McNairy v Isley House
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Transcript of McNairy v Isley House
8/11/2019 McNairy v Isley House
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/mcnairy-v-isley-house 1/3
Allahquan L. Tate
CIEN 112.001
Robert Powell
3/31/14
Assignment 4
COMPARISON AND CONTRAST OF MCNAIRY AND ISLEY HOUSE
Located in Downtown Greensboro, at the Greensboro Historic Museum are two homes
from two different eras. They are the 18th and 19th century households of the historic Francis
McNairy House and Christian Isley House, as well as the Hockett Blacksmith and Woodworking
Shops. These homes and shops show the similarities in the architectural style of two different
cultures, in two different time frames.
McNAIRY HOUSE
We first visit the Francis McNairy House. This is a 19th
century home that features minimal but well
advanced structural systems. The first thing to notice
is the use of post and beam structural planning. It
also utilizes the natural flow of air as the doors are
positioned directly across from one another. The
relied on fire places, as they did not have HVAC
systems. There was a fireplace in each room. Each
room also served as a multipurpose room. For
cooking, there was an outhouse located on the south
side of the building. The McNairy house also used a feature that many of the earlier civilizations
utilized in the past. The house was designed and relies heavily on its solar orientation. The front
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entrance is located on the Northside of the home. This
allowed them the opportunity to maximize the amount
of sunlight and daylight in the summer months, and
allowed for a nice amount of heat in the winter. There
was also two
multipurpose/bedrooms up stairs.
The exterior walls were simply logs. The logs were not
flushed and had no siding on them. The home was initially a
typical log cabin-style home. The walls were filled with mud, clay,
water, and sand to keep the logs together. This technique is called chinking and daubing. The
logs they utilized for the exterior walls also acted as massing or bearing wall for the entire
home. The roof of the structure was truss framed and covered with bark or lumber panels.
ISLEY HOUSE
We now turn to visit the 18th century Christian Isley House. This was a German family
and they brought the German style of homes with them here. The house featured no electricity,
no water, no plumbing, no heating and
ventilation and had no insulation. The logs
provided little insulation to the home, however,
the straw used in the daubing of this cabin
provided minimal insulation. This home was
constructed with front facing west and a
window on the Northside receiving all of the
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sunlight. It also featured a monolithic fireplace. The fireplace was used for heating and cooking.
Although the fireplace was monolithic, it presented two problems in the winter months. A
fireplace’s efficiency is 3% - 5% and the heat that is let off is radiant heat. That little bit of heat
would be loss because there is no insulation to trap it in the home and the drafts would blow it
away. In another room, it featured a multipurpose room similar to the McNairy house. This
room was used for sleeping, eating, cooking, and many other functions. It featured a five plate
stove that was used to keep the room warm and to keep food warm.
The exterior of the home was logs and they utilized a splicing technique to get the logs
flush with one another. It also featured a blacksmith and woodworking shop.
The wood working shop utilized the same
technique as the blacksmith shop. They
utilized post and beam for the structural
foundation. The rough was truss framed.
For the siding of the shops, they used a
board and batten technique.