Why do old buildings have such high ceilings?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

My brownstone has 12 foot ceilings or so, and I can't figure out why. I ask, because I'm waiting for my lazy super to supply a ladder, so I can change the lightbulbs in the light fixture.

― Super Cub (Debito), Sunday, 4 December 2005 20:56 (twenty years ago)

table + chair + you makes a "parlour floor ladder" and also for a few entertaining moments where you wonder if you're going to die

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Sunday, 4 December 2005 21:06 (twenty years ago)

yikes. I actually don't think that would quite reach. Maybe it's higher than 12 feet??

― Super Cub (Debito), Sunday, 4 December 2005 21:14 (twenty years ago)

Maybe your building dates from when people kept giant sloths as pets.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Sunday, 4 December 2005 21:22 (twenty years ago)

We have 12-ft. ceilings too. The house is much easier and cheaper to cool in the summer — in the hottest months we keep the thermostat set on 75 or 76 during the day, crank the ceiling fans, and it's plenty cool. It's not so easy to heat in the winter, but way back when 12' ceilings were the norm, firewood was cheap and you could just throw fuel at the problem. The prospect of this winter's gas bills are scaring me a little.

― I do feel guilty for getting any perverse amusement out of it (Rock Hardy), Sunday, 4 December 2005 21:32 (twenty years ago)

fire?

― RJG (RJG), Sunday, 4 December 2005 21:42 (twenty years ago)

turn your fans on when you have the heat on, it'll recirculate the rising hot air, and I don't think ceiling fans use too much energy.
xpost

― Sengai, Sunday, 4 December 2005 22:23 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, we keep them on year-round. Low in the winter, high in the summer.

― I do feel guilty for getting any perverse amusement out of it (Rock Hardy), Sunday, 4 December 2005 22:26 (twenty years ago)

for the awesome reverberations

― jim p. irrelevant (electricsound), Monday, 5 December 2005 00:48 (twenty years ago)

haha, "parlour floor ladder"... I have done that. I have also piled four telephone books up on a chair b/c a table wouldn't fit in the alcove, and then stretched to the end of stretching. Moments of Fear.

― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Monday, 5 December 2005 01:45 (twenty years ago)

People used to be taller.

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Monday, 5 December 2005 16:14 (twenty years ago)

When heat was coal and lighting was oil lamps low ceilings tended to sufforcate.

― steve ketchup, Monday, 5 December 2005 16:19 (twenty years ago)

xpost - high ceilings = no air conditioning.

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 5 December 2005 16:19 (twenty years ago)

Right, climate control concerns make sense.

― Super Cub (Debito), Monday, 5 December 2005 17:16 (twenty years ago)

they didn't have TVs and so had to employ jugglers as entertainment and you need high ceilings for juggling.

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 5 December 2005 17:20 (twenty years ago)

everyone wore stilts in olden times.

― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Monday, 5 December 2005 17:22 (twenty years ago)

and home trapeze was the rage btwn 1886 and 1912.

― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Monday, 5 December 2005 17:23 (twenty years ago)

until the great trapeze disaster of 1912. this was before the net was invented.

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 5 December 2005 17:28 (twenty years ago)

Is that what those red stains on the ceiling are all about?

― Super Cub (Debito), Monday, 5 December 2005 17:29 (twenty years ago)

That's why we have a chalk outline of a body in our living room. (xpost!)

― I do feel guilty for getting any perverse amusement out of it (Rock Hardy), Monday, 5 December 2005 17:30 (twenty years ago)

LeRoqHardy otm
(xpost)

― k/l (Ken L), Monday, 5 December 2005 17:30 (twenty years ago)

I've got it! it's for hanging thyself!

― Super Cub (Debito), Monday, 5 December 2005 17:31 (twenty years ago)

Maybe. I think Trelane put Captain Kirk in such a high ceilinged room near the end of "The Squire of Gothos."

― k/l (Ken L), Monday, 5 December 2005 17:34 (twenty years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.