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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.