You may use a foundation of stones or a series of stone piles, but if you
use stones and expect your house to remain plumb where the winters are
severe you must dig holes for them at least three feet deep in order to go
below the frost-line. Fill these holes with broken stone, on top of which
you can make your pile of stones to act as support for the sills; but the
simplest method is to use posts of locust, cedar, or chestnut; or, if this
is too much trouble, pack the dirt tightly, drain it well by making it
slope away from the house in every direction, and lay your foundation
sills on the level earth. In that case you had better use chestnut wood
for the sills; spruce will rot very quickly in contact with the damp earth
and pine will not last long under the same circumstances.
All through certain sections of this country there are hundreds of humble
dwellings built upon "mudsills," in other words, with no foundation or
floor but the bare ground.
We will suppose that you have secured some posts about two feet six inches
long with good, flat ends. The better material you can obtain the trimmer
and better will be the appearance of your house, but a house which will
protect you and your tools may be made of the roughest lumber.
The plans here drawn will answer for the rough or fine material, but we
suppose that medium material is to be used. It will be taken for granted
that the reader is able to procure enough two-by-four-inch timber to
supply studs, ribs, purlins, rafters, beams, and posts for the frame shown
in Fig. 49. Two pieces of four-by-four-inch timber each fifteen feet long
should be made for sills by nailing two-by-fours together. Add to this
some tongue-and-grooved boarding or even rough boards for sides and roof,
some enthusiasm, and good American pluck and the shop is almost as good as
built.
First lay the foundation, eight by fifteen feet, and then you may proceed
to dig your post-holes. The outside of the posts should be flush or even
with the outside edges of the sills and end beams of the house as shown in
the diagram. If there are four posts on each of the long sides they should
be equal distances apart.
Dig the holes three feet deep, allowing six inches of the posts to
protrude above ground. If you drive two stakes a short distance beyond the
foundation in line with your foundation lines and run a string from the
top of one stake to the top of the other you can, without much trouble,
get it upon a perfect level by testing it and adjusting until the string
represents the level for your sill. When this is done, set your posts to
correspond to the level of the string, then place your sill on top of the
posts and test that with your level. If found to be correct, fill in the
dirt around the posts and pack it firmly, then spike your sill to the
posts and go through the same operation with opposite sets of posts and
sill.
Fig. 49.
[Illustration: Frame of two-by-fours milled lumber, with names of parts.]
The first difficult work is now done and, with the exception of the roof,
the rest only needs ordinary care.
It is supposed that you have already sawed off and prepared about nine
two-by-four-inch beams each of which is exactly eight feet long. Set these
on edge from sill to sill, equal distances apart, the edges of the end
beams being exactly even with the ends of the sills as in Fig. 49. See
that the beams all cross the sills at right angles and toe-nail them in
place. You may now neatly floor the foundation with one-inch boards; these
boards must be laid lengthwise with the building and crosswise with the
beams. When this is finished you will have a beautiful platform on which
to work, where you will be in no danger of losing your tools, and you may
use the floor as a table on which to measure and plan the sides and roof.