Page 3 Advertisements Column 2

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16467, 20 June 1919, Page 3

A leading builder gave the Arbitration Court at Auckland some interesting evidence about the high cost of building. Five five-roomed brick cottages lately erected at the Matangi dried milk factory, ho said, cost nearly £llOO each, on account of the very high prices of materials and labour. Mr. Julian went on to say that _ concrete cottages would be very mucK cheaper than those built. He had lately been asked to consider a contract for fifty concrete cottages at New Plymouth, and was now investigating the offer. One form of concrete construction seemed to him to have a future, because it required no exterior finish. This involved the use of reinforced concrete wall slabs, consisting of two parallel slabs connected by short reinforcing wires only. In this form of construction damp could not come through the wall, because the latter was double, with nothing but metal , bridging the gap within it.—Star.