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By Keith Archibald Forbes (see About Us) exclusively for Bermuda Online
To refer to this web file, please use "bermuda-online.org/architecture.htm" as your Subject.
Bermuda Architecture, 1930s. In the tranquil days before the arrival of the automobile (1948) and construction of the Harrington Sound Road. Extract from one of the paintings by Ethel and Catherine F. Tucker in their 1936 book Glimpses of Bermuda.
Also refer to the books
Architecture - Bermuda style, by Bermudian the late David Raine.
Bermuda Houses. Professor John S. Humphreys, AIA. 1923. Associate Professor of the Harvard University School of Architecture. Boston, Marshall Jones. 1st edition. 181 plates.
Bermuda architecture today refers to the style, not the construction. The construction workers must by law be Bermudian, and the concrete block and some roof slate they use is made locally, but practically everything else - such as wood timbers and tools they use - is imported.
In years gone by, things were different. Then, much of the construction was local, including the limestone (instead of concrete block), all roof slates, and cedar wood.
Bermuda Residential Building Code. Both a guide and specification document for contractors and home owners alike on all matters concerning traditional residential construction. Rigidly enforced, partially to ensure homes can withstand major storms. Individuals and entities wishing to bring new building products into Bermuda must first contact the Senior Building Inspector of the Department of Planning of the Bermuda Government to determine if the product meets local standards. Recently, innovative construction alternatives have included faux roof slate - imported - to replace or repair Bermuda slate and known as Dura Slate (at duraslate.com) - steel frame dwellings and faux lumber (PVC) to replace or improve or with a better price than the local product.
Architects in Bermuda must be Bermudian or working for a Bermudian architectural firm, cannot operate independently if they are not Bermudian and be registered under the Architects Registration Act 1969. On January 19, 2005, more than 74 architects were registered in the (Bermuda) Official Gazette.
Bermuda architecture began as
English stone architecture of the mid 17th century, modified to suit local
environmental or building conditions and is known as UK colonial architecture.
It is basically the same kind used in the Bahamas and other Caribbean islands
too. When the modification - use of Bermuda limestone - was the main
ingredient, local homes large and small had some uniqueness. Now that Bermuda
limestone is no longer used, much of the uniqueness has gone. Nowadays,
Bermuda homes and cottages not built of Bermuda limestone look pretty much the
same as many homes in the Bahamas, Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina and the stone
buildings in the islands of the Caribbean 900 miles to the south of Bermuda.
Smaller, older, private dwelling homes are basically English cottages, built by the original settlers and adapted to the specific and unique conditions existing in Bermuda, such as the limestone shown below.
Larger Bermuda homes, including many properties now hotels, are also mostly English in architecture too, more in the line of mansions instead of cottages, in some cases, instead of English, along the lines of Scottish manses. Legislation protects 800 historically important buildings built of Bermuda stone from 1619. There are many handsome examples of stately 17th and 18th century homes. They must be white roofed and painted in pastel hues, with paint and sealer approved by the Chief Medical Officer of the Bermuda Government. But they have been perfected for local conditions by Bermudians.
Bermuda has never had any houses built on stilts, as has been the case in the Caribbean Islands of the Leewards and Windwards, or in Guyana, Cayenne, etc. in South America.
Once - but no longer - most buildings in Bermuda were made inside and out of native coral limestone sawn from the ground, from a quarry. As shown in photo. No other building material was available for over 350 years.
It was also used for internal walls because local cedar and palmetto roofs could not withstand mid Atlantic storms. The roofs were made of inch thick local shingle limestone slates and laid on over cedar beams. They were - and still are - in terraced layers to make rain water fall into a water tank built underground but as part of the house and its foundations.
Today, and since the 1950s, concrete block has largely replaced the limestone, which has become very scarce and also very expensive. But concrete block is not as porous as limestone.
With concrete block, homes today are hotter in summer than the older type and need to be air conditioned (very expensively compared to North America and Europe) in ways never needed in the old days.
Before refrigeration and before ice was imported or manufactured, most local homes had a separate structure, a strange-looking building called a buttery, always detached from the house. This is an old British expression that meant a place for making or storing butter and milk, or storing butts of wine, but became a pantry or larder. The name continued in Bermuda for a minaret shaped structure that was used to store perishable and other food in hot weather. They were well-ventilated, with no no wood used except for doors and windows. They were reached by a long flight of stone and red-brick steps. Today, those properties still with a buttery - no longer a feature of a modern home - are often used as a studio apartment or beach house or bathroom or tool shed. Some butteries are very small, others are much larger.
