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| The larger chimney (to the right) has a single stack that vents both fireplaces |
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| The smaller chimney once vented a heater that warmed the rear of the bungalow |
So why did Hubert Savage feel the need to create two sets of floor plans for his bungalow, the first dated 1933, the second 1951? The deep answer, I suspect, lies in the poor functioning of his original method of heating the building. Initially, and for a very long time thereafter, he relied on open fireplaces to heat the living and dining rooms (these fireplaces may also have been intended to heat the kitchen as well). Accordingly, both rooms have fireplaces vented through a single chimney, each with its own flue - see top photo above, where the combination chimney is on the right. Savage also had a second smaller chimney constructed that was framed into the walls of two bedrooms just off the central corridor. It was built to vent the gases given off by a small oil-burning stove, or paraffin heater, that was located in the hallway. This heater was there to warm the bedrooms and the bathroom, but we don't know if it worked because, by 1988 when I bought Grange Road, it was long gone and the chimney was inactive. In point of fact, I wasn't even aware of there being a second chimney when I purchased Grange Road, but I soon discovered it. One of my first acts upon arrival was ripping out the deep-pile-shag wall-to-wall carpeting covering the wooden floors in the three bedrooms and the hallway (yes, deep-pile-shag was a fad for a very short time, until it became evident how dysfunctional it actually was). I took it out in order to go back to the original tongue-and-groove fir floor lying beneath it, which to that point had not been refinished. The adhesive binding holding the shag carpet's underlay to the floor proved hard to remove, while the tacking strips securing the edges of the wall-to-wall had damaged the wooden flooring a little. Also, the installation of the wall-to-wall came at the cost of the original quarter-round moulding that made the transition between the flooring and the high baseboards (once the carpet was out, the rooms felt quite bare without it). On the positive side, removing the deep-pile shag carpeting revealed that there had once been a heater in the hallway (marks of wear on the fir flooring were evidence of that use). Those marks led me to explore the possibility of there being a hidden chimney framed into the walls between the master and second bedrooms. A visit to the attic confirmed the presence of this second chimney (a fact I had not grasped when purchasing the house, perhaps because I would have had to venture quite far out into the back garden to see it). I also purchased the house without ever visiting the attic, for reasons that are discussed in my September 2023 post First Impressions at this blogspot.
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| Wall jog (right) containing the hidden chimney |
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| Wall jog (left) disguising the second chimney |
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| Second chimney that once vented a hallway heater |
However effective the heater may or may not have been, the two main fireplaces were another matter entirely. The pair may always have been substandard as sources of heat, a fact that was brought home to me by my early enthusiasm for decorative fires in the living room (this is a novel experience when you haven't previously had access to it). Although I didn't have to rely on them for heat, I could tell that they weren't especially well-contrived for their function - indeed, in my limited experience, the fireplaces actually sent more heat up the chimney than they retained for the rooms. Fireplaces work by drawing oxygen over fuel, which requires a supply of air (fed by some sort of draught) to achieve consistent burning; in turn, smoke, fumes and a good deal of heat head straight up the flue and out into the airshed. The necessity of removing smoke-laden air while drawing in fresh air to feed the fire needs to be taken account of in design, especially in order to maximize the amount of heat that stays in the room. Henry Saylor, in his informative Bungalows (1913) impresses on readers the necessity of ensuring "that the fireplace and its flue are built along scientifically correct lines - a fireplace that smokes is of less real practical value than a gas-log" (a gas-log is a gas-fuelled device that imitates the look of a real fire). In my experience, keeping a fire going in the living room hearth was involving, necessitating the windows being slightly ajar in order to ensure sufficient draught to keep the fire burning reliably. Yet in turn, if the windows were kept open, it caused the fire to burn that much more briskly, and as a result, to consume that much more fuel. And this enhanced burning also entailed the sending of more heat straight up the chimney. The alternative, which I found even more distasteful, was to keep the windows closed, ensuring that the fire smouldered.
