FACTORY TO PRODUCE PREFABRICATED HOUSES TO OPERATE IN NELSON

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26958, 18 December 1948, Page 6

FACTORY TO PRODUCE PREFABRICATED HOUSES TO OPERATE IN NELSON

Special Correspondent

NELSON, Dec. 17

On his recent arrival from Sweden to establish at Nelson a factory for the manufacture of thousands of prefabricated houses a year, Mr J. N. Dalhoff expressed a wish to learn the public attitude to his scheme. He should be satisfied now, for in the two weeks he has been in Nelson he has been receiving letters from house-hungry people at the rate of 20 to 30 a day" and he has been kept busy warding off these over-anxious home-seekers, for his factory will not be in production till December of next year.

In an interview, Mr Dalhoff, who is Danish-born but who has lived in Sweden most of his life, explained how he came to select New Zealand for his project and Nelson for the site of his factory.

Earlier in the present year he came to this country, he said, with an idea of starting his factory in a place where there was a genuine demand for houses, that could be constructed more quickly than at the present rate and at a lower cost. He chartered an aeroplane to take him from one end of the Dominion to the other. Then he went into the question of the demand for houses and found it was there, definitely. Next he considered bottlenecks. It'Would be useless to go on with his plans if he could not get. supplies of plumbing, if labour was not available, or if transport and raw materials were not at hand. Satisfied on these points, he selected Nelson because of its generally suitable climate and its nearness to sources of wood and cement. “ I have a good business in Sweden; it goes by itself,” Mr Dalhoff said. In fact, he has several businesses in that country, one of which is a factory for making wallboards, and another is a huge contracting concern for earthmoving on a big scale. During the war he acquired some experience in building and in pre-fabrication in. particular. _ „ „ It is understood that Mr Dalhoff was brought out of Sweden by a special RAF mission by Mosquitoes to work for the Allies in America. “Sweden has not the same housing problem as you have here, Mr Dalhoff told the interviewer, and we are able to export houses, though it would not pay to bring them here, as freight would add 100 per cent, to the price It was through this that I came! to New Zealand to see what the market would be. For 10 days I travelled bv plane up and down the country and spent 24 hours in Nelson. “I compared the information I was able to pick up with that which I had gained from the Year Books I had studied, and found Nelson a charming place, with raw materials for my purpose fairly close to g and improving harbour. It had climate that suited my manufacturing processes. For these reasons and be ; cause of my study of other places decided to have the factory buffi: at Nelson and here I am to start thing,, provided I can obtain a sa isfactcry agreement with the Government about bringing in the machinery., I require, and with the City Council and the local suppliers abouf the rest of my requirements. Government Support “ So far, I have been very well received by the Government- and have been given very appreciable supportI have been extremely well received bv the city authorities, and I hope it will soon result in a long-term agreement. “ It is very important to me to make the people understand that I am not going to build for Nelson people only. I am not going to see Nelson or any other town growing up with standardised Dalhoff houses. It will be only about 5 per cent, of the output that will go to Nelson. The rest will be shipped to various ports around New Zealand,” he said.

Besides houses, Mr Dalhoff will, after the factory has settled down to production, construct a number of other pre-fabricated units such as sections for garages and all manner of small buildings. He intends, also, to turn out bridge spans according to new methods where pre-stressing of the reinforcing is supplied. By using this method he will save up to four-fifths of the steel normally required for bridge-building. At the same time, he claimed, the beams and other construction would be slimmer and lighter, as well as being crack-proof. “An amazing number of other cities have asked me to locate my factory there and are trying to prove that their location is particularly suited for my work, but for the time being Nelson should be able to take care of all my requirements.” It is understood that Napier and Auckland have made strong bids for Mr Dalhoff’s factory. Machinery for the factory will come from five countries, and in some cases there will be delays in delivery because of waiting for export licences, and Mr Dalhoff said he could not see any production till December of next year.

Intending to live at Nelson for some months of each year, Mr Dalhoff brought with him from Sweden a large pre-fabricated house, and in anticipation, purchased, through an agent, a section in the city. He arrived at Nelson to find that the section was on a steep hillside, not suited to his purpose, so within three days he had purchased three large sections at Tahunanui, a suburb of Nelson. This was on a Friday, and on the following Tuesday the foundations were under construction, the site having been cleared by a bulldozer which was worked day and night. Within four hours of being notified by local traders that the 1200 ft of ljin water pipe he wanted was not procurable, he was able to state that the pipes would reach Nelson the following day from Welling ton.

