Re: Long houses

From: bethexton_at_...
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 15:50:31 -0000

> On Tue, 27 Feb 2001 09:29:35 -0500, "KYER, JEFFREY" <jeff.kyer_at_c...>
> wrote:
>
>
> >For those who were commenting on the depth of sod -- sod is not
normally
> >found in the 2" think jelly roll you might find at your local
>
> True enough, but I'm looking at it in comparison with Viking &
similar
> period buildings in the highlands & islands of Scotland. Most of
those
> had stone walls, but turf roofs, not as thick as those illustrated.
> But, admittedly, the drawing wasn't that detailed, and I would have
> said 1' was about right, whether turf or thatch. It's more a matter
of
> interpreting the drawing. The walls, however, I would say were far,
> far thicker than usual for Scotland, excepting Shetland or Orkney
> possibly.

A few thoughts on roofs.

Sod or thatch both degrade over time. Sod dries up and gets crumbly, thatch gets soggy and even begins to decay.

I know that to a large extent thatch roofs were maintained simply by adding more thatch on top. I recall seeing a few old thatch roofed building in northern france with a good 3' layer of thatch on top. I suppose sooner or later you might have to strip it all off, but you probably do more incremental repair and less wholesale replacement with a thatch roof than a sod one. Further, it is bound to be easier to haul thatch up onto the roof in the first place, as you can do it in reasonable bundles. You want that sod to be in as large pieces as possible to provide a good seal, which has to be incredibly hard to shift around when you are thinking about 1' slices.

Therefore, where both were feasible I would imagine that, at least for smaller buildings, thatch would be preferred simply because it was easier. I could imagine a couple of situation where the thatch roof wouldn't be much of an otpion, however. The first is when there simply isn't thatch available, like on the prairies. Somehow I don't think that would be a problem in Sartar. The second is where there are extremely nasty winds. I know thatch is heavily interwoven, but I suspect that it still wouldn't stand up to frequent, nasty, windstorms (or provide as good a seal to wind pressure driven rain), as sod would. This *might* be an issue in parts of Sartar.

Speaking of winds, how bad is the weather in Sartar? If all those storms are really nasty, then you won't have much in the way of eaves or simple roofed work areas. If the snows are really heavy, then those roofs will probably have to have a fairly steep slope to shed some of the load (especially with a 20 foot span from centre beam to walls). I'm not too sure how well sod works with a steep pitch?

If anyone wants to think more about how the weather shapes buildings, amongst other things, I'd strongly suggest finding a book called "Reading the Landscape of Europe" by May Theilgaard Watts. It has some excellent essays, including one looking at the traditional houses of england and france. (from a much later period than the longhouse). It is long out of print, but may be in your local library.

-Bryan