Reading House Types
Volunteers Corner
A few months ago, we addressed fighting fires in the cellars of private dwellings. We know they’re hot, smoky, stubborn fires, and that firefighters would rather go up than down to fight.
That’s where we’ll be going over the next few months—putting the fire on and above the first floor so we can look at some of the problems there.
As with all fires, a size-up is mandatory. Occupancy? Okay. We know it’s a private dwelling, but what type? A ranch? A high ranch? A colonial? A Cape Cod? Determining the style of construction is the step we’ll cover this month.
Since important decisions such as line placement, search patterns, and ventilation tactics are dictated by the type of building, it’s important that we be able to read the exterior to visualize an interior floor plan. This skill must be learned—before the fire.
It’s unfair to hold the fire service responsible for major renovations and drastic floor plan changes, but we should know the norm. Although we may not know the style of house until we arrive at the scene, we often have a good idea what types are in that part of town. That’s great; it gives us a mental head start on size-up. However, renovation and new construction may throw us a few surprises. We have to be ready to adjust our thinking immediately if the oddball of the block is the one on fire.
These are the basic types:
A simple ranch with an attached garage. Most ranches are divided in half, with the sleeping areas on one side and the living and utility areas on the other. In most cases, this split takes place at the front door.
The typical floor plan is fairly simple: The front door opens into a hallway, which runs to the rear of the house and, usually, ends in the kitchen. From this hall we can also enter the living room, which is likely to form an L with the dining area. If there’s a den, it’s normally off the dining room, behind the garage.
The main hallway near the kitchen forms an L with another hallway that gives access to the bedroom side of the house. As you move down the hall to the bedrooms, the first door you come to will be the bathroom, because bathrooms and kitchens are built back to back. Farther down the hall, you’ll find the bedrooms.
Your clue is the location of the garage, if there is one, and of the large window in the front of the house. The garage normally is built on the living and utility side of the house, and the large window is in the living room. The wall on the opposite side of the front door from the garage and large window will lead you to the bedrooms.
The high ranch. Inside the front door of the high ranch, you have a choice: You can go up a few steps into the main section of the house, which, like a ranch, is laid out with the large window on the living room side. Or you can go downstairs, where you’ll find a den and almost always a smaller room, which is usually used as a bedroom.
Many of the larger high ranches have been built or renovated to be twofamily homes. If legal, they’ll show the outward signs—two doorbells, two mail boxes, two electric meters. An illegal two-family high ranch will not, of course. But since these houses are so easy to convert, it’s best to consider them two-family dwellings until you find out otherwise. In any case, expect both levels to have sleeping areas.
A high ranch will almost always have a garage under the bedrooms, and this garage has a door giving access into the house.
The two-story colonial. This house style has two basic layouts.
The first is similar to a ranch, with a hallway to the kitchen. The living and dining rooms are also off this hall. The den is off the kitchen and behind the garage. The colonial has a half bath downstairs and a door from the den to the garage.
On the hallway wall adjacent to the garage, you’ll find an open staircase to the second floor, where the bedrooms and main bath will be found. In many cases, the master bedroom will have its own bath; sometimes it will have large walk-in closets.
In the second colonial layout, the front door is at the center of the front side of the house. The living room is on one side and the dining room on the other, both in the front. The kitchen is again at the rear, and the den is again behind the garage.
The staircase in this house is directly in front of the door, leading to the bedroom above. It may be partially enclosed.
This layout is easy to recognize because there will be a window on each side of the entrance door. Many times, these will be large bay or bow windows.
There are some variations on these two colonial floor plans. The den, for example, may not always be behind the garage. This is sometimes a utility area (containing the laundry room, for example). In this case, the den will be found on the other side of the kitchen.
The major point is that the bedrooms are on the second floor and the living and utility areas are on the first, with the staircase close to the front door.
The Cape Cod. This one comes in any number of layouts, and that makes this style difficult to read. Some have the kitchen in the front, some in the rear. Cape Cods located on narrow plots are built railroad-style—one room behind the other. But nearly all Cape Cods have one thing in common: two bedrooms on the first floor and two bedrooms upstairs.
Many Capes were built as expandable houses. The downstairs was finished with two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bath, and a living room. This left the upstairs unfinished for future expansion as the family grew. This is especially difficult on firefighters. Although all rooms must be searched, many times our concentration is directed first to the bedrooms. The Cape Cod almost by definition has bedrooms on both floors, taxing your personnel levels by demanding multiple search teams right from the start.
Because of its layout, the Cape Cod is also one of the most commonly renovated houses, often with a full or half dormer. The renovations may or may not remove the first-floor bedrooms.
As you can see, your initial size-up is very important. Door locations, window locations, and window size tell a story. All we have to do is learn the language.
In the next few months, we’ll start fires in private dwellings, then vent them, perform search operations, and extinguish the fire.
