BYRE FLOORS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1715, 11 January 1905, Page 68

BYRE FLOORS

In these days o£ modern sanitary ideas, the proper construction of cowsheds is on© of supreme importance, the material for the floors being equally important. There cannot be the least doubt that concrete made with Portland cement is the best, and that all others are more or less unsatisfactory. In bygone days a floor of cobblestones was common in some localities, in others flagstones were used, while in~ the Canadian north-west the writer has seen the floors made of wood planks, where the dunghill w r as beneath in a sunk space, or made of paving blocks formed by cutting round fir poles into six-inch lengths, and packing these together end up, and grouting the spaces between. The objections to all these kinds of floors are two-fold. They are uneven, and the spaces betw’een hold filth too much, and thus w© find in modem times that a concrete floor is much the best. If a layer of rubble is first put down, consisting of broken brick, stones, shingle, etc., and then

about four to six inches of concrete on the top of this, and smoothed arid levelled to the height and style required, it makes the most satisfactory kind of material for beds, gutters, and gangways. Even the trough or mangers can also be satisfactorily built in their places by making a suitable mould and filling up tiie same with the concrete in the soft state. A suitable concrete is made wixn one part of oement to six of broken rubble or gravel or part sand. The material must be free from earth or clay, or else it will not set or bind properly, and therefore the sand or gravel may have to be washed before using. Where the traffic is heavy, perhaps one of cement to three or four of rubble will be required for facing work. Whether or not a gangway requires to be scored or have chamfer-channels made on the surface of the same when soft, to prevent the cows from slipping, is a matter of opinion. The writer has smooth walks in his . own shed and has net seen the cows slip much—the natural roughness of the concrete being enough..