Traditional sod roof house in the 19th century, Skansen open-air museum, Stockholm
The photo above was taken in Skansen, Sweden (on the island of Djurgarden) and is the location of Europe's first open-air folk museum and zoo. Skansen, a 75 acre open-air park was founded in 1891 by Artur Hazelius. Within the park, there are over 150 buildings that showcase the homes, shops, schools, farms (some dating back to the 16th century) and churches of Sweden.
Swedish Soldier Cottage:
The Soldier’s Cottage (Soldat-torpet), named Säldefall, comes from Småland, Sweden. It is a single-family cottage built of logs and roofed with turf, built about 1800 and painted in the traditional red. On one end of the cottage we find the licence-sign denoting that the cottage has been allotted to soldier No. 91 in the Vedbo company of the Kalmar regiment. It is typical of the numerous soldier’s cottages to be found in Sweden during the first half of the 19th century.
A sod roof or turf roof is a traditional Scandinavian type of green roof covered with sod on top of several layers of birch bark on gently sloping wooden roof boards. Until the late 19th century, it was the most common roof on rural log houses in Scandinavia. Its distribution roughly corresponds to the distribution of the log building technique in the vernacular architecture of the Scandinavian peninsula.
The load of approximately 250 kg per m² of a sod roof is an advantage because it helps to compress the logs and make the walls more draught-proof. In winter the total load may well increase to 400 or 500 kg per m² because of snow. Sod is also a reasonably efficient insulator in a cold climate. The birch bark underneath ensures that the roof will be waterproof.
news.cision.com/skansen/r/the-soldier-s-cottage,c9446417
Traditional sod roof house in the 19th century, Skansen open-air museum, Stockholm
The photo above was taken in Skansen, Sweden (on the island of Djurgarden) and is the location of Europe's first open-air folk museum and zoo. Skansen, a 75 acre open-air park was founded in 1891 by Artur Hazelius. Within the park, there are over 150 buildings that showcase the homes, shops, schools, farms (some dating back to the 16th century) and churches of Sweden.
Swedish Soldier Cottage:
The Soldier’s Cottage (Soldat-torpet), named Säldefall, comes from Småland, Sweden. It is a single-family cottage built of logs and roofed with turf, built about 1800 and painted in the traditional red. On one end of the cottage we find the licence-sign denoting that the cottage has been allotted to soldier No. 91 in the Vedbo company of the Kalmar regiment. It is typical of the numerous soldier’s cottages to be found in Sweden during the first half of the 19th century.
A sod roof or turf roof is a traditional Scandinavian type of green roof covered with sod on top of several layers of birch bark on gently sloping wooden roof boards. Until the late 19th century, it was the most common roof on rural log houses in Scandinavia. Its distribution roughly corresponds to the distribution of the log building technique in the vernacular architecture of the Scandinavian peninsula.
The load of approximately 250 kg per m² of a sod roof is an advantage because it helps to compress the logs and make the walls more draught-proof. In winter the total load may well increase to 400 or 500 kg per m² because of snow. Sod is also a reasonably efficient insulator in a cold climate. The birch bark underneath ensures that the roof will be waterproof.
news.cision.com/skansen/r/the-soldier-s-cottage,c9446417