CONCRETE HOUSES.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1232, 27 November 1874, Page 4

CONCRETE HOUSES.

Building's of this material, a combination of sand, small stones and Roman cement made moist, and set in wonden frames to harden, and thus built up tier upon tier until strongwalls are formed, find increasing favor. The Otago Daiiy Times says that in Dunedin concrete, as a building material, is becoming quite the rage. Two fine private houses, to cost about £IOOO each, and to be built of concrete are shortly to be erected in Dunedin, and a private residence, also of concrete, for one of the city merchants, is to be erected during the summer, at a cost of upwards of £3OOO. This building will have upwards of twenty rooms. Mr Hardy, who is the architect for the foregoing, has also in hand plans for the gas works buildings Mosgiel, which are to be built of concrete, and has just completed a house of the same material for Mr Smail, of Mosgiel. The house is a proof against wind, rain, damp, and rats. Stone-breaking machines are also being fitted up, and others are being imported, to supply metal for concrete. As to the cost of building in this way, professional men differ. However, good three-roomed cottages are being put np in this material for sligntly over .£9O each. With a plentiful supply of stone from the machines, and more experience in building in concrete, a reduction from present estimates may be safely anticipated. There is also the fact that there is much enquiry as to the new way of building", and as everv person about to build will naturally compare the cost with the advantages the public will soon have a good idea as to whether it will pay to build in concrete. In a short time everyone will know the answer to the question, " Will it pay." Mr Fred. S. Peppercorne, C.E., formerly of Auckland, in writing* to the Napier papers on the value of concrete for house building, points to the rapid destruction of the kauri forests for timber purposes, and predicts that twenty-five years hence, or in 1899, at the present rate of consumption, there will not remain in the Province of Auckland a single kauri tree larger than a sapling.