BUILDING COSTS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27072, 22 June 1953, Page 10

BUILDING COSTS

WAYS OF REDUCTION DISCUSSED

PERMANENT MATERIALS FAVOURED

“A saving of £3OO or £4OO at the outset by reducing the quality of work on a building has no advantage if this amount is exceeded many times by replacements or high maintenance costs over the years,” said the president of the Canterbury Master Plasterers’ Industrial Union of Employers (Mr T. McK. Wilkins/ on Saturday. Mr Wilkins was commenting on recent suggestions for lowering the cost of housing.

Permanent materials might be dearer at the outset, but in the long run they were the only sure way of reducing costs, said Mr Wilkins. If permanent materials such as bricks, poured concrete or masonry blocks, were used they would result in lower maintenance costs, so that, over the years, they would prove cheaper. Most of the high costs for which the building industry was maligned were beyond the industry’s control, Mr Wilkins claimed. “Wages in the plastering industry, for example, have increased from 2s 10}d (no holiday allowance) in 1944, to 5s 3d (plus statutory holidays and holidays under the Annual Holidays Act) at present.” Plaster of Paris was imported into the country until 1948 at one-third of the cost of the same commodity last year. “After constant pressure from the plasterers and the, importers on shipping companies and United Kingdom exporters, we are now experiencing the first reductions in price.” Plaster was one of the most-used materials in the building industry. Mr Wilkins added. Radical changes should always be in the form of experiment, and it would be readily accepted that experiments “should be treated as such, and not as new building codes.” he said. Buildings were at present costing too much and it was the responsibility of all sections of the industry to endeavour to reduce the cost. “But to do so by radical means would bring greater chaos to the community,” he said. Lighter timber framing for internal partitions had been suggested as a means of reducing costs. Throughout the country there were many houses built many years ago with framing too light and too far apart. “Within a short time these houses deteriorated. The framing was not substantial enough to support the internal wall linings or plaster, and the weatherboards subsequently opened up and buckled.” Mr Wilkins said. These houses had had “a succession” of owners, who had become discontented with the high maintenance costs