NEW HOUSES IN N.Z.

Grey River Argus, 1 December 1944, Page 6

NEW HOUSES IN N.Z.

NINE THOUSAND THIS YEAR. USE OF PUMICE BOARD. P.A. WELLINGTON, November 30. The debate on the Rehabilitation Amendment Bill was continued this afternoon until the tea adjournment, by Government Members, few Opposition speakers offering to take part. Continuing, the debate to-night, Hon. R. Semple said that no Allied country could compare with New Zealand in war-time housing. We were building three thousand houses to-day. One-third of them were being built out of materials other than timber. We had been experimenting with every possible substitute material, and some energetic men, who were in touch with him every week, had been spending their own money in developing the invention of new material. Oe group of men had spent eight thousand pounds of their own money, and had ri'ot asked for a penny. Mr Semple exhibited to the House a sample of pumice board which, he said, had resulted from this experimentation. It was prepared from pumice, of which New Zealand has many, millions of tons, and those who had been developing this process believed that they had solved the problem of consolidating the pumice and at the same time making it moistureproof, to prevent dampness in the interior of houses. This new pumice board had been subjected to water pressure, and to many tests, and he believed that it was now one hundred per cent, right. A contract had been let for the construction of ten houses of this material, and a big contractor was building a large factory to undertake its wholesale production. If it were as successful as he hoped it would, it would save thousands of feet of timber. Mr Semple described other methods which had been devised for the more speedy and efficient use of concrete in housing. He said that he did not want to see any returned men living in garages or tents. He wanted to see the standards of housing raised, not lowered. “This year, if things go as I think they will, unless something unforeseen happens,” added the Minister, “then by the end of the year I think that, with the permits issued for private building with State Advances loans, and with the State houses being built, we will have built a' total of nine thousand new houses, which would be more than ever before in any one year.”