Morning journal and courier., 1885-12-23
HOUSE BUILDING IN NEW YORK.
A Man Who Would Have Everything
 According to Contract.

From the New York Tribune
 It is reassuring then to find at least one man who was too much for the wicked contractor, and built his house not only
 shall stand until some elevated railroad of
 the future gets the right of way through
 ,.lssv vlo
 People can't be too careful when they are
 building, for those who don't know what is
 what in the way of work and material are systematically taken in by the contractors.
 The archi is supposed to see that the
 contracts are carried out, but he can't al
 ways be on hand, and when dispute does
 arise he naturally leans toward the me
 chanics. Many of the inexplicable fires
 that occur in frst-class dwellings are sim
 ply the result of criminal carelessness and
 fr1ud on the part of workmen and con
 tractors I had running fight while my
 house was building, but it done as l
 wanted it and according to contract. The
 party wall was twelve inches wide and
 bricks were to be bonded every five courses.
 went to look at it evening when the
 wall was twelve feet high and found only
 every twentieth course was bonded. Some
 workmen were going on their way home. 1
 hired them for an hour. We transformed q
 big beam into a battering ram and when my
 friends, the contractors, came back i'll the
 morning they found their wall lying in the
 cellar bottom. From that time on every fifth course was bonded according to the
 specifications. Then we began on the fram- ing I had distinctly specified that the tiues in the walls should be spanned. One after noon I climbed on to the upper floor beams and found 8 burned and sooty brick lying on the scaffolding. It had been taken out Of the wall of my neighbor on the right to let one of my floor beams in.
 "Iook here, said I to the German who was, doing the framing, you've run that beam plumb into furnace tiue. Some cold winter night I'll wake up and find my S Can't help dot,' replied this original Buddensiek.
 .sWell, I can,' said I, and got piece of | timber and began to pry the beam out. "'Here! Vot der Teufel?" shouted the contractor; you stop dotn
 "'Get out of the way. yelled, 'or you'll go where the good Germans go all before your tine!'
 ''He grabbed an adze and jumped for me. I seized an axe and began counter demon strations Then while he sat down to think l it over I sat down on the end of my levsr. Up came the floor beam out of its mortlse and went crashing down into the cellar. It | had protruded four inches into what would have been red hot fire when the furnace was well working.
 ''Things went smoothly after that until we came to putting in the furnace l had or dered double tin pipes and double pipe guards wherever a partition Was pierced. One afternoon came in and found two ap- prentices lathing up a partition about fur- | mace pipe I asked if the double pipe guards | had been put in. They winked at one an | other and said yes. After they had gone l cut a little hole with a hatchet and investiga- ted. Not sign of guard, double or single, l was to be found. It didn't take long for me | to rip that all out. 1 told tf 3 head lathef to get somebody other than tn SC two appren- tices to do the work; for if hey ever entered
 my house again I'd make him throw up his | contract, and if he sued me I'd fight him as ! long as I had dollar left. The furnace | builder also wore unhappy look after 1 | had finished with him. Well, the house is finished as you see, and it only cost one hun | dred and seventy dollars more than the origi- mai estimate. The excess was due to the | building of stone wall for the yard instead of fence, as originally intended, and the | construction of coal bins, which had for l gotten to include in the original estimate" If others would be as careful and energet- ic as this man there would be no chance for | builders of the Buddensiek type.