RAPID HOME BUILDING.

Hokitika Guardian, 16 May 1925, Page 1

RAPID HOME BUILDING.

ENGLISH STEEL AND CONCRETE HOUSE. A model bungalow of steel, concrete and wood has been built in 'looting, England, in forly-lour hours. At !) a.m. one day there was nothing but a waste site, forty-four hours later a well-designed bungalow was on the spot, tiled and windowed, not yet finished internally, hut as much ready ns a brick bouse would have been in three or four months. This particular demonstration house is based on timber supports, but ordinarily a concrete “raft” six inches in depth, is laid down with a damp course. On this raft is spread the flooring—jointless flooring of wondpulp, with a surface that can be polished like parquet. No floor covering is necessary.

The walls are masses ol framework, each piece interlocking with the next, all grooved and mortised. Boys could put them U]i. These skeleton interlocking sections need no holt : they give vou a framework wall lour inches thick, with all kinds and shapes of intervals to allow of windows, doors, headings, mouldings, friezes and so on. Like magic you have a house in I ramework.

Then come the steel coverings, stamped to give the appearance of stonework. You wrap your framework with them, and the place is transformed. .Meantime, others have boon at work tiling the roof with a special kind of file. The rooms have boon framoworked out also, and now between the outer covering ol steel and the wall of your room, is the four-inch depth referred to. concrete slabs, all made to measure are slipped in. Your framework skeleton Inis become a solid bouse, with solid partitions. Inside up go the steel plates, where the lath and plaster would usually be. Your dining-room walls art. 1 stamped out to imitate oak panelling, your drawing room has an ornamented frieze, embossed steel mouldings are added; the doors, of Columbian pine, beautifully grained, are fixed. Bathroom, larder, ooal-huuso, are all treated much the same. Thus all the rooms, with walls four inches thick with concrete, are eventually coated with steel.

Xext come the painters. The ontside is painted stone grey. The illusion is perfect—your "oak” panellings, your decorative walls, and your Ceilings. This bungalow at Tooting has five moms ; living room 11 teet by T2 feet, parlour I'd feet bv T2 feet, two bedrooms Id feet by 10 feet, -and Id feet bv S feet: and kitchenette Id feet by s leet, with bathroom 5 feet S inches by o leet :i inches, larder, coal cupboard and lavatory. It costs ,‘d IdO to build. Ah.si of the work can he done by unskilled labour, ami there are 1.000.000 uii-killd men in Britain ready to start.