modern technology holds forth the promise of a better day in american housing modern materials sensible design and many pleasing refinements yet today nearly all of us live in houses designed largely in terms of house building knowledge that is not much better than that of a century ago natural lighting may be no better than it was in buildings in medieval europe methods of construction may be  as wasteful as those employed four thousand years ago us take a sampling of america's houses only ten out of one hundred owned usually by people with the highest incomes are as good as this costing fifty five hundred dollars then ten years ago fairly modern let's look at one half one hundred fifty percent of america's houses they are no better than these twenty five years old worth about thirty thousand dollars lacking some modern conveniences the lowest ten in our sampling of one hundred typical american houses occupied by those with the lowest incomes are fifty year old shacks worth about two hundred dollars cheaply lumbered what services should our houses give us and how can we hope to get them first there should be control of whether your house should protect you from extremes of weather cold and heat snow wind and rain but most houses are not wholly weather proof for example in winter there may be a needless loss of the ten percent may escape through and around when the doors there maybe a fifteen percent loss through the walls i'm the worst of all up to a twenty five percent loss through ceilings and roof that total waste fifty percent are have to heat how can this be corrected well mr johnson re fitting glas sealing up cracks around the window frames up in the attic ready as helping us will john lay insulating materials over all the ceiling space this forty inch blanket of bikes will help to cut down the biggest heat loss of all and as soon as they can afford it the joneses will have insulating material put into the walls to complete the job of controlling heat summer and winter this is a humidity gauge which indicates the moisture content the air in the house the reading of damage over the air is too dry here is another indication joins in furniture have dried and become loose sure sign of long exposure to air that to dry one easy way to get enough more next year is to keep the kettle boiling another way is to have plenty of plants in the house and to keep them well watered this and the steam from that the cattle supply a much needed moisture for the air the humidity gauge is a faithful indicator the humidity reading should usually be kept between  mr jones now turns his attention to much needed roof repair through the roof rain is coming in to ruin wells and plaster it's high time to turn off the old shingles and replace them with a new material that is inexpensive weatherproof and easy to apply in addition to conclude all of whether your house should give you as a good light wherever needed mr brown and fred are measuring the natural light emitted to their living room where i strain commonly occur fred is borrowed like a gauge but she was only ten foot candles of light when they should be thirty mr brown who doesn't want to knock out a wall and said in another window believes he has a practical way to let in more light his decision is done with a heavy dark drapes and up with a light was the difference is easily apparent especially to those who engage in reading or sewing or other fine work overgrown the shrubbery also keeps out the precious natural light the right growing vines are being torn away and here are overgrown cedars which stifle the light of the windows so out comes the biggest one to be replanted elsewhere electricity and throws out more light more evenly distributed about the howard kitchen touch good screens are the answer to this screens kept in good repair and frequently repainted screens for all doors and windows but keep flies mosquitoes and other tests where they belong stairs which are often dark crowded with carelessly deposited articles a light placed properly plus clear steps to the basement are important safety features accidents may result from another of many things the features the dead end street which children may cross without fear of speeding cars still another service closely akin to safety which our house should give fire protection these houses in addition to being wooden are dangerously close together and definite fire hazard risk from fire is reduced if houses are studies department distance about equal to their height brick  as possible a pleasing appearance inside and out fresh outside paint make your house a more pleasant place in which to have a home and besides they protect the material it covers that's saving money in the long run so too on the walls inside the house fresh paint at little cost can help this grime and gloom decoration applied to walls also contributes to the cost of one a paper is not great the trick is in putting on the paper neatly it's a trick nearly anyone can learn with a little experience and a few inexpensive too it's mostly matching and pasting and smoothly applying that's while few of us may ever get the opportunity of designing and living in our dream house we can improve the house in which we live we can insulate against heat and cold we can control the most your content of the air we can find ways to admit more natural light we can improve our artificial lighting we can protect ourselves against  we can take steps to make our houses safe we can protect our houses by paint and make them nicer to look at we can make them more cheerful inside we can study housing in communities like this they so the children use parkway paths or overpasses across main highways and going from home to school each day and then going from school back to home without crossing the street with speeding tra it's safe streets lead from home to business district where the community recognizes that our houses ought to be much more than mere places of shelter from stone houses ought to be safe and pleasant home