THE COST OF BUILDING

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 248, 14 July 1919, Page 6

THE COST OF BUILDING

Sir,— Following my letter of July G, with your permission 1 would like to maKB a lew remni-KS on ierro-concrei.\ Your correspondent says that shingle can be delivered' to any part of Wellington sufficient to build a six-roomed house for .£35. Sir, if you got the shingle for nothing it would not pay. I have built several concrete structures, and can speak beyond doubt. At the municipal baths in Napier I used 23,000 feet of timber, and did not cart away Sufficient to boil a billy. Shingle off the Napier beach, the best in New Zealand, for concrete work, costs about 4s. per load of H yards. Cement landed on job, I ..i'j.lis., was J£3 13s. prior to the war. Labour, an unknown quantity and quality, averages Is. 9d. per hour;' reinforcing about 30s. cwt, was up to 375. Then the concrete is not a watertight job, and when plastered both sides the prices go up. Then one lias not a watertight job. Taking brickwork, with the advanced cost of bricks, J;4 Cs. per 1000, as against £2 155., and the enhanced cost of laying, lifts the price up to'l'B Lis. per 1000, whereas it used to be £o 18s.-| So you wiU see that a building contractor is on no better wicket than he was in pre-war days. In fact, if it came to swapping billets, I would take the editor's fob —he could have mine.—T am., etc., PLAIN BILL | • Sir,—A letter apneared in your issue" ! of July 9, signed. "Plain Bill," in which he makes reference to an article-which appeared in a previous issue of The Dominion, headed "The Cost of Building; ] Where the. Money Goes." I In the article, referred to you quote some figures supplied in the form of a letter to the individual who apnrissd you of the naviculars. As the writer of this letter, I was much astonished at the statement made by "Plain Bill" in his letter of July 9. in which he says, referring to your article and my letter contained therein, '"the timber correspondent goes on that timber, was not the Factor townrdr making the excessive cost of building, and I could quite follow him until he eame to -his concluding remarks that contractors were not satisfied with tin profits, they were, originally getting." Now, Sir, in fairness to myself, as the timber correspondent referred to, 1 would like to ask "Plain Bill" to read, your article again. He is evidently one of the too numerous "passing glance'"' class of Tedder, but a second perusal may help him. He will find that I did •not attempt to prove,' insinuate, or even suggest that ''contractors were not satisfied with the profits they were getting originally," and that this was the reason of the increased cost of building.' On Ihe contrary, my letter plainly stated (hot the increase was very little attributable to timber, but was due to other materials used in building construction—iron, paint, paper, hardware, clc„—which show an increase averaging probably 250 per cent. According to jour report, the erroneous deduction Attributed to me by "Plain Bill" was made 'by a Wellington gravel contractor, for whom I am not responsible— 1 nni, etc.,