In the meantime, the foundations of his house are nearing completion after only two and a-half weeks of work — the house will be three or four times the size of the normal New Zealand house—and Mr Dalhoff is on his way to California to obtain supplies which he needs. He will return to Nelson on February 11, bringing with him his wife and two daughters and four-year-old son, who have been living on Dalhoff’s estate in California.

Asked about the shortages of builders’ hardware, Mr Dalhoff said he had not gone thus far with his plans without some knowledge of what production of this kind would be in the future, and from his information, obtained in England and America, he could not see much difficulty in this respect by the time his houses were coming out of the factory. The Nelson City Council has appointed a special committee to aid in the promotion of Mr .Dalhoff’s plans, and has instructed its officers to be particularly helpful to him.

Mr Dalhoff has paid heavy prices for the rights to use the processes to be adopted in the making of the houses. Third and fourth class timoer from plantations two or three miles across the bay from Nelson will be used by him. The logs will be cut into long shavings, treated with chemicals, mixed with cement (of which there is an inexhaustible supply at Tarakohe, across Tasman Bay from Nelson) and the concoction pressed into sections. The roofs will be of materials manufactured locally according to the places where the houses will be erected, but after the factory has been operating for a year it will be turning out roofing sections as well as wall sections. The joinery will be a separate matter, provided by the trade close to the site of the houses.

Mr Dalhoff said his houses would be more earthquake-resistant than bricks. He estimated that about 60 men would be engaged in the factory, 12 of them skilled workers. Only a few carpenters would be required in the factory, but, of course, the services of carpenters would be needed in the field for the erection of the houses. The house sections could be sawn and cut. The corners of the buildings would not be nailed or glued, but would meet in an upright of quite substantial material, which would take' the weight of the roof. These stays would be placed in different parts of the houses, as well as at the corners. He expected the New Zealand authorities would carry out tests of the materials so that the houses could be approved by the State Advances Corporation. The porous wall sections would be three inches thick. Mr Dalhoff ultimately will place his factor*)’ on land yet to be reclaimed by the Harbour Board, but in the meantime the City Council will make land available to him as a temporary measufe. He requires to build a jetty and have a depth of water sufficient to bring a steamer alongside, for he has chartered a 1200-ton steamer to convey his prefabricated houses to different ports, and has taken an option over a second vessel in case one should not be enough. He has taken this step in case “the local shipping people will not be in a position to assist him.”

He was anxious to put out as many houses as possible, he told the interviewer, but he would not have anything to do with the erection of them. “ Builders, small and big, will be my principal customers,” he said. “ This should increase the business of the builders, as they will be able to turn out many more houses a year. The production of the prefabricated house will let the industrious man who does not insist too strongly on the 40-hour week build his own house.” Size of Houses

Discussing the buildings, Mr Dalhoff said they would vary from 800 to 1300 square feet in floor space, including kitcheif, three bedrooms, dining room, living room and other rooms. The final shape and appearance of the houses will be determined after he has made a general inquiry throughout the Dominion about what the people want.

“So far, I can only make suggestions,” he added, “ and I have brought four houses from Sweden to show the people approximately what the buildings will be like. The first two of these have arrived in Nelson and they will be erected on my own site at Tahunanui. They are not made of the same materials that will go into the Nelson-made houses, but are the kind used in Sweden and will show something of the style of thing that will come from the factory.

“The houses that will be made here will be treated in a way to form the finished wall sections, with the inner lining, and even the plaster on them when they are delivered. This will give a fire-resistant, vermin-proof house, far better insulated than the normal type being built to-day,” Mr Dalhoff explained. Window construction would be such that heat loss would be low, so that fewer thermal units would be required to keep a house warm, thus assisting the national economy as well as the private budget. “ I would like people to make suggestions as to how they want the average house to appear,” said the visitor. “I want these suggestions before we go into production, so that no stupid mistakes will be made due to a lack of knowledge of local demands.”