Did unfinished attics serve a functional purpose in old houses?

Question

I do a lot of work with detached, wood-framed houses built in the United States between 1850 and 1920. Almost all of them have a walk-up attic that was not finished originally. In some cases the attics are now finished and used as living or working space, but it's clear (based on the finishing materials and styles) that the finishing was done well after the house was originally built.

Most of these attics offer significant floorspace (usually at least 500 square feet), they were built using rafters (so there is plenty of open space inside the attic) and the attics are easily accessible from the other levels of the houses using staircases.

This leaves me wondering why the original builders/homeowners would not have finished their attics in order to make them spaces that you could use for living. If you have all that space sitting at the top of your house, why would you not have spent a little more time or money to make it a conditioned, finished space like the rest of the house?

Is there a functional reason why attics were not finished in old houses? Maybe it has to do with lack of insulation, for instance, so they needed the attic as a buffer zone between finished spaces and the roof? Or was it purely a cultural thing (maybe they wanted the attic as storage space)?

I'm asking this mostly out of curiosity, but also because I'm thinking of finishing the still-unfinished attic in my 1903 house, so I'm wondering if I'd be creating any functional issues by turning it into finished space.

Answer 1

Not functional, but cost. Roofs have slopes to drain water and slough snow. It's the nature of their design that there's a hollow below. Since the finished space is relatively small, and since it costs more to build a floor robust enough to carry people and furniture, and since it costs more to finish the space and insulate and add (larger) windows, and since the space was useful as storage without being finished, and since people back then were happy with less space and fewer things, they didn't bother.

An indirect benefit to an attic, as opposed to a completely open roof cavity, was that it didn't need to be heated. Lower ceilings keep heat down where the human inhabitants are.

Obviously there's some energy efficiency to be gained by having enclosed attics above a ceiling in an uninsulated home, but that's not the primary reason attics were built. Drainage (and to a lesser extent, style) were the main drivers.

Answer 2

Because back then, people weren't so obsessed with "finishing out". Not only did they leave the attics unimproved, they left the basements unimproved! Can you imagine!?

Real estate market prices and speculation were not beyond insane like they are today. Flipping wasn't really a thing. AirBnB didn't exist. There wasn't a mad dash to turn every possible square foot of the home into additional square feet you could claim on a realty listing.

One very good reason was the concept of utility space. The idea that a home ought to have internal utilities, like water and electricity, and you ought to be able to get where you need to access them without having to bust out a ton of drywall to do anything at all. Also, in the 1870-1930 era, new utilities were coming out pretty regularly - indoor plumbing, electricity, telephone, gas. They never knew what would come next, and why seal it off?

Answer 3

I see lots of houses of that same vintage. You do see some houses built with unfinished attics, no floors, no fixed stairs, but not many.

In cold climates you see lots of house styles that incorporated the attic space beneath the sloped roof as living space - adding dormers, knee walls, etc. - Craftsman style houses, Cape Cod style, etc. I think you see these styles more in denser development, more houses in less acreage.

I think when you see the half finished attics - fixed stairs and floors but no walls etc. - they made sense then for the same reason they do now. In most climates it won't be comfortable year round living space - too hot in the summer. In modern times it's usable thanks to air conditioning, but it wasn't back then. Before plywood, OSB, and drywall, finishing it would have been more expensive. If you have the space on the lot you're better off building enlarging the footprint of the house - building out rather than up. However, for the cost of the flooring and a staircase, it was worth it for storage.

In chemistry in high school I learned that one of the properties of an ideal gas is that no matter how big of a container you put it in, it would expand to fill the entire container. (Or something like that, heh.) I have noticed that a lot of things are like an ideal gas, one is people in houses. They always want more space.

At some point in the life of the house, someone wants more space, and finishing the attic is going to be the easiest way. In urban / dense places, there's little choice - no room for an addition. Even when there is, it's far more work to build an addition than to finish attic space. No footers, foundation, and floor to build. With air conditioning and good insulation, the space can be made livable year round.

Answer 4

In that time period two historical events might have contributed. The Civil War and the Great Depression. Two times in history when jobs were few and times were hard. Most people barely had money to eat. Finishing that extra space would have taken away from the necessities. This answer might be dependent on region.

Answer 5

Open attic space was mostly just a function of house roofs being built with the traditional building method of the day (rafters) vs. the premanufactured trusses that most homes today use that do not result in an 'open' attic space. Very high end homes of the day often did finish this attic space for living as childrens bedrooms/play space [go tour a 19th century historic home of one of the local business magnates of the time]. Higher end homes (comprising most of the ones that still stand today) may have had stairs to them for easy access, but I am not aware of a purpose they served other than for storage (or a place for kids to occasionally escaped to when the weather was just right.

Answer 6

When studying abroad, I was in a class that studied some of the oldest attics and basements left un burned down or demolished before the Roman empire collapsed. Pre Rothschild's time. As me and a collage associate were trying i make since of these attic paintings and basement carvings we came across some wall carvings in a basement that were only half complete. It was unknown why only half the depictions and illustrations were either left behind, left out or never finished. Until further research upon the upper addition of the dwelling it all connected. No one had yet come close to understand the scriptures in the attic. Until recently. Lore has it that the living space in-between the two (attic and basement) is the realm in which we are currently experiencing now. That once we end our mission on this plain we will either ascend to the space of attic, (greek for ying) or the basement, (Greek for yang). Thus having both polls constantly pushing and pulling on each other created where we are currently, the in-between.. we many not recall the experience of being apart of both due to us possessing this physical form we are made of now. Ok, stay with me here, the reason we never used to finished these two stops in our living space is because we have a strong belief that they both exists but we don't know, or remember, how they are truly finished and placed. Thus our ancestors knew not to ask much more of this topic in regards of not putting our ancestors on blast and we should just leave the thought and belief unfinished so each person can create their own belief of what these place mean, stand for, and represent as a whole to themselves. So as a service to our past present and future please leave them "unfinished" as not to block the creative flow for times to come which could possibly stunt the creativity and wonder if it future to come. For those who have already finished their places of interest, no need to worry if you've done something wrong by doing what you have already done. We need you too show us both sides of the spectrum in order to see what can, could, or is possibly happening now. You can find all of this at your local library if anyone still knows what or where that is.