Balconies
Balconies attached to the walls of buildings below rows of doors occurred at several places. On no other hypothesis than the presence of these structures can be explained the elevated situation of entrances opening into the rooms immediately above rooms 20, 21, 22. In fact, there appear to have been two balconies at this place, one above the other, but all now left of them is the projecting floor-beams, and a fragment of a floor on the projections at the north end of the lower one, in front of room 20. These balconies ([pl. 3]) were apparently constructed in the same way as the structure that gives the name to the ruin called Balcony House; they seem to have been used by the inhabitants as a means of communication between neighboring rooms.
Nordenskiöld writes:[14]
The second story is furnished along the wall just mentioned, with a balcony; the joists between the two stories project a couple of feet, long poles lie across them parallel to the walls, the poles are covered with a layer of cedar bast, and, finally with dried clay.
Fireplaces
There are many fireplaces in Spruce-tree House, in rooms, plazas, and courts. From their number it is evident that most of the cooking must have been done by the ancients in the courts and plazas, rather than in the houses. The rooms are so small and so poorly ventilated that it would not be possible for any one to remain in them when fires are burning.
The top of the cave in which Spruce-tree House is built is covered with soot, showing that formerly there were many fires in the courts and other open places of the village. In almost every corner of the buildings in which a fire could be made the effect of smoke on the adjoining walls is discernible, while ashes are found in a depression in the floor. These fireplaces are very simple, consisting simply of square box-like structures bounded by a few flat stones set on edge. In other instances a depression in the floor bordered with a low ridge of adobe served as a fireplace. There remains nothing to indicate that the inhabitants were familiar with chimneys or firehoods as is the case among the modern pueblos. Certain small rooms suggest cook-houses, or places where piki, or paper bread, was fried by the women on slabs of stone over a fire, but none of these slabs were found in place. The fireplaces of the kivas are considered specially in an account of the structure of those rooms ([see p. 18]).
No evidence that Spruce-tree House people burnt coal was observed, although they were familiar with lignite and seams of coal underlie their mesa.