THE INVASION OF CONCRETE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 138, 10 December 1908, Page 3

THE INVASION OF CONCRETE.

IS THE "LITTLE WOODEN HUT" TO GO ? ENTERPRISE~IN PETONE. Will wood be able to creak " irony of fate " if the death sentence on the ' ' little wooden hut is rumbled by the Hutt in its trek from tho mountains to the sea? This is a time when men hope for much from concrete, plain or reinforced with iron. The combination material is becoming popular for use in buildings designed* to resist earthquake shocks. Auckland has experimented with it to take the place of wooden piles for wharves. Auckland, however, is not yet absolutely 'sure whether to rejoice or not about the matter. In the meantime, simple concrete, specially treated, is being used by a firm in Petone for making dwelling-places for folk who cannot afford to pay exorbitant rates. The Hutt river is for ever bringing down countless tons of shingle from the uplands. Very considerately, the river leaves this rubble for men to pick up, and it is this material which is the basis of the compost that has gone to make ten houses since the builders started work last April. HOW IT IS DONE. After it is mixed in a revolving box, the concrete is transferred to moulds. There it is subjected to great pressure, and comes out in blocks, with double air spaces. Tho plant is capable of a daily output of a thousand blocks, each equivalent to fourteen ordinary clay bricks. The material can be fashioned to any design. The manufacturers claim that they can reproduce in concrete any reasonable thing taat is set down on paper. The strength of the substance is evident from tho fact that a newlymade block withstood a pressure of 10001b to the square inch. ADVANTAGES. With this new style of building a cross sectiou. of a wall shows concrete, air, concrete. Practically, a wall is a concrete sandwich, with air as the "meat." It is claimed that the pressure of this air between the inner and outer walls ensures a dwelling-place cool in summer and warm in winter. The aim is to reduce tho use of wood to a minimuni and thus secure a healthy building where the risk of damage by fire is so small that the insurance rate is only a quarter of the average tariff for wood. It is submitted that a fire, which starts in one room, can be restricted to that apartment. THE COST. At present, a concrete house, capable of defying the tooth of timo, can be set up at a figure not more than 20 to 25 per cent, in advance of the price of one of the jerry-built wooden houses (of similar size), which are believed to be too plentiful in Wellington and its environs, and the builders of the ten j houses mentioned say that the cost of a concrete structure is no dearer than a well-built wooden one. They are confident that when work, with improved machinery, is progressing on a large scale the quotation for concrete will be considerably lower than it is for wood. They have secured, for a long period, the right to take gravel from the riverbed near Belmont, and they hope soon i to greatly widen the scope of their operations. Since they had embarked on their enterprise the attention of other people had been drawn to the merils of concrete for building purposes, and six sets of plant, similar to » theirs, were now on the way to New Zealand. For Children's Hacking Cough at night Woodi 1 Great Peppermint Cure t li 64 —Advfc. ,