Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-08-30
FIRE-PROOF HOUSES.
There Are Some in Pittsburg and
Elsewhere, Architects Assert.
HOW SUCH STRUCTURESA ARE BUILT.
The Examination of Pudding Furnace
Gives the Solution.
CEMENT THE INGREDIENT LACKING

Fire-proof buildings are desideratum In
Pittsburg, and if you don your thinking
cap you will not need diagram in explana-
tion. In Philadeli hi 1, where everything
is confessedly slow, combustion is double
what it is in Paris, the confessedly fastest
city in christendom. Making full allow
ance for superior laws regulating fire insur-
ance in Paris over those that rule in the
Quaker City, it is evident that much of the
loss in the latter city is due to faulty con-
struction-to put it mildly, for rascality is
the correct term-rascality in its most hei-
nous aspect, and fully equal to the malev-
olence of those who murder for money.
Part of it is the vault of criminal hoggery,
and the remainder of criminal carelessness.
1t may be accepted as settled beyond
doubt that the majority of fires in dwelling
houses originate in defective fues, which
builders conscience could and should pre-
vent at cost of S. to $40 at most. Phila-
delphia has an act providing for theiDspec-
tion of chimneys in process of construction,
but in territory of over 1000 miles of streets
it is difficult to insure inspection, much more
so in municipalities where there is no pre-
cautionary law in force.
REFORMS IN THE EAST.
New York architects and fire insurance
men have combined to effect reform in the
building of alleged fre-proof structures. and
they find the task somewhat sisyphusian.
People have been so frequently taken in by
alleged fre-proof appliances that they look
with more or less distrust on all pretensions
of the kind. Iron buildings have been tried
and found wanting; granite and most sand
stone are in but little better repute. The
Potsdam sandstone may stand baking in a
furnace, as alleged, but it hasn't been
proven, or if proven, not to the public, that
it will stand the application of water while
hot without crumbling. Granite crumbles;
porous sandstone absorbs moisture which,
when heated, forms steam, which disin-
tegrates with much the same effect as blast
ing powder. Burnt clay, from time imme-
mortal, has proven. itself the best
fre-proof material, either mud with
straw as in Egypt or without as in Pitts
burg, but the trouble has been to get ce-
ment that would be equally good. for the
one without the other is in great measure
useless. A cement has been invented which
answers the purpose, but it costs $50 BUSH
el, and this cost is beyond the means of
those who have not the resources of State
behind them. Concrete filings and Innings
are, though cheap, rejected because of their
lack of strength. a concrete beam support
ing a load transversely is said to have but
little. lover per cent OF the strength OF a
wooden one OF the same section, but concrete
as a coating for wooden beams is eulogized,
making wooden beams equal to iron so far
as resistance to flame is concerned. But the
fata lnfa oil inv 10 hot flara
are very few fre-proof buildings in New
York or elsewhere, though this view does
not prevail with all Pittsburg architects.
Mr.. j. T. Steen was not in his Office, but
a couple of gentlemen connected Herewith
stated that they regarded the Fidelity Title
and Trust Company building on Fourth ave-
nue. as ire-proof, except the granite in the
front. 1t remained to be seen whether fire
on the opposite side OF the avenue could be
they: "We cover all iron work with terra
Gotta. We are also informed that Potsdam
sandstone will resist high degree of heat;
that it has been broken in a furnace without
disintegration, but we do not know whether
when thus heated it would stand the appli-
cation of water.
RELIEF IN FIRE-PRooF BUILDINGS.
Mr.. G. Yeager, President of the Pennsyl-
vania Construction Company, seemed to
doubt whether there was single building
In Pittsburg absolutely fre-proof, but he
thought such buildings could be con-
structed.
A number of architects were consulted,
who refused to go on record on the subject,
but held that there were number of build
ings in the city substantially fre-proof, or
so nearly so that they would oppose the pro-
gress of fire to an extent that would prevent
ox1s1 hot hn fra dam ri
ment can easily handle a confagration In
their vicinity.
Mr.. E. M. Butz talked in a positive way
that was exhilarating. He said there were
a considerable number of buildings in this
county that were fre-proof and instanced the
Western Pennsylvania Penitentiary, the
Allegheny County Court House, the new
Pittsburg Custom House, Fidelity Title and
Trust Company, National Bank of Commerce
building, and German National Bank. Mr.. |
Butz also stated that there were hundreds |
of fre-proof buildings in Chicago, and |
larger number in New York. among which |
he named the Times building, World build |
ing Moss, Post, Mills, and new Columbia l
buildings, the latter at No. 20, Broadway. |
In any of these, combustible material |
might be placed in a room in any quantity |
desired, set on fire, the room closed, and |
the fire might exhaust itself, as in bake |
oven, without setting fire to the rest of the |
structure.
The idea expressed was similar to that of
the construction oil pudding furnace. 1t |
is built of frebricks and bound with iron |
beams. In this heat of several thousand !
degrees may be generated without injuring |
the iron bindings, and buildings of all kinds |
can be constructed on similar principles. |
Such buildings are necessarily costly, but |
the extra cost can be saved in course of |
years in reduced insurance policies. Fire |
may devour the contents, but the structure |
will remain intact
Mr.. Butz talked at 25O-word-a-minute
rate. but the above expresses his ideas on the
subject
BIG FIRES CAN BE PREVENTED.
There is still left the question of mortar,
but the danger of disintegration here con-
sists in the narrowness of streets. Were |
they of sufficient width to preserve the out
side of buildings from great heat |
it requires no argument to prove that ex- |
tensive fires might be wholly averted. 1t is
a disgrace to the age that poorhouses,
orphan and insane asylums should burn |
down. Were proper precautions used in
construction fire could be confined to the |
room in which it originates, and the recital |
of sickening holocausts would be spared and |
with it the stereotvped reportorial phrase
ology of ''ferce flames, fire fend, Gull thud,
serpent tongues" and much more OF the |
same sort, and in time be might be spurred
to invent or appropriate other equally in
tense description, less shop-worn aud
equally expressive, with the merit OF
novelty.
AS to the Potsdam sandstone referred TO-
the writer on sandstones in the American
EncyclopedIa, does not seem to know any
: thino ahout its fire. resisting uualities for /