The idea of sending heat up the chimney was not unusual in bungalows originating in Southern California (where the North American fad first took off) because there was no pressing need to consider heat retention in a place lacking a real winter. In that milieu, the meaning of the fireplace - which was often quite grand and constituted a major emphasis in design - was primarily social, conceived as a place where family gathered to exchange stories around the primordial flame. But such fireplaces were decidedly not about keeping the bungalow warm.
"A mystery still clings to the hearth, and it still is the centre of the world." William Lethaby, Architecture, Mysticism and Myth, 1891.
"The focal point of the main living area is invariably the fireplace, usually located for maximum visibility and impact, and forming a kind of altar to the cult of hearth and home that is fancifully associated with bungalow living." Paul Duchscherer, The Bungalow, America's Arts and Crafts Home, 1995.
This Southern California nonchalance about heat retention would have fared less well in Victoria, which perhaps doesn't see snow accumulate every year, but where there is nonetheless real winter most years and the corresponding need for sustained heat. So, while the heating function culd be an afterthought in a temperate climate, bungalows built in locales further north, in places with real winters, typically came equipped with some form of central heating (usually involving a furnace housed in a basement). Remarkably, and rather naively in light of this reality, Savage's reliance on open fireplaces underestimated the severity of Victoria's winter (especially as his building was not insulated for many years, other than by the air within the cavity between the studs). I'm sure he was glad to have the rear heater to warm the back end of the house, but I'm also certain that it was often chilly in the principal rooms.
"The greatest single factor making the Comfortable House comfortable was central heating." Alan Gowans, The Comfortable House.
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Most years see snow on the ground in Victoria, some years quite a bit |
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| Picture of the shed with abundant snowfall around it, in December 2022 |
It turns out, however, that the British are renowned for their quirky approaches to heating (especially in comparison to Canada, where central heating is the norm) preferring instead to under-heat buildings and offset the chill by bundling up. So Savage's misapprehension of heating needs may come down to the English tolerance for sub-optimal heating arrangements. Even today, English houses rarely take a systematic approach to heat, almost always warming only those rooms that are currently in use. For the most part, they make do with things as they are (see end notes for further reference and more discussion).
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| Right, a fireplace that Savage relied on for heat in the living room, until 1951 |
So the word 'inadequate' pretty much summarizes my experience of the fireplaces: difficult to operate, consuming large quantities of wood if burning efficiently, and generating only marginal heat gain. I found myself caught in a dilemma: do I keep the windows ajar in order to ensure sufficient draft (thus consuming substantially more fuel) or close them and endure the predictable outcome of a smoking fire? Typically, I opted to feed the fire, as it by then was only occasional in nature. Even so, I found myself using the fireplace less frequently over time due to the inherent futility of the process. I came to realize that this would also have been an issue for the Savages, one that was more trenchant back in their heyday, and would only intensify as they aged.
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| Dining room fireplace, sharing a common chimney with the living room stack |
As I learned from the reading I was doing in preparation for this series of posts, Savage wasn't the only English Arts and Crafts architect to struggle with heat. In fact, Philip Webb, the original Arts and Crafts architect and the designer of Red House for William Morris, back in 1860, created a dwelling that, while brilliant in many respects, was simply not constructed for solar gain and displayed, according to author Jan Marsh, "an almost medieval disregard for heating." It turns out its fireplaces were too small for their intended impact, and they smoked too, "a serious design flaw". "In 1861 the main chimneys had to be heightened in order to remedy the problem." (William Morris and Red House, by Jan Marsh, 2005). Another famous Arts and Crafts architect, C. F. A. Voysey, also relied on fireplaces for heat in his buildings. He held to this idea based on an instinctive rejection of the whole notion of central heating, which he famously denounced as involving various "demoniacal contrivances" like pipes, radiators and a furnace. As a result, he opted to heat his buildings with fireplaces, but understood their scientific design sufficiently to build in special 'draught lines' that enable sufficient airflow to sustain lively combustion ("fireplaces fed with air through small tubes direct from outside, so as to avoid draughts under doors and consequent cold feet"). Savage, on the other hand, may not have comprehended the science behind fireplace design, and simply trusted that his mason knew how to build them properly. In any event, after many years Savage gave up on reliance on the fireplaces, and began thinking more seriously about how to centrally heat his building (which he was presumably already doing in the upper-end houses he designed for wealthy clients, which came with basements).
