That part of the house which of necessity must be exposed to the buffetings of snow and rain, wind and sun, should be considered more carefully than any other part except the foundation. If economy demands, the doors, floors, bath rooms, and wardrobes may be of plain and inexpensive material, for later they may be replaced when means justify additional expenditure; but if the outside covering be faulty, the house is a partial failure from the beginning.

The first principle to be observed is to place all projections intended to serve as water-tables at somewhat acute angles, for if placed at nearly right angles with the sides of the house, rains accompanied by heavy winds will certainly reach the framework. The water-tables which crown the top of the base-board are more exposed than those which are higher up, and therefore should be steep and rabbeted to prevent the water from reaching the sills. The too usual method is shown in Fig. 71. An enlarged view of a better style of water-table is shown in Fig. 72.

Outside window frame sills which have insufficient pitch tend to become water-soaked, and not infrequently the lower member of the window itself rots by reason of the water which drives in and remains under the sill of the window for considerable periods of time. Figs. 73 and 74 show perfect and faulty methods of construction.

The siding of a house for various reasons would better be put on horizontally, although material put on this way, unless it is kept well painted, is not so durable as when placed vertically. The horizontal covering is more beautiful, lends itself better to the numerous openings, and gives better protection from cold and wind than does the vertical covering. If the building is not to be painted, then the covering would better be placed vertically. Nearly all wooden houses are covered with either thin lap-siding or inch siding, prepared in various ways and known by various names. The inch or novelty siding was first introduced in the West, and costs but little more than the lap-siding, because, being thicker, it can be made of somewhat inferior lumber. The novelty or rabbeted covering gives greater strength to the building and is much more quickly and cheaply put on. It may be said that this style of covering is extremely faulty if placed on the building in the usual way, namely, before the doors and windows and corner boards are in position. If the same method of placing the material be practiced as in placing the lap-siding, then the objections to this class of siding disappear to a certain extent. The diagram, Fig. 75, shows the novelty, or drop, or O G siding (A), the rabbeted (B) and lap-siding (C). It will readily be seen that if a drop (A) or rabbeted (B) siding be put on before the window frames are placed, as is the usual custom, an opening (x) is left under the facing of the window frame which extends through to the studding. This permits the rain, in a driving storm, to pass horizontally along this opening to the studding and then downward along the framework of the building. Many instances could be cited in which these openings have had to be filled by triangular blocks of wood or putty, and even then the water was not entirely excluded.

This method of covering houses or even barns with this new kind of siding is usually disappointing and wasteful of material. All that is gained is a little more facility and cheapness in placing the covering. If it is put on, as it should be, after the window and door frames are set, it is more difficult and more expensive to place than lap-siding.

No way of covering a wooden house has been found superior to the one-half inch lap-siding with joints tight enough at the frames and corners, in conjunction with the paint, to make water-tight joints. The lap should not be less than one inch, and the nails should be so placed that in case of considerable shrinkage in the siding the inside will give or even check, instead of the outside (z). If made as at y, the outside will check. This implies that the nails are to be driven rather more than one-half inch above the edge of the siding. The nails which hold the outer covering should either be set and puttied, or the heads should be left even with or slightly above the surface of the wood, that the paint may cover all parts of the nail head. If the nails are driven too far in the heads are not fully covered and protected by the paint, in which case they will rust and present an unsightly appearance.

Some one has said that if a woman’s feet, hands, and head are well and appropriately clothed, the balance of the dress may be plain and simple, and yet she will have an elegant appearance. So, if a house has a good foundation and a suitable and well-placed roof, the balance of the outside may be extremely plain and yet it will be beautiful. Some of our modern houses rest on unpointed, poorly constructed, and narrow foundations, are bedecked with peaks, pigeon lofts, and dog-eared cornices, and remind one of the suspenderless, barefooted darky crowned with a cast-off silk hat.

If the foundation is too small and shabbily built, no amount of paint and cornice can relieve the house from a look of shabby gentility. A few brown or cream-colored stones or bricks, when placed on the outside of the foundation where it shows above ground, will give dignity, beauty and a substantial look to the whole house. It may do for it what a nickel does for one’s shoes.