There is no central sewage piping system in Bermuda for any homes. All domestic properties must have their own deep dug-in and properly approved cesspits, as far away as possible from water tanks and not where there are water lenses. They must be built as an integral part of the dwelling house or condominium. Cesspits have to be cleaned out commercially every so often. It is not a Bermuda Government service for the real estate taxes paid. There are more private cesspits in Bermuda than anywhere else in the world per square mile. Occurrence of nitrates in ground water is only one component of sewage contamination. Detergents, pharmaceuticals, micro-organisms, etc. are also discharged into cesspits and boreholes. It will be necessary in Bermuda to find new ways to meet increasingly stringent and wide-ranging international drinking water standards.
All parts of the house depend on the reliability of this, especially bathrooms. When outages occur from gale force winds because only relatively few homes and streets have underground electricity, electric water pumps feeding water from water tanks do not work and consumers cannot access the water. Some homes have portable compressors. A serious disadvantage is if the property needs major electrical work. It could involve months of stress and strain in high humidity, most of the property being unusable in terms of electrical conveniences. All this is at a very high local cost compared to North America and Britain. Consumers are not allowed to fly in electrical contractors or electricians from other parts of the world who are not Bermudian.
Recently, innovative construction alternatives have included faux roof slate - imported - to replace or repair Bermuda slate and known as Dura Slate (at duraslate.com). All wood supporting a roof is now imported.
Not yearly as is often assumed, with no specific time fixed by law. It can be three to four years apart. It depends partly on air pollution, common in an island with 3,500 people per square mile and more autos per square mile than anywhere else in the world despite the restriction of one per household unit, plus the air pollution caused by the fact each dwelling and commercial property has a cesspit, and mildew. Houses waiting 3-4 years can look dreadful and the water in tanks or cisterns below the house, may be bad from not being limed by the whitewash, the purpose of the latter. Water is in tanks - see below - because the government does not provide a central water supply for the taxes we pay, unlike in USA, UK, Europe, etc.
Without rivers or a rainy season and no fresh water lakes, Bermuda depends on the weather for water. Without regular rain, home owners and commercial properties will have problems. With a solid limestone rock base, piped in water is not feasible, except in certain commercial areas. So all private dwelling units and apartment complexes must by law have their own water tanks - see below - to collect and store rainfall, mandated in size by local building and planning regulations. It is not a Bermuda Government service for the real estate taxes paid. Homes can store about 14,000 gallons per bedroom completely independently of any other building. But with Bermuda Government import duty averaging 30 percent at wholesale and the resulting impact on retail prices of all building materials and plumbing fixtures, a major disadvantage is the huge extra cost of building water tanks that property owners in most other countries do not have to endure.
Water tanks - the most common source of water for home and apartment buildings - are often found under bedrooms, living rooms or patios but are not allowed under bathrooms or kitchens. Bermuda relies on the combination of rainwater falling on roofs and piped to more than 21,000 water tanks and groundwater extracted from underground lenses for more than 90 percent of its entire water supply. Rainwater by itself is nowhere near sufficient, at a volume of 1.4 million gallons overall yearly, to supply all of Bermuda's demands in one of the highest populations anywhere in the world per square mile.
Some commercial and domestic properties have wells, to supplement the rainwater supply. There are over 3,000 such wells. All must be licensed by the Health Department of the Bermuda Government. They can be used only for flushing and washing purposes. It is illegal to drink water from these private wells because of the potential for contamination from many sources including nitrates from cesspits. Routine periodic tests are made to ensure standards are maintained to protect public health.
Rainwater can be used immediately but groundwater - large pockets of water under the ground - can take two years to go from rain to lenses. The largest lens is in Devonshire Parish - where there are three reservoirs at Prospect - and is about 10-12 feet thick, supplying about 750 million gallons. Other lenses are in St. George's Parish, Southampton Parish and Sandys Parish. The total capacity of all the water lenses is several billion gallons. It sounds like a lot but it is not. The capacity of the system is limited by the amount of water that can be taken out of the ground to sustain the lenses. These limits restrict production of groundwater to a maximum of 1.1 million gallons a day. Just one place - King Edward VII Memorial Hospital - uses more than 25% of all Bermuda Government-produced water.
