O.T. calling Adirondack Case Guy, Bob Bancroft other N.Y.

I have often wondered about all the historic homes and buildings in upstate N.Y. with either flat roofs or the low- sloped Greek Revival ones. With the heavy snowfalls you get, are there not a lot of leaky roofs, or worse, collapsed ones? There must be a lot of wood supporting them.

Good question. I haven't ever heard that as a problem. Many of these old mansions are built like a fortress. So strength doesn't seem to be an issue.
Loren I'm sure would know more about this issue than I. And as you probably know, he's easiest caught on the Case forum.

There are a lot of those around here, they look funny to me since I grew up in Maine where the Cape and saltbox styles are more common. I have never heard of one collapsing, most of the buildings that collapse around here are pole barns and newer buildings.
Zach

(quoted from post at 18:47:05 01/12/13).... There must be a lot of wood supporting them.

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That's the answer!

I grew up in a Greek Revival home erected in the 1850's. It was crazy overbuilt - 10x10 and 12x12 structural members, including roof trusses/rafters.

My wife grew up in a Federal style home dating from the 1880's. It too is similarly overbuilt. Plus it had "rainsplitter" (1:1 pitch) roofs - snow pretty much avalanched off before it got a chance to build up. You wanted to be careful wandering around outside the house during/after a heavy snow event however(!)

Brad,
As you said, there are many ornate old style construction homes, especially in the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys of NY. There are many locally harvested stone houses, barns, Forts, churches, etc. all around the area. The stone part of the barns usually were constructed with cut stone buried about frost line 3-4' below ground level and extended above ground to about 7-8' high. On top of the cut stone wall the barn was constructed from locally harvested timber. Basswood was a very common specie used because of it's prevelance and workability. Oak, Ash, Pine, and Hemlock were also widely used in barn, home and factory construction. Dutch imigrints had a strong influence here in the Mohawk / Letherstocking region of NY. This construction was distinctive with simple Post & beam design, with gable roofs, and small eve and gable rake overhangs. Post and beam barns were simply erected using a series of "Bents" (a framework of hand hued beams and rafters joined from side to side with toung and mortises, pined together with wooden pegs) and set into mortises on a sill beam atop the wall, in series, to form bays. THe roofs were all covered with cedar shakes.
To move on to your question the houses that you refer to were built by wealthy Industraialists, and land owners who chose to display their wealth. In this area they were owners of leather and textile mills all up and down the valley. Most of our town here was owned originally by George Hyde Clark, a loyalist, and the land was Granted to him by King George III of England.(Google it).
To get back on track to answer your question, many of these mansions whether, wood or stone construction shared the common, to the eye ,"sunken roofs. They were not flat but the roof behind the butrus walls, were tapered to SKUFFERS, which were connected with lead, or copper pipe to the "central core/grand stairway" and channeled the roof water to sisterns in the cellar to supply water for not only daily needs , but for the steam boilers during the winter heating season. Many of these tapered roofs were constructed from sodered copper or slate. Most of the copper scuffers were formed up and over the exterior butrus walls to cover the freeze trims or cut stone, to keep water from penetrating the walls at the top.
To add a bit to the conctruction of the wood framed mansions, most were balloon framed, with long studs extending as much as three stories with notches cut in them and a "lay" let into them to support floor joists, and yes there was a lot of support under these roofs from the walls of all the tiny rooms in them.
Sorry for the long post, I spent several yrs. running a crane for 3 companies that relocated many of the old "dutch barns" in the area, and then many more as a contractor restoring a couple of these clasic mansions. Perhaps when I get time I can scan and post some pics. of what we did, several years back.
Loren , the Acg.

What was the roof covering originally used on those Greek revival homes? With their low-pitch, ice dams must have been a problem with no insulation being used at that time! i suppose, too, that any that were underdesigned or poorly constructed have long since disappeared and what I am seeing are the best of the best. It is also surprising how many of those Greek Revival homes appear on the farms in the rural areas, particularly in the Finger Lakes and western N.Y. areas........there must have been some wealthy farmers (or at least landowners) in that era! Given the snowfall of the area(particularly before global climate change) there must have been some terrific weight above the residents' heads some winters!

A lot of the roofs were copper or galvanized sheet metat that was hand soddered, to form a solid roof coating. One of the chores in the winter was to shovel off the roof when necessary, and normally the top floor was unocupied in the winter and cold.
Loren, the Acg.

One of the things that always amazed me was going through any of these older communities that are basically dirt poor today and seeing the historic homes that indicate at one time there was some real money in those towns. Of course that was all back in the high farming period when every community was a sort of self sufficient little oasis unto itself. Local manufacturing of products and farm production built wealth and the mines and mills, tanneries, smelting operations, lumber, ore, etc all added to the wealth. Many of those towns had a rail spur or dockage on rivers and streams and it seemed every brook had a series of mill ponds. Now it's all gone, and mores the shame.