The roof of the farm house, and for that matter of all other houses, should, in the trying climate of America, have an ample projection. An abbreviated cornice may be admissible if the building is constructed of stone which is of sufficient density to resist the American tooth of time. Fig. 76 shows a section of an abbreviated and a well extended cornice. The house which has this short-cut cornice stands within a few hundred feet of the one with the wide projecting eaves. During the past twenty years it has been necessary to paint the former twice as often as the latter.

The roof covering would better be of slate or tiles, for the time has passed for building temporary, make-shift houses, though they might have served their purpose well in a new and rapidly developing country. With rare exceptions, the houses to be built in the future should be permanently located, well built, and of durable material. The slates which compose a roof should be not more than 8 inches wide and should not be put on roofs of less than one-third pitch, since they are only double-lapped and do not lie as closely, one upon the other, as do shingles, which are laid triple-lapped. Slate and tile roofs are comparatively heavy, and hence require stronger roof structures than shingles.

The roof boarding for slate roofs should be matched—tongued and grooved—and covered with paper to prevent cold and draughts of air from passing into the attic. Since slates, on account of their somewhat rough surfaces, do not lie closely together, the wind is likely to pass through the cracks in the roof, if there are any, and carry snow and rain into the upper part of the house; therefore the roof covering immediately under the slates should be virtually air-tight. The roof boards for a shingle roof should be narrow and laid with openings of from 1¹⁄₂ to 2 inches between the boards. Rain and snow seldom drive up and through the shingle roof, and since wooden roofs are more likely to rot out than to wear out, the more perfectly the shingles are dried out after a storm the better. The narrow roof boards and the spaces between them allow the shingles to dry quickly, and therefore are better than matched boards.

The short, or common, shingle of commerce is 16 inches long, ³⁄₈- to ¹⁄₂-inch thick at one end, and ¹⁄₈ of an inch at the other, and is computed at 4 inches wide. A bunch of shingles contains one fourth of a thousand. It should have 25 double courses and the band should be 20 inches long. Not infrequently there is a course or two wanting, or the bands are an inch or so short. Having this data, one can easily determine if the bunch is of legal size. A little cheating is not uncommonly done by placing the shingles in the bunch loosely. This can be detected by examining the bunches at the thick ends of the shingles.

Theoretically, 1,000 shingles should cover 10 feet square, or 100 square feet, known in carpentry as “a square,” if the shingles are laid 4 inches to the weather. Since shingles are usually laid 4¹⁄₂ to 5 inches to the weather, 1,000 shingles should cover about 120 square feet. Two-thirds of the lower part of the roof may be laid 4¹⁄₂ inches, and the upper third 4³⁄₄ or 5 inches to the weather, if the roof is not flat.

If shingles are treated with lime water or diluted gas tar, or be painted as they are laid, the life of the roof may be prolonged. The painting of roofs with tar or common earth or mineral paints, after they are laid, does little or no good in preserving them. Sometimes painting is resorted to to make the roof harmonize with the color of the sides of the building.

Neither extremely narrow nor extremely wide shingles are desirable. Those from 3 to 6 inches wide, when carefully laid, are satisfactory. Each shingle should receive but two nails; one is usually enough, and these should be placed about ³⁄₄ of an inch from the edges, and about 1 inch above the point where the butts of the next course will come. When the courses above are laid upon the shingle having but one nail, two or three other nails, which are driven in the courses above, will serve to help hold it in position. The joints of shingle roofs should be double broken: that is, the joints in the shingles of one course should not coincide with the joints of the first or second course below. Consult Fig. 77.

If two nails be driven in the sides of an unseasoned shingle, when it shrinks it is likely to split in the middle; and in laying a roof the joint immediately above the course under consideration is likely to come at or near the middle of the shingle, which splits by reason of the shrinking. The case is still worse when three nails are put in a shingle, for then it is almost certain to split in the middle and immediately in line with the joint in the course above.

Unscientific placing of shingles and insufficient mixing of mortar results in an unsatisfactory house, both inside and outside, however good the materials may be.