CONCRETE OR WOOD?

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18369, 30 April 1925, Page 4

CONCRETE OR WOOD?

(TO THE BCTLDIKG EDITOE.)

Sir.—ln your building notes last I noticed a paragraph criticising the use of concrete for dwelling houses.

You stated that it is questionable if reinforced concrete or brick houses will ever be '' fashionablo " as against those built of wood.

Of course "fashion" is a very peculiar thing which no one understands, but I will say most emphatically: If you want permanence, economy, comfort, and architectural beauty, build of brick or reinforced concrete, notwithstanding your Auckland "Architect and Builder." (He is possibly -a timber merchant as well, which would account for his preference for wooden houses.) When he says that a wooden house has a more attractive architectural effect than one of either brick or concrete he is speaking from ignorance. The cost of a reinforced concrete house is now no more than for a wooden house of the same size, and very shortly, as our builders get more conversant with concrete, a building of tins material will cost less than in wood Tho life of a wooden house built today is in the neighbourhood of 30 years onlv, owing to the inferior timber that is used in its construction (very different from what was used 50 years ago), while a reinforced concrete house is monolithic and practically indestructible. It is fire-proof (the rate of insurance i s about half of that for a wooden house); it is sound-proof, it is dust and draught-proof, it is borer-proof; the walls do not require painting every two or three years. The depreciation in value of a wooden house is about 3 per cent per annum of the cost; that of a reinforced concrete house, nil. There is only one advantage in a wooden house—it won't last long. A builder, with luck, may during his life have the contracts for building two or three houses on the same site for the same owner.—Yours, etc., T. SEARELL, M.S.A. Christchurch, April 29th.