HEARTH AND HOME.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18127, 17 July 1924, Page 4

HEARTH AND HOME.

(By Builder.) "Builder" invites contributions from readers 011 any matter of interest which they might like to propose. Correspondence 011 subjects of interest will also be accepted. NOTES. The extraordinary development of the metropolitan area of Sydney is reflected iu the municipal returns just published (writes our Sydney correspondent. For the year ended Juno 80th, 11,321 new buildings were erecti and the cost was £11,812,058, which' is a record, both as regards cost and the actual number of new buildings. The movement in building operations in the metropolitan area lias made a big leap since 1914, when the buildings completed totalled 9928, the cost being £6,929,994. _ Tlio average was £698 per new building in that year; the average last year was £1043. In the city of Sydney itself 401 new buildings were erected during the financial vear just ended, at an outlay of £2.370,354. These operations bring within their scope the greater Sydney area.

Mr J. Taylor , has secured the contract for additions and alterations' to the St. Albn.ns Bowling and _ Tennis Club's pavilion. The alterations will include the raising of the present roof iind the construction of a social hail 47ft by 20ft on the first floor. A kitchen will also be provided on this floor, its dimensions beine; 20ft by 9ft. An upstairs balcony. 56ft by Bft, will run the entire lAgth of the pavilion and will overlook the bowling green and te 'nis courts, -nd an outside staircase at the northern end will give access to the ground. The cost of the work is about £6OO.

House moving, however carefully done, must inevitably put a- much greater strain on building than the wea>ther or settling strains it was designed to withstand. In view of this it hardly seems possible that a large eightroomed stueoo house could be cut in half and moved over a mil© without even. cracking tlie stucco. Yet this feat was recently accompjished at Waukegan, Illinois. No extreme precautions were taken, and ho special equipment was used. _The i house was raised and lowered with jacks and transported on the ordinary steel moving tracks. The stucco used on this house was. a prepared jnagnesite material, manufactured in Waukegan, and applied in accordance with manufacturer's directions. The fact that it came through: this test so triumphantly should effectually dispel the idea that stucco is especially liable to damage from weather or settling strains.

Mr N. McGillivray is erecting a large dwelling at the corner of JRossnll and Rhodes streets for Mr W. Pitcaithly.

Mr T. E: Marriott lias secured the contract for the erection of the vicarage for the Avonside Chuleh in River road, Linwood. ' - '

The approval by the building committee of the preliminary sketch plans marks the first step towards the construction of the proposed Nelson Cathedral. ' The building, when finished, will cost £BO,OOO, Tho eastern portion will be proceeded "with first, and building operations will commence when. sufficient fundifare in hand. The mun of: £20,000 left by the late Miss Marsden frill be available for the first portion of the cathedral, <wid a vigorous plan of campaign will be proceeded with at an early date. • .

A total, of .62 building permits has been issued to date by the Christchurch City Council for the month of July. Of these, 33 are for the construction of dwellings.

ai*e being invited by Magon and Wales, architects, Dunedin, for the erection or hospital buildings at Bal-. clutha— Tenders will close at 7 p.ta. on Safcurday, August 16th. Mr L. A. King has secured tlje contract for the of a large garage for Messrs Royd's Bros, and Kirk, in Cashel street. * A novel design in new British wallpapers is that which disposes of a friez6 and. shows only a plain tinted strip above the picture, rail, concentrating elaborations to its base just above the skirting board. . Cut-out friezes to he laid below the picture rail' are new, and in sotae designs they are made adaptable for irregular grouping. A wall of creato and buff stippled paper, with trails of blue and fturple wisteria, hanging not all round the room, but merely bome few feet beyond each corner, and of uneven lengths, and stretching in places three or four feet down the wall, is extremely effective. Rough textures in canvas, wickered, grained, or moire, £lre decidedly favoured, it is said, in the newer papers. ,

