TRIALS OF HOUSE BUILDING. A Man Who Would Have Everything According to Contract.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 142, 20 February 1886, Page 6

TRIALS OF HOUSE BUILDING. A Man Who Would Have Everything According to Contract.

From the somewhat indefinite era of the man who builded his house upon the sand previous to the rainy season, there has been a continuous wail going up from the unfortunate people in evsry community who "are building." Ib is a tale of worriment, of estimates exceeded, and exasperations endless, It is reassuring, then, to find at lea3t one man who was too much for the wicked contractor, and built his house not only upon a rock, but like a rock, so that ifc shall stand until come elevated railroad of the future gets the right of way through its second story. Thus eaith the man who beat the contractors at their own game : ' ' People can't bo too careful when they are building, for those who don't know what is what in the way of work and material are systematically taken in by the contractors. The architect is supposed to see tnat the contracts are carried out, but he can't always be on hand, and when a dispute does arise he naturally leans toward the mechanics. Many of the inexplicable fires that occur in first-class dwellings are simply the result of criminal carelessness and fraud on the part of workmen and contractors. I had a running fight while my house was building, but it was done as I wanted it and according to contract. The party wall was twelve inches wide, and bricks were to be bonded every five courses. I went to look at it one evening when the wall was twelve feefc high, and found only every twentieth course was bonded. Some workmen were going by on their way home. I hirod them for an hour. We transformed a big beam into a battering ram, and when my friends, the contractors, came back in the morning they found their wall lying in the cellar bottom. From that timc^ on every fifth course was bonded according to the specifications. Then wo began on the framing. I had distinctly specified that the flues in the walls should be spanned. One afternoon I climbed on the upper floor beams, and found a burned and sooty brick lying on the scaffolding.. It had been taken out of the wall of my neighbour on the right, to let one of my floor beams in. " ' Look here, 5 said I to the German who was doing the framing, « you've run that beam plump into a furnace flue. Some cold winter night I'll wake up and find my house afre. 1 "' Can't help dot, 3 replied this original Buddensick. " ' Well, I can,' said I, and I got a piece of timber and began to pry the beam out. "'Here.! Vot der Teufel !' shouted the contractor, ' you stop dot !' " ' Get out of the way !' I yelled, for you'll go where the good Germans go, all before your time !' ' ' Ho grabbed an adze and jumped for me. I seized an ax, and began counter, demonstrations. Then while ho sat d»wn to think it over, I sat down on the end of my lover. Up came the floor beam out of its mortise and went crashing down into the cellar. It had protruded four inches into what would have been a red-hot flue when the furnace was well working. " Things went smoothly after that until we came to putting in the furnace. I had ordered double tin pipe and double pipeguards wherever a partition was pierced. One afternoon I came in and found two apprentices lathing up a partition about a fur-nace-pipe. I asked if the double pipe-guards had been put in. They winked at one another and said Yes. After they had gone I j cut a hole with a hatchet and investigated. Not a sign of a guard, double or single, was to be found. It didn't take long for me to rip all that out. I told the head lather to get somebody other than _ those ,two apprentices to do the work ; ' for if they ever entered my house again I'd make him throw up his contract, and if "ho sued me I'd fight him as long as I had a dollar left. The furnace-builder also wore an unhappy look after I had finished with him. Well, the house is finished as you see, and it only cost £170 more than its original estimate. The excess was due to the building of a stone wall for the yard instead of a fence, as originally intended, and the constructiou of coal-bins, which 1 had forgotten to include in the original estimate." If others would be as careful and energetic as this man, there would be no chance for builders of the Buddensick type. — "N. Y. Tribune."

Eclipae of the sun on 6th March. There are 346 lunatics in Auckland Asylum. "Children of Gibeon," Walter Besant's i new story in " Longman's Magazine," opens rather dully, but the January number contains a fairish little tale by Grant Allen. "The Third Time," 'j