Lloyd Lewis sections

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Sat May 13, 2017 9:49 am

4 x 6 sleepers ? No, 3 x 4 on edge, as seen in two section drawings just above. How it was actually built I have not yet seen -- nor have I seen drawings showing spaced floor boards (per Roderick, above). The photos above are not clear, though cracks in the tiles suggest boards running parallel to the glass, as you say. These might be covering the stick floor below, as in the sections of mill construction in the period drawing from Ramsey and Sleeper -- Lautner's solution to laying tile. Why not plywood, a more reliable substrate layer ?

SDR

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Sat May 13, 2017 10:18 am

Man am I confused.
But no matter.
... and I see that Choates photo is a Wientraub shot
and not Choates own.
Shoot - for a second there I was thinking that Choate was holding back
and that he was sitting on a lode of Sturges shots.
Oh well.

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Sat May 13, 2017 10:21 am

...but the Weintraub shot that Choate
has posted does clearly show
that the interior flooring is boards
not thick mill sections .... no?

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Sat May 13, 2017 10:37 am

SDR: Disregard my last post directly above.
You already address this point in your last post.

It's a good surmise that those boards cover the structural
mill floor. You could be right about that.
That would raise the interior a little above the outside deck.
Hard to tell from the Weintraub shot.

Roderick Grant · Post by **Roderick Grant** » Sat May 13, 2017 11:32 am

Note the spindles in the drawings. They look like structural elements, but are purely decorative. When I was there in '89, Jack pulled one out and put it back in. Absolutely no functional use.

What was the material of those common tiles used so extensively in the 50s? I think they were not rubber. Very brittle. That's what is in Sturges.

Roderick Grant · Post by **Roderick Grant** » Sat May 13, 2017 11:55 am

SDR, the drawings you post are from Mono 5/159, right? Look at page 157. There seem to be spaces between the floor boards in three sections, though that might just be a curiosity of rendering. The brick grille in the chimney mass seems to be the only source of heat for the living room. While that would be adequate for most winters, it falls short for the worst of them. I don't recall any heat sources in the bedrooms at all.

(For Schindler's DeKeyser House, the only source of heat was electric wall heaters. Sharon DeKeyser heated her upper level unit by lighting the oven and leaving it open through the night. Not a good idea.)

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Sat May 13, 2017 1:43 pm

Mono 6, p 157 -- yes. These sections are at too small a scale to show clearly the floor plate; I expect the dashed nature of the floor pochÃ© must be an anomaly -- perhaps heavy inking that has shrunk and broken up with time ?

Note that the dashed floor shows in both transverse and longitudinal sections -- most prominently in the direction opposite that which the boards must run ? So, I discount that reading, enticing as it is . . .

Looking at these transverse sections, it is hard to escape the reality that Wright has cantilevered this house on 4 x 12s with twice as much length beyond the fulcrum as behind it.
Note in the bottom section that the beams are pocketed all the way through the masonry mass. Note also that the longitudinal section reveals some asymmetry to the brick counterweight.

A pity that we're discussing Sturges on both this and the Sturges thread. Readers will do well to cross-index them.

http://wrightchat.savewright.org/viewtopic.php?t=6005

SDR

pharding · Post by **pharding** » Sat May 13, 2017 3:57 pm

SDR wrote:It would be interesting to know how linoleum or other thin flooring materials held up when applied to separate and potentially irregular pieces of solid lumber, both at Lewis and at Sturges. These sheets or tiles are normally laid over smooth and continuous underlayments. The fibrous backing of linoleum might better resist movement of such lumber than the single and potentially brittle thickness of rubber or plastic tiles ?

SDR

Underneath the linoleum floor in the kitchen, there was masonite on top of the wood slats. Wright went with wood slats so that the heat rise in the slots between the slats. It worked great in reality.

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Sat May 13, 2017 6:06 pm

You're speaking of the Lewis residence, I take it, Paul. Was the masonite sound ? The "tempered" (dark) stuff -- olied, I suspect, though who knows -- is pretty firm material.

SDR

pharding · Post by **pharding** » Sun May 14, 2017 9:19 am

Linoleum and sheet flooring were indicated on the FLW construction documents. The linoleum that we took out was installed in the early 70's. Its installation was typical of rehabilitation projects on FLW projects where the owner just uses contractor without involvement of a quality architect. Contractors do miserable inappropriate work when left to their own devices and I have seen this a lot on FLW houses. In this case the previous flooring contractor took a belt sander to wood slats to level them.

What some FLW homeowners fail to realize is that the replication cost of FLW with their beautifully crafted construction with expensive finishes is frequently 3 to 4 times their market value. Without proper supervision and guidance, contractors and or subcontractors butcher the house. Truly stupid short sighted things can and do occur.

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Sun May 14, 2017 12:21 pm

Heh. How would you have dealt with that irregular floor plane, Paul ?

My dad spent part of a hot summer in the attic of our old house in Rye, using a router (borrowed from Ezra Stoller, if you can believe that) to level the "high ones" among the ceiling joists above the bedrooms so he could install some planks to make the attic useful for storage. Why he didn't shim the low ones, now that I think of it -- a far easier solution -- is a good question, especially for a competent and sometimes creative mechanical engineer.

SDR

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Sun May 14, 2017 12:25 pm

Mr. Harding, any chance of posting those Lloyd Lewis construction documents here?

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Mon May 15, 2017 9:41 am

Tom, the reason to split 4 x 6s into 3 x 4s -- resulting in the same floor thickness either way -- is so that the sticks can be "spiked together," as in Wright's drawing note . . .

If I were to lay any kind of thin flooring over this structure, I would definitely want an interlayer of some sort; plywood or Masonite are two likely candidates. The reason that the traditional mill flooring detail includes splines is to make the plane more structurally continuous, of course -- and not incidentally to keep boards from moving up or down relative to each other. Spiking would be the "poor man's" substitute, with correspondingly lower performance in both respects relative to the traditional method ?

S

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Mon May 15, 2017 1:24 pm

Oops - of course.
Thank you.
:}

pharding · Post by **pharding** » Mon May 15, 2017 2:42 pm

SDR wrote:Heh. How would you have dealt with that irregular floor plane, Paul ?

I prefer shims with glue and nails. I do not like belt sanders because they are too aggressive.