Search Website Design and Content © by Eric Krause, Krause House Info-Research Solutions (© 1996)
      All Images © Parks Canada Except Where Noted Otherwise
Report/Rapport © Parks Canada / Parcs Canada  --- Report Assembly/Rapport de l'assemblée © Krause House Info-Research Solutions

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 NINETEEN

CHIMNEYS AND CHIMNEY OPENINGS -
FOUNDATIONS

A firm base, a prerequisite of proper chimney and fireplace construction, was usually achieved by means of a foundation. One at Block 36C, was 2 pieds deep while another, of mortared rubblestone in Block 34C, was 2 pieds 6 pouces deep, the same depth as the excavation itself. In the latter case both the foundation and the excavation were 3 pieds wide.

An excavated foundation was not, however, the only means by which to achieve a firm base. Sometimes, instead, foundations were built immediately on the ground; an example being the elevated rubblestone foundations for the main walls of a charpente bakery constructed on Battery Island in 1744. The bakery's oven/fireplace complex also rested on a raised foundation, one pied 4 pouces off the ground. There the foundation base was slightly larger than the main body of the oven/fireplace.

On Block 5A the firm base for both the walls of the building and its ground floor and first storey fireplaces consisted of wooden piles driven into swampy land. Consequently, each of four flatstone fireplace bases rested on 7 by 8 pouce wooden plates, placed across the heads of three rows of piles, each spaced 2 pieds apart.