House Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
, England]]For other meanings of the word House see House (disambiguation).
A house in its most general sense is a human-built dwelling with enclosing walls and a roof. It provides shelter against precipitation, wind, heat, cold and intruding humans and animals. When occupied as a routine dwelling for humans, a house is called a home. People may be away from home most of the day for work and recreation, but typically are home at least for sleeping.
A house generally has at least one entrance, usually in the form of a door or a portal, and may have any number of windows or none at all.
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2 Types of house 3 Other forms of dwelling 4 Shelters 5 Construction 6 Animal houses 7 Usage in language 8 Community standards 9 See also 10 External link |
History
Houses have been used as living quarters for humans since prehistoric times, when they first became used as an alternative to cave dwellings, and construction materials, styles and methods of construction have varied wildly over time.
Early European houses were mere single-roomed shacks without windows in which entire families and their cattle lived, keeping the house and each other relatively warm during winter.
Among the first examples (according to the estimated age of archaeological retrievals), notable are the palafittes.
Types of house
There are three basic house types:
In Britain terraced or semi-detached houses are the most common type of accommodation, with 27% of all British people living in a terraced house and 32% in semi-detached houses (2002). In the USA in 2000, 61.4% of people lived in detached houses and 5.6% in semi-detached houses, the rest living in rowhouses or apartments, except 7% living in mobile homes.
Other forms of dwelling
An alternative form of housing is an apartment (or flat), which is one of several individual units on different levels separated by floors, walls and doors but combined to form a larger building under a shared roof. A house containing only two apartments is called a duplex. In Britain a flat on two floors is often called a maisonette. A mansion is a very large house, often very ornate and expensive.
In each country, certain types of housing are traditionally more popular than others. In continental Europe, for example, many more people live in flats than in Britain. In 2002, only 15% of Britons lived in flats, compared with more than 50 percent in Spain, Italy and Germany and 41 percent in France. In the USA, about 20% of people lived in apartments in 2000.
Shelters
Forms of shelter simpler than a house include dugoutss, tents (see also camp), campers, huts, roofs without walls, or a structure with roof and partial walls, such as often at a bus stop (see picture there), and a gazebo.
Construction
Popular modern house construction techniques include light-frame construction in areas with access to supplies of wood, and adobe or sometimes rammed-earth construction in arid regions with scarce wood resources.
Alternative building structures have recently gained (or regained) popularity in recent years. Examples of these are cordwood construction, straw bale construction, and geodesic domes.
Animal houses
Humans often build houses for domestic or wild animals, often resembling smaller versions of human domiciles. Familiar animal houses built by humans include bird houses and dog houses (kennels), while domiciles for agricultural animals are more often called barnss.
In English the word "house" on its own usually refers to a dwelling for one family, or for more than one family living together, sharing the house. In other languages the translation for "house" often covers other types of building such as tower blocks or commercial property: in German, for example, a "Haus" can also refer to a hotel or a block of flats.
In English, the word "house" can be used in combination with other words to describe buildings other than residential dwellings, such as an opera house, a "monkey house" (a building for several cages) in a zoo, etc. (also see House (disambiguation) for more.) The White House also has only a secondary use as a dwelling.
This is an Article on House. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About House Usage in language
As a verb, to house (pronounced "howz") is to provide a routine locale for an object, a person or an organization. Historic or artistic artifacts, for example, are said to be housed in museums. A business may be housed in a storefront, or a family may be housed in an apartment or a house. A collection of domiciles, either for persons, for organizations, for animals or for objects, is often called housing. An individual person or a single object might also find housing in an appropriate domicile.Community standards
Communities often establish standards, either by formal process or by custom, for adequate housing. Concepts related to housing include:
See also
Articles
Lists
External link