BUILDING A HOUSE.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 July 1919, Page 7

BUILDING A HOUSE.

WHERE THE MONEY GOES'' TIMBER A SMALL FACTOR. Following the more or less vague <watr *versy on the reason of the stiff prices for building, it is interesting to light upon an example where the finest analysis of the cost has been made, showing beyond all dispute exactly where the money goes (says the Wellington Dominion). This comes in the form of a letter written by a resident in a large provincial town in the Wellington district, on the Main Trunk line. He. writes: "Requiring a residence of six rooms, I instructed an architect to prepare phuis and call for tenders. Five were received, the lowest at £H7S, the others ranging up to £1450. ... On acceptance .they pjaced the order for the whole of the timber with my firm, and I enclose this order, totalling £262. You will note that in this building, costing £1175 (plus architect's fee, £80), the timber is a very small factor connected with the high cost. Further, the cost of the same timber in pre-war times would be aproximately £6O less than at present, and this sum, £6O, therefore represents the actual amount of the increase on the building to-day for which timber is responsible. "Deducting .the £262 from £1175, we have a balance of £913, representing 'Other material (iron, paint, priper, scrim, glass, bricks, hardware, etc.), and it is quite clear that these articles, which .have advanced probably on the average Of quite 250 per cent, coupled with the TtiHcJi higher wages ruling, are responsible for the high cost of building at the jjresent time."

Pursuing the timber to the railway I '-■ trucks alongside the mill, its cost was.' :"tben only £lfifl Oa 5d (or £2B 3s 4d per iToow>; railage cost £3O (or £5 per room); cartage, £4 3s 9d (14s per room); dressing, handling, e.tc., £52 Gs "2d (£8 14s 4d per room)., which amounts up, make £255 10s 4d, or £262 'less tile usual M per cent discount. The Arehitoift's fees ran in £7fl Kb ( £l2 15s

,a room)-; labor, joinery, brides and %ncfc-laying, plasnbißg, amd bailder's'pro•flfc, £961 9s 8d ( £l5O 6s a Doom). The tatrfateetfs fee would be made up of 5 ipcr oeift froffl the wner, £9B ISs, and VJ per cent from the boikktr, £lB, so■that {bo owner actually pays the amount 'ef the tender, plus the ESB 15b, which i ratafee up the cost of the six-roomed' ■wooden house to £1233 i&fi—oftly -of wbieh was spaet on M«. Fwaa the above flgnree, it is net difflauft to. -arrive at .the point wk»r» 'tie, money goes.

Aptly enough, the afoave %nr«s>. •wMch are guaranteed by the iaa.n wh» had to-pay, endofses tlie statement made" in these columns by the representative of a shingle (ggftvel) and saaid firm in Wellington, who awrtonded thot enough shingle (from fee bed of the Hutt River) for the ereetiou of a ste-roemed; concrete bouse <»uid be delrearod aJjnost aaywhwe in Wellington at a «estof £35", Mb contention bemg—as in tfeea above-TBenjOionect ease —$«at it was not the price of the principal building Material that was lesponsiW© for tb» Ikigh cost of buUiftg, bttfc that profit was being made en a «al® onfe-of ail pr<g»rtic« to tha>t -vs-Kteh oankmetara: »w». eoßteaft ■»Wh beta* <•*