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| Classy home on Beach Drive designed by Savage in 1929, for W.S. Mitchell |
In the later 1990s, I reached out to Joy and Al Barth for background on the house - Joy was the Savages' only child, and she and Al were kind enough to respond to my efforts to restore her father's handiwork. Among the many gifts they sent me were two annotated copies of the floor plan of the house, which I didn't immediately grasp the significance of. But poring over them, I was grateful to garner more information about the original layout and features of the bungalow (it was from close reading of these plans that I learned that there had once been a built-in radio in the alcove in the living room, as well as a sideboard in the dining room). Originally I immersed myself in these details, but one day I noticed that the two plans explored entirely different visions for heat supply in the building (which turned out to be the reason there actually were two of them). Savage initially thought of introducing a system of hot-water-radiators to centrally heat the bungalow. The 1933 plan, I came to realize, shows the proposed placement of the hot-water-fed radiators, although it wasn't ever carried out.
"Around 1930 many families removed the old systems and changed over to hot water radiator systems..." The Life and Times of Victoria Architect P. Leonard James, by Rosemary James Cross, 2005.
It isn't clear just where Savage would have put the furnace to heat the water for the radiators, which would have been challenging as he lacked a basement. And selecting a fuel type would only have complicated matters further: coal, for example, would have required dedicated space for storage (typically, a separate room) and not far from the furnace either, while fuel oil would have required a bulky storage tank placed somewhere visible at the back of the building, so somewhat more flexible than coal, but still highly intrusive. And both fuel types would have necessitated access from some sort of driveway for deliveries, a critical factor that couldn't easily be accommodated with the existing infrastructure. Perhaps these stumbling blocks were why the 1933 plan wasn't acted on? I must admit I didn't twig onto the meaning of the two plans until my eyes came to rest on the first note on the 1933 version (picture below).
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| Detail from 1933 plan, "note: proposed h. water radiators shown thus" |
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| 1951 plan indicating proposed locations for installation of electric wall heaters |
The 1951 plan (photo above) sets out prospective locations for a series of individual electric wall heaters, that are to be framed into the rooms and hallways of the bungalow (this time the plan was carried out, in relatively short order). But even that plan, as executed, was modified to some extent, as several of those wall heaters wound up in different places than shown on the initial plan (the living room wall heater, for example, was ultimately installed adjacent the fireplace). It's evident that the 1951 plan resolved the issues with central heat by means of a strategy that would warm principally those areas in active use. I could speculate that Savage, who by this time was an accomplished designer of public schools (including Tolmie, Duncan High, Courtney Senior High, and with Eric Clarkson, Mount View High School) had familiarized himself with Wesix electrical wall heaters from his experience in designing these buildings, then applied the technology to his own home.
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| Wesix electric wall-heater (on the left) in corridor |
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| Master bedroom, Wesix three-bar wall-heating unit (lower right) |
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| Kitchen unit (right, partially obscured), three-bar Wesix electrical wall-heater |
These wall heaters, manufactured in San Francisco, Seattle, and Los Angeles (among other locations) by the Wesix Heater Company, were very popular throughout the Pacific Northwest, especially in the 1940s and 1950s. Known for their durability and innovative design, in the post-war boom they appeared in many homes where they offered safe, clean, efficient room-by-room heating. Marketed under the brand of "Wiredheat", they were frequently used to replace older, wood-based heating systems. A full-page ad in the Pacific Northwest Book of Homes for Wesix wall heaters (1949) depicts a woman lounging comfortably in an armchair beside one, with copy declaring that:
"Wesix Wiredheat has brought happiness to many thousands of homes in the Pacific Northwest where natural resources and man's ingenuity have combined to place the luxury of electric heating within the reach of every homeowner. For it indeed is a luxury to have instant radiant and circulating warm air at your fingertip command, without waiting for the entire house to warm up. And there are savings too! Wesix Wiredheat is safe...clean...and famous for long, trouble-free operation. Your dealer or neighbor can testify to that."
