Greater Chicagoland Home Inspection's new blog, "Life at the OLD Homestead" is meant as a primer for those interested in intricacies of old homes. I love old homes...I love inspecting them, I love restoring them, I love living in them. This is dedicated to that passion, and hopefully will shed some light on some of the finer points of these time capsules.
Determining the Age of your Home: Popular Home Styles
Another method to dating your home is to determine when the popular styles were constructed. One the style is determined, typically it is possible to find similar homes in the area that may have construction dates recorded with the township. In the next few blogs, I will develop a historical timeline and other information associated with specific details of each style of home.
Cracker Farmhouses, 1840-1920
Long time regarded as a poor relative in the family of American architecture, Cracker style is now being celebrated for its inventiveness and energy efficiency.
A Cracker farm house is a wooden shelter built by the early Florida and Georgia settlers. They were cheap and fast to build and conducive to building on the plentiful land that both areas had at the time. The amount of natural resources that were available at the time, specifically cedar and cypress, were used to build the homes. As for the foundation, it was primarily made of rock and brick with oyster shell and lime for footing. The most notable feature of the Cracker was a wide shade porch. In pre-air-conditioned Florida, the porches provided relief from the relentless sun. Site orientation for shade, wide, covered porches, crawl spaces beneath the homes for ventilation, and windows that took advantage of cross breezes. Interestingly, the notable floor cracks "helped with house cleaning, and raised first floor was used to keep hounds (hunting) and chickens (food), which in turn provided service of consuming fleas and other pests," according to an extension publication on energy efficiency.
Determining the Age of your Home is written by Greater Chicagoland Home Inspection, a St Charles, Illlinois Home Inspection Company. If you are in the market to purchase a home in the Kane, Cook , DuPage, or Dekalb counties of Illinois, contact us for your inspection needs.
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