Brackish water, as groundwater is often called - is heavier than water that does not have salt in it so the pure water floats on top of the brackish water. Rain falling on the ground seeps through the soil and the limestone, to the water lens at sea level. The rain water collects under the central parishes in what is called the central lens and is held in the rock like water in a sponge. Until about 1992, most of the Government water going into public supply was untreated apart from chlorination. The World Health Organization standard for nitrates was then met. The water is pumped up from wells to the water purification plant in Devonshire. The first stage of water purification is called aeration, in which the water is sprayed or trickled through air. The oxygen in the air removes gases which cause unpleasant odors and tastes. The next stage is called sedimentation. Chemicals are added to the water and turn into tiny, sticky globs which cause or attract bacteria and other impurities to stick to them. The water is then pumped to cartridge filters to remove the larger particles. The next stage, electro dialysis, is based on the fact that when salt (sodium chloride) is dissolved in water, it breaks up into electrically charged particles called ions. Sodium ions carry a positive charge while chloride ions carry a negative charge.
The water is passed into a large chamber that holds compartments in which two types of membranes are alternately layered and separated by spacers. One type of membrane allows only positive ions to pass through, while the other allows only negative ions. One of the end compartments has a positive electrical pole (anode). The other end compartment has a negative electrical pole (cathode). When an electric current is sent through the water, the negative ions are attracted to the positive electrical pole and the positive to the negative. The salt in every other layer is drawn off, leaving fresh water. This is then chlorinated before it is stored and distributed. The overall result, for Government-treated water bought by private homes to supplement what they are sometimes not able to get from rainwater alone, is of a high standard.
The quality of tank water depends largely on how well the property owner maintains the water system including the roof and tank. The Department of Health of the Bermuda Government recommends, among other things:
It has sometimes been said that Bermuda has certain advantages by having water tanks for each house, but the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. One disadvantage is that rainwater that goes from the sky into a water tank is not purified like treated water. Another is that if the roof is dirty or pipes from the roof are rusted or corroded or leaking, this too affects the water. A third is that the supply of piped in water is not a Bermuda Government service for the real estate taxes paid.
Via a pressure tank, water is pumped to baths, shower stalls, toilets, hot water heaters, bathroom and kitchen taps and outdoor hose connections. Another problem that homeowners elsewhere do not have to endure is that when domestic buildings run short, private sector water trucks holding 800 Imperial gallons have to replenish domestic water tanks with water consumers buy from water truckers (about 45 in number in 2007) who in turn buy it from one of the Bermuda Government reservoirs or Bermuda Government owned sea water distillation or reverse osmosis plants. The truckers obtain 25 percent of their water from private sources and holding tanks, and 75 percent from Government reverse osmosis and desalination plants, and the water lens, which has extraction limits imposed by the Environmental Authority. Government is proceeding with the construction of a 500,000 gallons per day reverse osmosis plant that will assist greatly in meeting the Island's water needs well into the future. Completion of the $10 million Tynes Bay Seawater Reverse Osmosis (RO) Plant is expected in the summer of 2008.
The cost per load - $70 from April 2008, the first rise in three years, a 13% increase - is paid by the homeowner or dweller and is very expensive. Most locals have never has piped in water.
At times of seasonal general or specific house water shortage, the Government urges the public to adopt the following conservation measures:
Do not order more water than is necessary.
Minimize the number of times you flush the toilet.
Check and repair leaking faucets, toilets and water appliances.
Prevent water from overflowing or running after use.
Minimize use of washing machines and dishwashers.
Wash full laundry loads or set the washer to appropriate load size.
Take quick showers, not full baths.
Refrain from washing cars.
Use well water for toilet flushing.
Carefully control the flow of piped water into your tank to avoid overfilling.
Local private-sector suppliers of water include
Some hotels and office buildings in or near the city of Hamilton get potable water from underground lenses piped to them, but again, through a private business and at additional cost. Sea water is first filtered through multimedia and polishing filters to remove the largest particles. Then it is pumped under very high pressure (800 to 900 pounds per square inch) through special modules comprising a series of membranes that allow only water molecules to pass through and not the dissolved salts. 99.5% of the salt is removed from the water which is then chlorinated to destroy any bacteria there may be in the water. The desalted, sanitized water is stored in reservoirs at high elevation.
Before it is bottled for distribution to consumers, the water undergoes further purification. Particles of calcium and magnesium are removed by adding minerals like potassium and sodium. This is to prevent scales or minerals from building up in the equipment when the water is distilled. Then the water passes through charcoal filters to remove the chlorine. It is distilled, heated to 210 to 217 degrees Fahrenheit, turns to steam, cools and condenses, leaving impurities behind. Then the fresh water is bottled for distribution.
Imported bottled water is very much in demand. It comes from - alphabetically - the Azores, Belgium, Canada, France, Iceland, Italy, United Kingdom and USA. In 2007, US$3.6 million worth was imported by stores and sold.
Last Updated: May
11, 2008
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