Of course, Hubert and Alys may have acted on the problem of heat generation long before discovering the ultimate solution. A simple electrical system comprised of knob-and-tube circuits had been wired into the bungalow when it was first built. This power source supplied overhead lights (or wall sconces) and a few electrical outlets in each room. Practically from the launch of these residential wiring systems, there were commercial devices on the market that allowed people to supplement their heat supply. One type of early unit for space-heating came with light-bulb-like screw-ins that allowed it to be popped directly into light sockets (see picture below); I don't know that the Savages ever used this sort of technology, but it was available early in the history of domestic wiring (I would have had reservations myself).
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| These space heaters screw in like light bulbs, employing the same socket |
There were other options that soon came available too, based on using electrical power to warm space (and more safely engineered than the heaters shown above). Many brands of space-heating device were then marketed, some quite stylish. The images below show examples of Wesix portable space heaters dating to different eras. Again, I have no idea whether or not the Savages ever used such technologies to raise their comfort level, but they were readily available and the Savages had the electrical circuits to make it happen (see photos below).
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| Deco-era vintage aluminum space-heating unit manufactured by Wesix |
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| 1935 Wesix space heater 'quickly warms any small room' |
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| Wesix space-heating unit, portable, three bars, 240 volts: very powerful |
There are other things Savage did in order to improve the bungalow's capacity for heat retention, including at some point having fibrous insulation blown into the walls from outside. The initial theory of frame construction was that the air pockets within the walls were deemed as having insulation value. A second stage in what became a sharp progression involved hiking this value by filling those cavities with a substance like cellulose, which I realized had at some point occurred at the Savage bungalow. I became aware of this while examining the building after the initial repairs and prior to a full repainting, when I discovered that a series of circular holes, at regular intervals, had been drilled into the drop-siding. These regular holes were obviously access points through which insulation was pumped into the walls, after which they had been carefully filled with wooden plugs. Given how tidy the work had been, I simply assumed that Savage must have overseen the job (I didn't know at that time how early he had passed away). I subsequently learned that the energy-efficiency of buildings only became a pressing issue as a result of the energy crisis in the early seventies. So, it may have been the building contractor who did the job and took so much care in the doing.
At some earlier point too, perhaps in the 1940s, Zonolite insulation had been added between the ceiling joists in the attic, in order to maximize heat retention in the rooms below (this fact is shown on the 1951 floor plan). Zonolite is a brand-name for vermiculite originating at the Libby mine in Montana, USA. It was marketed in Canada under that brand name and was widely used for insulation in attics (it is also very likely contaminated with asbestos fibres, which were interspersed with the seams of vermiculite). Later someone also added bats of fibreglass insulation to the vermiculite, which is pretty much where things stand today.
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| Zonolite (vermiculite) insulation visible between ceiling joists in the attic |
One additional note on the heating system I found in place when I moved in, which it should be said still operates flawlessly: the Wesix wall heaters are of such remarkably high quality that they are surely the next best thing to having a real furnace to heat a building. Fabricated in the manner of a true capital good - that is, manufactured to last - these heaters simply do not readily break down. Their chief vulnerability (apart from being powerful, which sets them apart from today's passive baseboard heaters) is that if the power happens to go out during a winter storm, you don't have a way to heat the building (I guess you could resort to using those fireplaces, if you have a supply of wood). I didn't encounter this problem though in over 35 years of living there.
