Concrete Houses.

Progress, Volume XV, Issue 1, 1 September 1919, Page 592

Concrete Houses.

A Sheffield Experiment.

■ Sheffield can claim to have taken a pioneer part in connexion with the building of concrete houses. Long before the matter attracted attention in the country generally, the concrete method was put to practical test oh the outskirts of the city, and the results have been highly satisfactory. A local landowner has been the principal mover in the experiments, and has erected houses on his estate, two of which have actually been occupied since 1915. The material he uses is composed of seven parts of clinker or boiler ash, and one part of cement, with a binding of sand, and the mixture has been proved to be., quite 40 per cent, cheaper than the concrete made of broken brick or stone, cement, and 'gravel. The cavity-wall system of building is employed, and it is claimed teat the houses resist the weather better, and shield the occuoants more from the heat of summer and the cold of winter, than do those with solid walls. The experiments show that a bungalow containing three bed rooms, one sitting room,; kitchen, bath room and other conveniences, .can be built for £4OO. as compared with about £7OO for a similar structure of brick. . One of the experiments consists of the building of 32 bouses. Already ten of these, which arc in process of erection, have been sold, and there are demands for others even before thev are put on. Tliev are built of moulded concrete, and the sam« material is used for the roofs, which are so treated with red ochre as to give them the aopearance of being tiled, It is found that concrete bouses can be

built much more quickly than those of brick. Two men, working under the supervision of a foreman, can build a house in three months, and in another week it can be finished and ready for occupation. The houses have central heating systems, by which the temperature can be graduated according to the season,; and there are no fireplaces.

Moulded concrete is also being partially used in the houses which the Corporation are constructing under their three large new schemes. Sheffield was the first city in the country actually to complete all the necessary steps in connexion with one of the postwar housing schemes. «Great quantities of bricks have now been delivered on three sites, and the building of houses has begun. ■■■.'.