a great deal can be done by making up one’s mind to clear 
every particle of rubbish out of the old one, and to bring forth into 
the merciless light of day all the “junk” that has been allowed 
to accumulate in the limbo deserted by all sensible Lares and 
Penates. A householder once declared that you can forgive an 
attic its sins of accumulation, for things in it can get no higher, 
but you cannot forgive an untidy cellar its mussiness, for things 
could get no lower! A little thought, a little planning, a little 
work, a little paint, whitewash, putty and cement, and a great 
deal of housecleaning, will lead one to discover how to make the 
most of a cellar and to take some joy in doing it. 
Brick foundation walls are practicable 
only in dry climates 
Terracing in front will offset the 
stilted effect of a high cellar 
On steep slopes the cellar becomes as 
important as any story 