When I first landed at Grange Road in 1988, there was an entire wall in the utility area given over to meters whose sole function, I learned, was to average the power supply going to particular uses. These meters served to apportion a severely constrained 60-amp service, in order that the full range of possible high-intensity uses could function to a degree. Among my first acts in the new house was thus upgrading the power supply to 100-amp service, which involved, among other things, a new and larger panel, which had more potential circuits and no physical fuses (remember those - you had to actually replace them if they were tripped). The upgrading of the power supply to the building made it possible to dispense with the wall of meters entirely, because there was now sufficient supply to support all uses, including the intense wall-heaters. As a result of this enlarged panel, I gained room for additional circuits too, which either facilitated new uses (like overhead electric lighting and power outlets in the attic) or replaced existing knob-and-tube circuits where new high-output uses would otherwise have been loaded onto old circuits (this is the most common cause of wiring failure in knob-and-tube systems). My initial electrician was Eddy Kop Senior, who, upon viewing the old-fashioned wall of meters, said: "you don't see that much nowadays - but if we go to 100 amp service, you can get rid of them all". It lead me to wonder why this had this not been done long ago? The answer I think lies in the fact that when the Wesix wall heaters were installed in the early 50s, 60-amp service was still the residential norm. Hubert Savage would have overseen the installation, before he retired in 1954. After he passed the next year, his wife Alys occupied the bungalow for a couple more decades - thus likely oversaw certain decorative improvements, like the deep-pile shag wall-to-wall in the back of the house and the comprehensive 'remuddling' given the kitchen. When Alys herself drew near the end of her time in the house, she sold the bungalow to Pat Brown and her husband, at some point in the mid-1970s (see my post The Romance Of Possibility, in Century Bungalow, August 2016 for more discussion).
Another thing worth mentioning here: I've had the wall heaters inspected comprehensively by three professional electricians, all of them seasoned journeymen: Eddy Kop Senior, Monty Gill, and David McLellan. Each raved about the installation, the quality of the wiring and the durability of the heating units themselves, even about the quality of carpentry that went into the installation. This all had to have been done while Savage was still practising architecture and retained access to first-class carpentry skills, because one would never know that those heaters didn't come with the house (I know that's an impossibility given it was built in 1913 and the heaters only went in in the early 50s, but the quality of the installation makes it feel true). I was very satisfied because of this fifties heating system during my many years of dwelling there (see next photo).
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| Four-bar Wesix electrical wall heater in the living room shows seamless installation |
Books for Looks
Readers with access to The Globe And Mail online might want to check out the article I Thought Canada Was Cold. And Then I Moved To England, by Barry Rueger, 2025. Speaking to the quirkiness of British heating systems, it suggests the following: "the British find their greatest pride in being cold"; "I had of course heard the jokes about slippers and cardigans, and about the British obsession with not spending money on heat. What I now know is that these weren't jokes - they were the very foundations of a national culture." "What I've learned since arriving in Britain is that yes, everyone wears layers of clothing indoors, and that yes, likely only one room is heated at any time." "Like a lot of Canadians, we've spent many evenings watching programs like The Crown and Downton Abbey. In both shows the most memorable set pieces show people in deep discussion beside a roaring fireplace. What I now realize is that 10 feet away from the hearth people were likely shivering frigidly." "Because the heating systems in British homes are so spartan, almost every single room in the house - including the bathroom - has a small, plugged-in, electric heater 'to take the edge off' the cold. These inefficient little boxes do warm things up a bit, but are an expensive solution."
William Morris and Red House, Jan Marsh, 2005.
Bungalows, Henry Saylor, 1913.
W. R. Lethaby: His Life And Work, Godfrey Rubens, 1986.
Pacific Northwest Book Of Homes, 1949, full page advertisement for Wesix wall-heaters on page 7.
The Bungalow, America's Arts and Crafts Home, Paul Duchscherer, 1995.
The Life and Times of Victoria Architect P. Leonard James, by Rosemary James Cross, 2005.
Charles F. A. Voysey, Architect, by David Gebhard, 1975.
