HOMES THAT COST LESS.

Hutt News, Volume 2, Issue 35, 6 February 1930, Page 2

HOMES THAT COST LESS.

Every man or woman'is at heart a home builder. This may not be apparent in all cases, but home means so much to men and women the world over that sooner or later the homehunger is felt, and with it a growing discontent of for ever paying rent— for ever drifting from one place to another; for ever being at the mercy of the landlord.

Now, the home-building knowledge, of the average man does not go very faT.* at best it is but general, instead of specific, either in regard to construction, finish, or equipment. His-notions are extremely hazy, therefore it is only natural that when the >home-building fever strikes him foe is sorely in need of professional advice. He wants to be able to go to someone who has had definite experience of the various methods of building construction. He must get good advice.. As to just what t&e real meaning of "good advice" is, there seems, to be quite a variety of opinions, but there is really only one answer. Good advice in regard, to the building of a home should provide information as to the means of securing a home worth while, one that will actually give the best value from every point of view. Most men build but once, consequently a mistake at the outset involves serious consequences, if not insurmountable obstacles. Above all things the prime essential is a substantial, permanent structure, because really this is the only economical one. You must build well. The money you put into your own well-built home is the biggest paying investment you can ever make. Every other investment of youTs will be coloured, advantageously or otherwise, by the amount of wisdom you use. Whatever you pay not only represent, but provide,. a home, always comfortable, and * which with each' succeeding year will gather around itself new charms, resulting in an ever-increasing satisfaction—something which remains for ever, though the price is forgotten.

Your future homo may be an idea wihich you are turning over and over in your imagination, or you may haye decided exactly how it should ■ look. There are various .materials that may be used, but for convenience we will put these under three headings—Timber, Brick and Reinforced Concrete. With so much to be. said in favour of all of these, apparentily it' is a hard matter to determine the best. The first of the three certainly provides a house that is cheap—as to. first cost anyway. There, is also much to be said in favour of brick construction. Indeed, the two methods just mentioned seem to. be an ingrown habit of mind with us. We were born in either a brick, stone or wooden thous.e, and fox most of us it is true we have only heard' of the . third construction above-mentioned—-that of Reinfpreed 'Concrete. Such rapid strides itave been,; made in this connection .that Reinforced Concrete homes may be built for a little more than t&e cost of a timber home, and much less than the cost of brick. In building a" house one of t!he* most expensive items, entering into the costs, is that of labour, and the more skilled labour a building requires the greater the cost of construction, or, should I not say, the greater the amount that goes into the pockets, of the ptiher fellow? Unlike r timber and stone houses, the Reinforced Concrete construction needs very little highly skilled labour. T&is. in itself results in an enormous saving, but therev are many 3avings even before the actual construction is commenced. Among these is the fact that materials are brought to the site. at much smaller costs than follows the use of timber or bricks, nor must one lose sight of the fact that the Reinforced Concrete houses can be erected in a much shorter time than, either wooden or brick. This effects the cost in an appreciable way. Again, it often happens that a good deal of the material necessary for the making of concrete is to be had in the immediate vicinity, sometimes on the very block o£ land on which the house is to be built. " . |

Ab stated, before, the materials widcb. you may use in building youx home may for convenience be classified under three headings. If we look at them from the point of view of the first cost we must place timber first, reinforced concrete second, brick third; but unfortunately first cost is not the final cost, as the owner of a wooden home knows alto-

get&er too well, especially if he keeps his home in anything like good order. That expensive item, cost of maintenance, eats into one's bank account so persistently that it not infrequently happens that the cost of a wooden home often exceeds the cost of* the more enduring brick.

But of course cost is not t&e only item one has to consider. After all it is not so much what yo\i pay for your home as what you get for your money, t&et really cuts the figuTe, and if this is so then Beinforced Concrete construction wins handsomely, even if we overlook the fact that there is at least a 20 per cent saving-in cost by comparison with the brick house, which may, and almost always does, suffer so much fzom cracks and other disadvantages! Beinforced Concrete is fireproof, it is moisture pToof, it is rat and verwin proof. It outclasses all other 1 methods of construction from a sanitary standpoint, and its upkeep cost is prac-' ■tically nothing. Add -this last statement to one made earlier 4n this article, which showed the low cost of construction, and you can see why we say. with certainty that if .you build a Reinforced Concrete home, you will; have tie double advantage of low, iirst cost and low cost of Inaintenanee.

