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Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3141, 7 March 1871, Page 2

Yesterday we reprinted an interesting article from the '• Daily Southern Cross" on building material. The renewed outburst of the storm whose ravages are reported in our columns to-day invests the question with a peculiar significance The rain now driving through the walls of houses exposed to the blast, and streaming down the paper inside, and the reeling and shaking of our wooden walls from the violence of the gale, show all too plainly the great disadvantages attending the use of timber as a building material. Of these may be mentioned first, the tendency to shake, and second, the liability to admit the rain. It is evident that a wooden building must always have a tendency to shake. Its specific gravity is too small. It has not the requisite vis inertia. With a vertical downpour a wooden house may be sufficiently watertight, but with a rain driving horizontally before a high wind it is very difficult to keep out the water. Of course it will be admitted that the durability of a wooden house is small compared with that constructed of stone or brick. Since the earthquake of 1855 the danger likely to accrue from a similar catastrophe has established so salutory a terror in Wellington, that the buildings erected have been entirely composed of timber or of corrugated iron. Although it is perfectly right to be on the safe side, and although blunders have been committed in other parts of New Zealand by neglecting these prudential precautions, yet there are so many objections to a continuation of the use of timber as the chief article of construction, particularly as the population becomes more dense and the houses are crowded together, that it may be as well to consider whether or not we may venture safely to employ a more durable and solid material.

Some two or three years ago Mr J. C. Crawford called attention to the subject of building in concrete, in a paper read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, and of which an abstract is published in the first volume of the Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute.

In this paper it is pointed out that concrete is used very much in France, and also lately in England. On the authority of the Commissioners of the Paris Exhibition, and the " Building News," it is stated that the' concrete is formed of gravel combined with hydraulic mortar and sand ; that concrete formed with a proportion of five parts of rement to two of lime and thirty-six of sand, has an ultimate strength of four tons to the inch, being twice that of Portland stone, eight times that of Bath stone, and sixteen times that of brickwork, and the cost of such concrete walling is only half that of brickwork. Its use appears to have been first applied to the construction of bridges and sewage drains, then to church anhitecture, and finally to dwelling houses. It is contended in the paper that the use of concrete for building purposes is particularly applicable to the requirements of Wellington.

The building being all in one piece, the walls would be mutually supporting, and the great strength wh.ich the material is said to possess would probably \ prevent -fracture. In the old Roman brick and mortar walls, tho mortar, during the lapse of ages, has become so hard, and binds the bricks so firmly together, that a similar effect is produced, but we cannot afford to wait for 2000 years for our mortar to set so hard as this. A concrete house would feel no impression from the wind, except of course, at the doors and windows. If the flat roof can be introduced in this rainy climate, and with safety as regards earthquakes, the leverage which the pitched roof offers to a high wind would be obviated Although the question of building in concrete was ventilated here some years ago, no trial has yet been made in Wellington of its capabilities. We hear however that Mr Logan Campbell, who has lately returned to Auckland, sent out before him from England a skilled workman, with the necessary appliances to build for him a concrete house in that city. We are informed that this house has been erected, and that its cost did not exceed that of a wooden house, while, of course, its durability is infinitely greater. The house was built specially with a view to the possibility of having to withstand earthquake shocks. But the interesting experiment reported' in the " Southern Cross" is still more favorable, a building which if built of brick would have cost £3,60 being constructed of concrete for £228. The cost of the plant required to commence operations is stated to be £150. Surely not a very large capital for a builder to require. Would it not be worth the trouble of some enterprising builder to set up in Wellington the business of concrete building? It is probable that in Auckland he might now obtain all the information that is necessary, and he might perhaps be able to get the "plant" made in the country. The first attempts may probably be made with imported hydraulic lime, but there is every reason to suppose that certain limestones, found in large quantity on the East coasts of both islands, and if required, mixed with laterite, or other volcanic products from Banks' Peninsula, may be found to make excellent hydraulic lime, which doubtless when in regular supply, would be much cheaper than an imported article. If we succeed in establishing an architecture in concrete we shall have our bouses warmer, drier, more solid, more quiet, and far more durable than at present. To such a desirable consummation we should like to see a commencement.