Fig. 107.—Isometrical Perspective View of the Balloon Frame.
The increasing value of lumber and labor, must turn the attention of men of moderate means to those successful plans which have demonstrated economy in both, and at the same time preserved the full qualities of strength and security so generally accorded to the old fogy principles of framing, and which, we presume to say, is inferior in all the true requisites of cheap and substantial building. Light sticks, uninjured by cutting mortices or tenons, a close basket-like manner of construction, short bearings, a continuous support for each piece of timber from foundation to rafter, and embracing and taking advantage of the practical fact, that the tensile and compressible strength of pine lumber is equal to one-fifth of that of wrought iron, constitute improvements introduced with this frame.
If, in erecting a building, we can so use our materials that every strain will come in the direction of the fibre of some portion of the wood work, we can make inch boards answer a better purpose than foot square beams, and this application of materials is one reason of the strength of Balloon Frames.
Fig. 108.—Floor Plan.
The Balloon Frame belongs to no one person; nobody claims it as an invention, and yet in the art of construction it is one of the most sensible improvements that has ever been made.
That which has hitherto called out a whole neighborhood, and required a vast expenditure of labor, time, and noise, can, by the adoption of the balloon frame, be done with all the quietness and security of an ordinary day's work. A man and boy can now attain the same results, with ease, that twenty men could on an old fashioned frame.