Dormers and Drips.

DORMERS are built in a great variety of sizes and shapes, and are placed in all sorts of positions; and they are treated and covered in a great variety of ways. So full of mouldings, wings, and flying ornaments are they at times, especially on the Continent, that one wonders, when looking at them, whether the building has been erected for the sake of the dormers, or the dormers for the building. In these days, when houses are " run up " for one's own occupation, and not for his grandson's, the services of the poor plumber are not much required in connection with dormers, especially when there is much ornament upon them. Zinc is the metal chiefly used. They are made entirely of zinc, or their exteriors are covered with zinc.

2. Dormers are sometimes covered with copper, but oftener with lead. The tops are sometimes covered with slate, but much oftener with tiles, and the sides with lead or zinc; but now that hip and valley tiles are so much in use, the dormer is often handed over to the carpenter and tiler, though the plumber is generally wanted for the cills, if not for the saddle-pieces - the pieces at the apex of the valleys.

3. Each side of a dormer may be covered in one piece of lead, or, where this would make too large a piece, two or more pieces should be fixed, and be lapped horizontally, or seam-welted down the middle. To take the weight of the cheeks off the slates or tiles, instead of turning the lead round to flash the roof, it is better to fix soakers, and to let the cheeks form a cover-flashing to them, trimming the edges of the cheeks about 1 in. up from the slates or tiles. If the top edge of the piece or pieces can be turned over upon the edge of a board, and copper nailed, the lead will be held up in its place much better than by soldered-dots,. though it may be necessary to fix a secretly soldered lead-tack here and there, at the back of the cheek, to keep it in its place. It is better for such tacks to be kept near the top of a piece, when they have to carry any great weight, for the lead to be suspended upon the tack, like a coat held up by its loop, rather than that the lead should rest upon the tack; for in the latter case the cheek sags down upon the tack, and folds over it in a most unsightly way. Where the cheeks are returned upon the front faces of the uprights their vertical edges can generally be closely nailed with copper nails, and welted. Their lower ends are sometimes bossed round the ends of the sill. In such cases the wood arrises should be rounded off a little to prevent the sharp edges cutting the lead during the bossing.

4. The sills, when of deal, are generally covered with lead; but in any case it is better for a piece of lead to be fixed right under the sill, and for it to be turned up inside, and copper nailed.

5. A drip, whether in a gutter or flat, should not be less than 1 1/2 in. deep, and is better 2 in.; and when there is more than one drip, they should not be more than 10 ft. apart.

6. The edge of the upper end of a lead gutter or of a lead bay - i.e., the underlap - should be bossed up and rebated its thickness, and 1 1/2 in. wide, into the boards of the drip of the gutter or flat next above it, as shown at a, fig. 18. The end of the gutter, which empties into the lower gutter - i.e., the overlap, should be worked down into the bottom corners of the drip with care, and made to lay upon the bottom of the gutter, as shown in section b, fig. 18, and on plan c c, fig. 19.

Fig. 18.

Fig. 19.

7. To work the lead down into the corners of a drip, fold over the end of the stand-up upon the part to be bossed down into the corner, and, with two or three sharp blows of the mallet, knock the fold - the lead doubled down - into the corner. Then, with the side of the big mallet, work a supply of lead round into the drips from the upper edge of the stand-up; and as this is worked along with the drifting-plate (r, Plate II.) at the back, to give a smooth surface to work the lead against, the part which had been folded down will open up to the wall again. Having drawn a good supply of lead in this way, on both sides, any further lead required can be worked up from the end of the lead gutter by the mallet and a blunt chase-wedge, and the drip finished off neatly with the sharp one, leaving the lead in the corners of about the same thickness it is in any other part of the gutter.

It is important that, during the whole of the time the lead is being worked into the corner of the drip, the mate should press down hard, with his shoulder upon the holding-down stick, on the edge of the stand-up, directly over the corner.

8. If it is preferred, the lead can be worked up into the corners in waves from the edge of the lay-down upon the gutter bottom; but it will take much longer time this way than by drawing the supply down from the stand-up. As it is easier to work a supply of lead through thick lead than thin, be careful to keep the thoroughfares strong, and work up the supplies in rounded forms, as if you had a Scotch scone, or a section of an orange, or half a walnut, or a tobacco pouch underneath the lead. To prevent friction of two faces of lead, a drifting-plate (r, Plate II.) placed between the two surfaces is very helpful, especially when the lead is wanted to be driven into any place.

9. With splayed edges to the drips the bossing is, of course, much easier; and where there are likely to be driving rains, and the drips are 2 1/2 in. deep, it is desirable to have splay-drips, as the laps at the sides are greater than with square-drips.

10. In the North it is the custom to finish off the lead at the drip about 1/2 in. or 1 in. up from the bottom of the gutter, as it is alleged that the wordwork is liable to be rotten, by the water drawn up by capillary attraction, when the overlap is made to lay down upon the bottom of the gutter; but in the South, where some of the most experienced and the most skilful plumbers in the world are to be found, the drips are treated as shown in fig. 19. And no one has ever seen the ends of old gutter boards rotten where the lay-down has been properly done; and one is, therefore, inclined to think that capillary attraction is greater in the North than in the South, or that there is a lack of skill somewhere, for the turn-down of the North only requires about half the skill of the lay-down of the South. With the latter there is a better lap at the sides, a better finish, and a better protection of the gutter boards from the moisture of a saturated atmosphere. And if there are no heavy mists in Scotland, there are some cold winds to blow up between such open lappings. I think it must be conceded, even by the plumbers of the North, that a lay-down to a drip and a roll keeps a house warmer than the simple turn-down over the edge of a drip, and the short covering to a roll.