Since so much may be said in favour of. the Reinforced Concrete house, you may wonder why there are not more of these buildings already in use. The reason is not very hard to discover.* It is only wit&in quite recent years that the. advances' have been made which now.» make it possible to eliminate the monotony of design, that characterised the earlier attempts at eonerete homes. Time was when one 'had to be contented with a very ordinary looking house if- he desired all the advantages which result from this method-'of home building, and so people often reluctantly reverted to the timber ox brick construction of their fathers. T&e scene has entirely changed with the rapid ' advances made in; recent years. Now there is. unlimited scope as Ito design, and whether your home is to be a cottage, a bungalow, or a mansion, it can be as original in its style of architecture as you care to have it. . v • .. ■ ; ■

* If is scarcely necessary fox me to go into details about the technical side of concrete construction. Everyone is familiar with t-he process of mixing concrete/ which is .really a mixture of cement, sand, and small pieces of stone. The reJcf oxcing (steel) is used to maka it possible to build much thinner walls which are also very much stronger, so that the -house is <fco all intents and purposes one piece. . ■ By the- foregoing you will see that Reinforced Concrete construction provides all' the conditions you want in making the construction of your home j ideal, It provides cheapness,. strength, and appearance. . '^oiar.wehive merely discussed, the general materials for iiome .construction. .Now . perhaps it will be. well-to discuss the details.^ The saving in the thickness of the walls is no small consideration, particularly whexe land is at air high priced. Homes built on the plan -suggested by . this article only xequitc, outside walls of four inc&es (instead of eleven inches in brick). You may hear of some people objects ing to -concrete construction because of their belief in the idea that it is inclined to be a conductor of moisture.^ This fallacy has been exploded. Hot only is concrete a very poor conductor of moisture, but it is almost a nou- I conductor of heat and Sold, so that your home is waxm in winter and cold, in summer. .' ' . i

■As well as it now being possible (as before stated) to have almost any design one pleases "in Beinf orced Concrete construction, Jit is of interest to note. tiat the colour scheme lends itself to the same variety, that all notions of homes "of this kind (haying to be the dull grey that everybody dislikes must be entirely put away. As a, matter of fact you can let your fancy run riot when it comes to the colour scheme of your home. And there is another fact we must not'lose sight of in this connection—unlike the wooden house, which &as to be repainted at least once every .five years, the exterior of the concrete house does not need attention oftener than once in S years. Here again 'there is another and almost equally vital difference in the two methods of construction: every additional coat put on your concrete »iome enhances its value, while, on the other

hand, it always happens ■•■that sooner or later the old p^iAt Sias to be scraped off the wooden houTse before you can get a good surface for the new coat.

Within the house only two coats of plaster are required instead of three, and the surface of the walls is'well n'fght indestructible, while the lath and plaster method of finishing the inside of a wrode^ house leaves very much to be desired. The case might be stated even stronger than that. Let a wooden house catch fire, ami the space be. tween the upright studs on. which the laths are nailed becomes a veritable flue to draw the - fire. Yout concrete house cannot burn, and "it cannot crack. Naturally these factors reduce the .cost of your, insurance materially. T>here is really a considerable margin between insurance rates for a Seinforced Concrete home ..and a correspondingly sized woodenVhbus'e.. *

At the risk of my. making tMs article appear to play into the'hands of. the expert in concrete construction, I cannot conclude my remarks without stat ing that careful consideration must be given to the method of reinforcing. Experiment and reasearc& have proved 'the title to some methods of construction, and disproved it to others, and' the question of the best methods is no

longer a matter for doubt. Should-you decide to build y^rar home on the lines I have endeavoured to explain, it would be altogether too bad if you skould qpt'i get the maximum of Tesults, the kind . of results that you may/ secure if you • carefully weigh your decisions> This does not mean, that it is absolutely essential for every man to employ .a specialist in building his Keinforced Concrete home, altogether naturally there are many things to be said in favour of doing so> and experience goes to show that the first cost is an investment instead of an expense. ,

It-is my firm belief that as the completeness of the value of this method of home construction becomes more widely known £be old methods will be rapidly superseded. In-ieffeet this wall mean that more men will own-their own homes—because of the cheaper construe tion—-arid;'on the whole, homes will be more comfortable, because a man with a given amount of money can get a greater degree of completeness in Ma home thTpugh using Reinforced Concrete •than by resorting to either of the other means. ■ " .