Building Concrete Houses and Bungalows in Quantities.

Progress, Volume XIV, Issue 9, 1 May 1919, Page 498

Building Concrete Houses and Bungalows in Quantities.

Some interesting experiments are being conducted by the Cray, Curtis Company of Cleveland, U.S.A., in the erecton of a number of concrete houses for the use of the employees of the Hydraulic Pressed Steel Company. ,

It was first planned to build 20 two-storey 6-room-ed houses in a row. Subsequently the idea was altered and it was decided to make every other house of the bungalow type, all of these built to a single plan, but with variations in the treatment as shown in the sketches published herewith. ' , The 6-room and bath two-storey houses are being built first and will be followed by the 20 bungalows. The estimated cost of the houses was £960, size, 27ft by 22ft in plan, and 27ft high. The construction is being financed as a welfare measure, by-the Hydraulic Company/ A street, avifh forty lots was selected, with the expectation of put-

Six Bungalows from a Single Plan.

Eight House Designs from a Single Plan

Plan for Above Six Bungalows.

(see next page for pilaus.)

Plans of Two-storey Concrete Houses Shown on Previous Page.

ting up twenty two-storey houses and twenty,bungalows, of ten distinctly different designs, except for the plans, which are alike for all the bungalows and all the two-storey houses. ; '

In financing the enterprise the Cranwood Allotment Company turned over to a trustee for this enterprise forty lots on one street. The Hydraulic Company turned over to the other trustee sufficient money to insure the construction of the houses. This trustee entered into a contract with the CraigCurtiss Company for the construction of the houses on whose cost a detailed estimate was made. Any cost over and above this estimate price is to be borne half and half by the Hydraulic Company and by the contractor, and any profit resulting from the erection of the houses at a cost less than the estimated cost will be equally divided.

As fast as the houses are completed, including, decorating sidewalks, all improvements in the street, furnaces, electric wiring . and fixtures, • window shades, etc., they will be sold to the Hydraulc employees. Each employee makes a deposit of £SO or more per house. This employee must, however, be acceptable to the Equitable Life Insurance Company, as to habits, amount of salary earned, health and so on, the insurance company issuing to him a life insurance policy and making a loan of 50 percent. to 60 per cent, of the value of the house, on a first mortgage. The money realised from this mortgage is turned back to the Hydraulic Company as a first payment, and the employee pays his premium on his insurance, the interest on the second mortgage and the payment on his house in a lump sum per month. The . first mortgage. held by the insurance company is paid off in ten years’ time by means of monthly.payments. In case of death, the life insurance covers the first mortgage, which is immediately paid, whatever amount has been paid in on the principal is then turned over to the estate of the insured.

The estimated cost of the houses now being erected is £960 each, and the cost of the land £l4O, making a sale, price to the employee of £llOO. This includes no profit whatever on the transaction to the Hydraulic Company, and a lump sum profit of between. £6O and £BO to the contractor. The houses have been appraised from plans at a value of a t least £I2OO to £I3OO by the insurance company. The amount of the premium on the life insurance policy will, of course, depend upon the age of the purchaser. For a man about 30 years old, a total monthly . payment, including the premium on the insurance, the interest on the first and second mortgage and the reduction of the principal of the first mortgage in ten years’ time, amounts to about £9 to £lO per month. These houses are for the better class of employees.

Some persons have an idea that Woodrow Wilson and William Hohenzollern are playing pingpong with autocracy.