EMPIRE EXHIBITION. NEW ZEALAND'S PAVILION. Describing the New Zealand Pavilion at the British Empire Exhibition from a building point of view the "Illustrated Carpenter and Builder 1 ' (London) publishes the following:— Very pleasantly 'situated, closing the vista of the main East to West arenue, is the New Zealand Pavilion, a long, low building with a dignified roundarched entrance forming a central feature. The spandrills oi' tlie arches are lined WltU uua-i'cut'J. iigu.iS ut UlUCll grace and charm, suggesting two of the chief industries oi tne dominion corn growing and sheep rearing. On the facades to the right and left a (series of panels, each about Htt. square, decorato_the space below the cornice with representations of farm life realistically treated. The groups are full of life, and well suggest the health and happy industry that New- Zealand offers to settlers. The sculptures are th© work of a New Zoaland artist } Mr A. Jl. Fraser, A.1t.8.5. In the pavilion a series of doorways derated with casts from carvings by Maoris remind the visitor of New Zealand's aboriginal inhabitants and their primitive crafts. But for the most part it is the natural wealth of the country and the use which is being made of it by modern science and industry that aro chiefly illustrated by the exhibits. There is art important forestry exhibit, showing the principal timbers of the Dominion. Of these the chief is kauri, which is greatly valued for many purposes. It is soft and easily worked, yet durable; it grows to a great size, as is illustrated by two huge slabs, one polished and one unpolished. A section of a kauri trunk is shown by the annual rings to be 825 years old. Mottled kauri has considerable decorative value. Other woods, of which specimens are shown, are to>tara, the second in value of New Zealand timbers, which is ivery euiiable for interior fittings and furniture; rimu, or red pine, a useful building timber; and puriri, a strong, hard wood suitable for furniture. Besides the indigenous trees, examples of European ash and larch growit in New Zealand are shown, illustrating / their quicker growth as compared with the native trees. The policy of importing British trees and replanting them to make up for the wastage has had good results. The end of the kauri and totara forests is in sight, if the consumption of these timbers continues at the present rate. The building stones of New Zealand are illustrated by comparatively small specimens. The chief " examples are Coromandel grey granite, Kaipara granite (dark grey); Bluff granite, which is close-grained and darker—almost black when polished—and Tonga Bay granite, which is brownish in tint. There are also examples of basalt, porphyrite, limestone, serpentine, andesite, freestone, and redstone. The trade in these stones remains to be developed. , /.;■ i'-f Adjoining the New Zealand Pavilion is a Sfaori carved house, reproduced frnrti an example in the Victoria and Albert Mußeum. The carving of the original was done without metal tools. It is an interesting relic of the fine native race noWj alas 1 almost extinct. MAINS IN PUBLIC ROADS. OBVIATING DISTURBANCE. 1 The inconvenience caused by the con- [ tinual opening of roads in order to gain : access to various service ihaine is a fre- | quent matter for strong comment by the ! man-in-the-street.

Dealing with the position of mains in public highways in a paper Which he read at the recent British Public Works Exhibition, Mr Stephen Lacey, fi.Sc., distributing engineer to the Gas Light and Coke Company, expressed, the opinion that "ther£ are two chief points of view to lie considered. In the first place, it is obvious that mains should be laid in positions which will necessitate the least possible disturbance of the road either when the main is originally laid or subsequently; this from the standpoint of the road authority and road user alike. In the second place attention must be paid by the undertaking owning the mams to the relative costs incurred by the adoption of alternative positions; It will, I think, generally be found that the two contrasted points of view lead_ to conclusions which are not in conflict with one another. In any distributing system, whether water, gas, or electricity, there are, in general, two classes. of mains. There are trunk or > feeder mains which are not connected direct to consumers' houses, and there are the smaller mains fed by the trunk mains from which the consumers are directly supplied. Dealing first with the service mains, it is generally agreed that ono such main should be laid in either footway of roads in urban districts where the number of service connexions are relatively numerous, and where thv volume of traffic necessitates the laying of a high-class paving in the carriageways. The reason for this, Of course, is that with a main in either fodtway the lengths of the services are reduced to a minimum, an# the new connexions and repairs to mains can be made without disturbing the carriageway." !'■ * Jt was reported at tlie close of last year that the number of building permits issued, and the amount represented, constituted a record for Dunedin city. It was prophesied further that 1924 would see tnis record broken, and go far as it has gone, it gives every promise of coming up to expectations. Assisted by the spell of rainless weather, builders are in a position to push on the work apace, and it is safe to say that the trade has never been busier, nor conditions better. Messrs J. and W. Jamieson are carrying out building alterations to Suckling Bros, premises in Dundas street. I The Para Rubber Company are hav- j ing alterations and additions effected to I their premises in Manchester street, j Mr R. S. Gibbs has secured the con- ] tract for tho work. Last year in Chicago 53,333,708 pigs were slaughtered for food. This means a million pigs a week killed as a trfling contribution to the appetites of mankind. To continue arithmetically, 1,998,113,0001b of pork were exported from the United States last year, and even this was by no means a record, as tse 1919 waa 2,659,722,000. Does mly pie .escatte this ] Universal rapacity *

