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Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18399, 4 June 1925, Page 4

NOTES.

The Municipal Electricity Department are calling tenders until noon on Saturday for the supply and construction of three bodies for two-ton trucks. The Public Works Department will receive tenders until 4 p.m. on Tuesday) June 9th, for the construction of a Customs office in tho Parcels Building., Chris tchurch. Tenders arc being called by Messrs J. S. and M. J. Guthrie until 4 p.m. on Wednesday, June 10th, for the erection of a concrcto church at Rnapuna, South Canterbury. Tenders will be received until 4 p.m. on Tuesday, June 9th, for tho construction of reinforced concrete butts at Burnham "Military Camp. Messrs J-Toulker -ind Rix-Trott, architects, of Nelson, are inviting tenders until noon on Wednesday, 10th inst.. for foundation work in concrete for tho nave portion of tho Nelson Cathedral. Additions will shortly he made to the New Zealand Seed Co'.'s grain and seed store at Addington. Messrs Dawe and Willis are inviting tenders for the work until 4 p.m. to-morrow. Speaking of tho extent to which jjro.iuchce hinders the sprend of new building methods, an English authority observed tho other day that on a recent visit to America ho learned that that country Inst year made 6000 million bricks and turned out concrete blocks and slabs in a proportion of about fiftyfifty to bricks. In Britain, ho added, there would I*s about twenty per cent, concrete to 80 per cent, bricks, but he was so confident as to say that in fure years' time Britain would have reached the position that America was in now, and that in ten years' time,the American proportion of brickwork would have been reduced to twenty per cent., tho .relative use of new materials and new methods showing a proportionate increase. A type of house in which cork slabs are used has been developed by Messrs Dorman, Long and Co., London._ The framo of the house is steel, weighing two tons. The walls. are made of concrete with an insulation core composed of slabs of compressed cork. An experimental pair of these houses is noW 'being erected at Betteshanger. The slabs are pressed and then baoked into a solid block which cannot be sot on fire by the direct flame of a blow lamp. The concrete is applied on wire reinforcement bv a* cement gun to the thickness of' Uin on tho external wall.

Many of the opinions expressed in Britain for or against steel houses have emanated from tlioso who are interested in that form, or in other and competing forms, of house construction. Additional interest is g.ven on that account +o the p/asumably impartial opinion expressed by Dr. "William Robertson, medical office)' of health to the City of Edinburgh, that there is no one who would not be delighted to live in a Btoel house. Dr. added that in his experience hospitals of currugatod iron lined with wood (a type of building familiar in this country and which might be described as a primitivo progenitor of tho modern steel house) were as good and comfortable as when erected thirty years ago. There does not seem to be any doubt that a steel house can be a very comfortable dwelling. What does seem to be still in a moamro open to question is whether such a house can be built and maintained over a period of years at lower cost than a house in brick or concrete.

Where small jobs of repair work call for the employment of wallboard it is not always desirable to nail wooden strips over the joints. The job can bo neatly finished for painting, however, if the' joints are filled with a paper pulp putty made as follows:—Tliin scrap-paper is boiled in a kettle with sufficient water to make a pulp, after which a small quantity of white flour is added, and stirred into the pulp to thicken it to the consistency of thin putty. When cool, the putty is placed upon a board to drain off the surplus water, and is then used to fill the joints or spaces between tho sheets of wallboard. If carefully done and smoothed with a putty knife, the jomt3 may be covered with paint to make them practically invisible. A handy way of getting the strips of paper for putting under casing of window frames is to take a full roll of builders' paper, and, measuring off one end of the roll the width you intend to make tho strip, saw through the roll, thereby obtaining a strip of paper tho right width, which is convenient to carry around from window to window, and easy to use.