The Construction of the Small House: A Simple and Useful Source of Information of the Methods of Building Small American Homes, for Anyone Planning to BuildWalsh, H. Vandervoort (Harold Vandervoort)
History
The Construction of the Small House: A Simple and Useful Source of Information of the Methods of Building Small American Homes, for Anyone Planning to Build
Walsh, H. Vandervoort (Harold Vandervoort)
Building; Dwellings
Moreover, the lighting of a small house must be studied with common
sense, and no rule of the thumb can be laid down. Certain enthusiastic
illuminating engineers offer typical plans and suggestions for the
wiring of houses, which plans are crowded so full of outlets that they
look like a map of the starry heavens. We have in front of us now such
a plan in which a small living-room is marked to contain four wall
outlets containing two lights each, two more outlets on each side of
the fireplace, a wall plug for attaching a portable lamp or two lights,
and a central ceiling outlet for four lights. In addition to these is
another base plug and floor plug. The room is about 14 by 17 feet, and
if all lights were turned on at once and all base plugs attached to
lamps there would be a possible grand total of twenty 50-watt lamps
in this medium-sized room. Such brilliant illumination might please
the jaded nerves of the tired business man, but his wife would never
consent to such a garish display of wealth-eating current.
The problem of illumination for the small house can be sanely
considered from five different angles: (1) General illumination; (2)
local illumination; (3) ornamental illumination; (4) movable lamps; and
(5) light control.
By general illumination is meant the lighting required to flood the
room as a whole, and not locally in any one corner. The easiest and
commonest method of doing this is to provide a central fixture,
containing from two to four 50-watt lamps, or their equivalent, which
are hidden in some commercial type of semi-indirect lighting fixture.
The type of fixture shown on page 122 is one of the finest, and with
a silk shade around it the warm, cheerful effect of a home is greatly
enhanced by this method of lighting. When this fixture is hung in the
dining-room or living-room a single 200-watt Mazda lamp is employed,
while in the other rooms a single 100-watt lamp is used. In the kitchen
no shade is necessary. Usually in laying out the electric outlets
upon a plan the central dining-room and living-room lights are shown
to carry four 50-watt lamps, and those in the other rooms, in the
hall, and on the porch are marked to have two 50-watt lamps or their
equivalent.
But it is not absolutely essential to have a central light for general
illumination. Some architects prefer to have a certain number of wall
lights controlled by one switch, and obtain a general glow with these
lamps. By securing the right type of fixture which shields the raw
filament of light from the eyes, this method of general illumination
often produces a feeling of comfort and homelikeness unsurpassed by the
other system.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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