BRITISH WOODEN HOUSES.

Northern Advocate, 19 December 1919, Page 8

BRITISH WOODEN HOUSES.

BUILT FOR £4011

OVERRIDING LOCAL BY-LAWS,

It has been officially stated that the British Ministry of Health has under consideration a scheme under which it will be permissible to build houses of wood. A new sel of regulations is being prepared which will over-ride local by-laws regarding construction, and they will be issued soon. They will allow a greater choice of building materials, and tend to reduce the cost of construction as well as permit of quicker building. They will also leave the way clear for the adoption of the wooden or standard frame type of house as used in America. This has been barred hitherto by local by-laws.

Experts declare that for £.100 or £400 wooden cottages can be built that will be good for at least fifty years, and they would afford much the same accommodation as new dwellings of brick or stone, for which at least £800 would be charged to-day.

Houses erected on the American frame-work plan could be completed within about thirty days—a factor of real importance. Some 00,000 out of the 100,000 houses promised by Dr. Addison's Department last May are still in the paper-plan stage, and, in face of the speed with which the wooden dwellings could be provided, it is hoped that a good deal of tho leeway will now bo made up before the worst of the winter.