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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
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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.