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Researching the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site of Canada
  Recherche sur la Forteresse-de-Louisbourg Lieu historique national du Canada

DOMESTIC BUILDING CONSTRUCTION 
AT THE FORTRESS OF LOUISBOURG, 1713 - 1758

By

Eric Krause

1996 Draft Report

(Fortress of Louisbourg
Report Number H G 10)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

FLOORS AND CEILINGS - COVERINGS

Louisbourg builders preferred wooden floors. The common type was single layered, 2 pouces thick, tongues and grooved, of pine or fir and nailed down. Exceptions to the rule were often in an upper storey - the boards might be only one or 1 1/4 pouces thick or from Boston, of the least thickness - or, as in special place like the King's Bastion chapel, of a hardwood, oak or merisier, 2 pouces thick, or, as in a heavily traveled but possibly temporary storm porch, of one pouce stock.

A finished floor was generally planed on the upper side only, even in a better home like the proposed Block 2 Rodrigue residence. Some floors, though, were left rough, as in the case of Louisbourg's second government complex, a charpente building; or as on the ground floor of Pierre Orieux's piquet home. Above, in the upper storey of the Orieux residence, the floors were planed on both sides.

The 18th century technique of sawing logs was parallel to the axis of the trunk and so the boards produced were of varying widths. Probably, then, a builder laid a floor in panels of boards of equal lengths rather than equal widths. Each board, however, even in floors where they only butted, was to have its edges free of bark. The process, known as deligne, was a second cut along the edge, perpendicular to the face, to produce a parallel square edge. A process often specified in military contracts, this concern with detail might suggest that not all floors were laid with such care for the type of boards purchased.

Ideally too, a floor would lie in place for eight to 10 months prior to final nailing, two nails to a joist. If that floor were of hardwood, a carpenter would also have pre-drilled his holes so as not to split the planks or joists when nailing them down. Iron pegs rather than nails were also a possibility, as were wooden pegs, for such places as powder magazines where sparks could cause a fire.

An alternative to the traditional floor was one comprised of butt-joint boards: in one case, the lower storey floor of rough boards and that above of planed boards which the owner had not nailed down. Others - proposed for the Block 2 Rodrigue house, for example - were more reminiscent of a one pouce beveled roof sheathing than of a floor. Several 1749 guardhouses apparently had this type flooring too.

Double layered floors - of Boston boards in one case - found their way into a 1730 Island Battery storehouse and into the King's Bastion guardhouse. Squared, flattened-off or even split piquets also found use, particularly in cruder piquet structures. Another possibility, as in a 1721 piquet house being sold by Laurent Dibarrat, were common rafters, resting on sleepers and on a ground level nailer attached to one wall. The rafters probably butted.

Earthen floors appeared in some crude homes or storehouses and in the Louisbourg magasin d'artillerie. More sophisticated was the sand and gravel basement of the Block 2-I Destouches house.

Pavé or stone floors appear under special circumstances. The magasin general and the garrison bakery of Block One has them, as did the bakery of the King's Bastion barracks. One, in an office of a Block 23A residence, was even double layered with a plank flooring on top.

Street and building paves were similar: ordinary non-mortared rubblestone laid on a gravel-like base. Using a ram insured the proper slopes, with care taken to fill in the spaces between the rubblestone with the same material as the base. Mortared rubblestone and brick paves, at 3 1/2 and 5 1/2 times the cost of ordinary paving, were also available. Mentioned in 1726, in a list of prices, they are not described again, no doubt because they cost too much, or were not required.