I have not come across many historic design rules for gambrel roofs, and I would like to know more about them. I have seen roofs called Dutch, Sweedish and English gambrels based on there proportions and details like the kick at the bottom of Dutch gambrels. I have seen the proportion of 1:2 for the span of the lower to upper pitches but no reference to the rise, rafter length or pitchs. Does anyone know the guidelines for any type of gambrel proportioning?

Jim

Just ignore this if it's too far of topic, everyone. I get a kick out of the Mansard roof building, a hipped gambrel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansard_roof

Tim

While on a road trip this weekend we swung into Gouldsboro, lots of old barns and I made frequent stops with warn results. Numerous, wise residents meandering toward a future destination, the barns in the same condition, some a little fresher than others. I was able to pick up a booklet on barns the Historical Society but out. One of the more striking barns was the Mansard roof type. I don't see these in my direct area, Gouldsboro is located to the west of me approximately 60 miles. There was also many 3 bay, side entry, English barns. Here is one photo of numerous Mansard Barns. I didn't have the chance to view the interiors, Summer residents it appears. The foundation on this one was loose rock, others granite. Are these types of barns seen else where? Tim [img]http://[IMG]http://i349.photobucket.com/albums/q393/timber500/100_2144.jpg[/img][/img]

Hey Tim:

These mansard versions are neat. Sounds like you had a nice laid back tour through the countyside. Are these usually in the confines of "town," or set out on sprawling acreage (farms)?

The one in the photo looks more like a carriage house than a barn for an argricultural operation. Just my take... it probably influenced the particular design.

The mansard roof doesn't make great hayloft space, but is rather an efficent way to close in a structure... the mansard probably takes less material to enclose than a gambrel or gable configuration.

Any date ranges? The cuploa in the pic suggests mid-late 1800s

Were they timbered or balloon framed?

Beautiful carrage house/barn, Tim. I cannot recall seeing any mansard roof outbuildings in my travels. There are a couple of hip/monitor roof buildings around!

To answer my own question, I have come accross five methods of gambrel proportioning, mostly in "The Carpenter's Assistant..." by James Newlands; one of the best, old builder's books I have yet seen.

Jim

This may fly in the face of the roof terminology employed by most American carpenters, but the 'Gambrel' roof is mis-named, and I'm not going to go along with that anymore.

Apparently this mistake traces back to a tract house marketing pamphlet from the mid 1800's where the term 'Gambrel' got applied to a Mansard roof. What you are calling a 'Gambrel' is in fact a Mansard roof - and a "hipped Gambrel" is also a Mansard roof. I asked a French compagnon a couple of years back what he called each of these roofs, and he confirmed that they were both called 'Mansard' in France. Since the Mansard roof originated in France, attributed to N. Francois Mansart, I am inclined to go with that.

So, what is a 'Gambrel' roof? It's a hipped gable - some term this a "Dutch Gable", 'curiously'.

Taking some comments from a online discussion I was involved in a few years back, "Gambrel is a Norman English word, sometimes spelled gamerel, gamrel, gambril and gameral meaning "a crooked or hooked stick". A Gambrel is a stick or piece of timber used to spread open and hang a slaughtered animal by its hind legs. Gambrel is also a term for the joint in the upper part of a horse’s hind leg, the hock.

Prior to permanent European settlement in America, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and English mariners and traders had visited or settled in to the area of south east Asia now called Indonesia. It was there they saw dwellings with a roof style where the end of a roof started as a hip and finished as a gable end at the ridge. The gable end was in fact an opening to allow smoke to dissipate from the cooking fires. This design of roof was brought back to Europe and the American Colonies and adapted to local conditions. The roof style is still in existence today in Indonesian rural communities.

The word gambrill was part of the Dutch language in 1601.

Various references are found in the original colonies in America about gambrel roofs including: 1737 Old Times, New England “One Tenement two stories upright with a gambering roof.”. 1765 Massachusetts Gazette “A large building with two upright stories and a Gambrel Roof.”. “Sometimes with the long sloping roof of Massachusetts oftener with the quaint gambrel of Rhode Island”. 1779 “The gambrel ruft house”. 1824 “In a Gambrel roof’d home”.1858 “a small farm with a modest gambrel roofed one story cottage”.

In the Dictionary of Americanisms by John Russel Bartlett, 1848, pg. 166 (also readable online through Google books - look it up): Gambrel, “A hipped roof of a house, so called from the resemblance to the hind leg of a horse which by farriers is termed the gambrel”.

The French or Mansard roof is attributed to the French Architect Nicolas Francois Mansart, 1598 – 1666, probably not something he invented but but certainly a roof style used by him. In its basic form it consisted of a King post truss on top of a Queen Post Truss. This provided usable roof space as additional accommodation. The basic Mansard roof with gable ends was known a single Mansard roof with the roof having two different pitches, the lower (or pitch from the eave) being steeper than the upper pitch connecting with the ridge. A Mansard Roof which has hip ends is called a curb roof (except by the French, who also call it a Mansard) where the upper pole plates become a curb. The roof shape was varied and pitch proportions were modified over time to accommodate dormer windows and curved ends at the eave to reduce snow slip.


'The first recorded use of the misuse of the word gambrel to describe a Mansard Roof in America was in 1858. It was referred to as an American colloquialism for a Mansard roof. So, someone in America quite incorrectly started to call two entirely different styles and types of roof by the same name."

An online dictionary search for the term 'gambrel' however will only lead to the current misleading and incorrect definition. However if you look in a good Architectural Dictionary, like Dictionary of Architectural and Building Technology 4th Edition (by Henry J.Cowan and Peter R.Smith, published in the US by Spon Press 2004. Library of Congress ISBN 0-415-31234-5) you will find it correctly illustrated (Google has this book available for online reading too -see pg. 134 in the text), to wit: gambrel roof "A sloping roof similar to a HIP ROOF, but with the addition of small gables part-way up the end sloping portions".

Another book I have, The Complete dictionary of Wood, by Thomas Corkhill (1982, Scarborough Books, ISBN 0-8128-6142-6) also shows the roof illustrated as it should be, on pg 211.

Wikipedia, though I love it in many ways, often does a disservice to the truth by allowing un-vetted, unreferenced postings, "Gambrel" being a good case in point.

Doing a little more reading, I realize how confused the various roof type names have become.

When I use the term 'hipped gable', I mean a roof like this:





When looking up the term 'hipped gable', what I often found however were pictures that showed this:






This type of roof I refer to as a "Jerkin Head" roof - it is also sometimes called a "clipped gable" or "half-gable".

The term 'Dutch gable', I had been taking to refer to a hipped gable (and thus connected to the Dutch term Gambrel, which is a hipped gable roof), as it is in this picture from the Northland truss website:


The term 'Dutch gable', is in fact also applied, more accurately and helpfully I think, in relation to actual gables commonly seen in Holland:

One last note: the French compagnon whom I asked questions about the terms 'Mansard' and 'Gambrel' was Boris Noel, during a French Carpentry drawing workshop he taught at Heartwood a few years ago.

I grew up with the "dutch gable" you show in blue being called a "dutch hip", the jerkinhead is also called a "clipped hip" here.

I have read somewhere in the dim past that the french did not tax rooms in the roof and that was the reason for the mansard, basically a tax free floor.

Chris, this is going to be a struggle for me. The picture of a red "gambrel barn" is wrong. It should be correctly labeled a red "single mansard" or (hipped gable) barn with chickens and a white fence etc. Two possibilities here.

The carriage house in the picture I posted is a curb roof? Or if you are in France, a Mansard roof.

The main house is an example of a hip roof, as well as the cupola?

Tim