[FLOOR surfaces for I FACTORIES. HARD-WEARING MATERIALS. Flooring for industrial buildings may bo roughly grouped under three headings: "Wood, concrete and cement, and composition. The class of factory and the nature of the work performed therein will necessarily, in many cases, leave very little choice as regards the surface to be employed. With the exception perhaps of firepreventing qualities, timber floprs ara generally found to give very satisfactory results, whether in tho form of boarding or hard wood blocks. They possess the advantage of being warm, and to them light machinery and plant are easily fixed. Hard wood blocks, if tho surface is carefully maintained by the use of a good dressing or filler, will wear exceedingly well even under heavy traffic. They are resilient, noiseless, and comparatively non-dust-ing, and a point often urged in their favour is that fragile tools or machine parts are less likely to be damaged by a fall on to them than ia the case with a harder surface. Damp-Proof Bed. The efficiency and durability of wood blocks is very largely dependent upon the manner in which they are laid. The concrete bed . upon which they rest should have a perfectly uniform and even surface, great care being taken to ensure its being thoroughly dry before the blocks are laid. A dressing of tar and pitch over the surface of the concrete bed is advisable.

The appearance of a carefully kept wood-block floor is certainly difficult to equal, but the initial cost of this typa of flooring, and its upkeep is undoubtedly heavy. Concrete and cement surfaced floors entail a much lower initial outlay than •wood blocks, and for many purposes are very effective. The chief objections raised by soma works managers to cement flooring are that it is liable to dusting and rapid wear, and also is hard and cold to the occupants of shops in which much standing has to be done. The first of these objections is by no means difficult to overcome, and is largely due to inferior materials and workmanship in constructing the floor. The flooring mixture should be made with a minimum quantity of water, and the floor finished with as little trowelling as possible consistent with a smooth surface.

The newly-laid floor must be carefully protected against the action of frost or hot sun rays, and also, from any traffic, until it is thoroughly hardened. During the setting period the surface should be sprinkled with water at frequent intervals and kept covered by sacks or a thick layer of sawdust. A much more durable floor surface wi'l be obtained by providing the material with an adequate supply of moisture, s> as to prevent too rapid setting, but it is important not to ailow the sun to have access to the flooring while in this wet condition, or the consequent sudden evaporation of the moisture will result in the undesirable appearance of fine cracks. - To Resist Acids. It frequently happens that a careful inspection of the surface of ; a concretecement floor will show that there exißt a large number of very tiny pofes and interstices, the sides of which, when brought under heavy wear, naturally break away and disintegrate, thereby causing dusting and rutting. To obviate this defect and to ensure that dense and compact surface so necessary for withstanding heavy traffic it is advisable to introduce a hardening ingredient into the topping mixture, such, for example, as pulverised iron,, which, without a doubt, will considerably increase the wearing properties of the surface and also render it impenetrable by water, oils, greases, and acids, a very important factor in the efficiency of floors in a large number of industrial buildings. If it is allowed to absorb grease or oil to any considerable extent, concrete is liable to become Vefy insanitary, for which reason in factories or workshops where operations are carried out that involve the use of those powerful penetrants or of strong chemical liquids it is in the interest of the workers' health that some form of hardener should be employed. . . , . The thitd class of flooring consists or the various manufactures known as composition floors, which - are particularly suitable for workshops dealing with light work, and also for the offices I and administrative portions of industrial works. There are numerous patent composition floor surfaces on the market at the present ttoe —good, bad, and indifferent —but the floor efficiency of manufacturing premises is a matter of such vital concern that in selecting I a material of this nature it is a wi«e precaution to employ a firm of repute i who specialise in the production and laying of a flooring that has been well tried and proved capable of withstanding the test of time. STEEL-FRAMED CHURCH. St Catherine's Church, Hammaremith, has been erected out of the proceeds of the 6ite of St. Kathenno Coleman, one of the condemned city churches, and direct continuation between the two churches has been secured by the re-erection of all fixtures of St. Katherine Goleman worthy of says the "Builder," has been to provide at a reasonable cost a thoroughly well-built church, with a seating capacity of 600 in the nave, 40 in the choir, and 60 in the chapel. The interior is one large hall, 44ft in width'and 45ft in height, barrel vaulted, ih fibrous plaeterwork. Owing to the employment of steel in the construction of this church, it. was erected in a little over six months, at a cost of £16,000, a cost which would have been doable under the old conditions. Steel framing has enabled the walls to be kept thin, and spaces hare been left to form ducts. Dr. Oscar Fiber, 0.8. E., was the consulting engineer for the steel work. London stocks have been used throughout, and effect has been obtained by simplicity of mass and proportion, without the addition of ornaments or moulding. Tho roof is covered with buff pantiles. The question of acoustics has been carefully considered, and the end wall pndded' to avoid any ill effects due to j the barrel vaulting. Mr Hope B agonal, ! A.R.1.8.A., was consulted on the ques- ; tion of acoustics. The general contractors were Messrs j John MeMnmis. Ltd., nnd Mi - Itobert Atk.ir.a9iK FJLLBA.. is tl* v .•in-Mfpet.