The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-12-17
.UNBURNABLE BUILDING
VERY FEW IN THE UNITED STATES
 OUTSIDE or SOME LARGE CITIES.
Fire Insurance Companies Make Their Testing Laboratories . Model of Fireproof Design-Buildings
 Can be Made Firepro0f.

Chfcauo Dec. I6.-Chicago has the
 latest thing in unburnable buildings
 model of fireproof construction for
 the whole country. This is the new testing laboratory supported by the big fire Insurance companies. Here ev- cry material and device connected with the problem of fire prevention will be tried out and rated. The work of the laboratories covers everything from bricks to hose nozzles.
 The laboratory building itself from cellar to roof, contains nothing that will burn. affording monumental evi- dence of the fact that 1t is not neces- sary that combustible materials should enter into the structural parts or equipment of modern business build ing.
 The walls are of vitrifed brick; cast iron columns protected by hollow tile support the steel girders for the floors and roof. The floors. roof and parti- tions are of semi-porous hollow terra cotta with thick walls. All the open ings are framed in rolled stoel. There is no clustering in any part of the building. Thirteen different makes of | hreproof widow frames and sash have been used, all of them sheet metal. ] All the doors are of filled copper or steel. Large sections of hollow terra cotta form the steps and landings The first design for the building call | ed for slow burning constrctioun"~but l it was later decided that the Underwri- | ters' Laboratories. of all places. ought | to be a model of flreproof design Then | followed the change of plans in which hollow tile was substituted for mill construction. In other words, there was a change from the kind of con- struction that would burn slowly to the kind that will not burn at all Fire Loss an Annual Tax of SEQ on Eve cry Family.
 Americans need this lesson In fire- proof building as well as the aid which the laboratories will give in passinE upon the value of fire fighting devices and non-burnable materials. The colossal fire loss in the United States, at the rate of s250.000.000 a year, is equivalent to a tax of $20 on every American family. The total gold production of the United States would pay only one-third of it. Besides the
 money loss. there is the death loss
 last year the fire Moloch claimed a total of 6.672 human lives.
 One of the most appalling clements in the fire loss Is the number of public fire traps consumed Figures for an average period covering three years show that in that time there were de- strcyed by fire:
 327 theatres,
 544 halls, 1921 churches,
 l,5S2 schools.
 AT hospitals and asy1ums, 3l2 colleges and schools, 43 libraries.
 4,162 hotels.
 The way to stop all this waste is to
 build houses that will not burn down
 There Is no other way. Conditions are improving. but only slowly, and a vast amount of work remains to be done and undone before the fire peril will be materially lessened. Outside of New York City and Brooklyn, according to statistitics collected by the New York Fire Insurance Exchange, there are only l,490 buildings of freproof con struction-less than 1,500 out of thou sands upon thousands of fire-traps. Tho only wonder is that the fire loss in dollars and lives is not even greater. skyscrapers Poit The Way. The skyscraper and the great hotels | of New York point the way toward tho era of unburnable buildings and negll- | ble fire loss. The forms of construc- tion adopted in this class of buildings after terrible tests prove that the inde- | structible house is a possibility. Build | of steel and hollow tile. with enough | stone and cement to hold the structure l together, eliminate infiammable mate rials wherever possible, install up-to- | QdIS anu yOuh office building, hotel. or dwelling house | can never become tomb for It's in- l habitants.
 The greatest enemies of fire loss pre- vention are the Jerry builder" on the one hand, and on the other the man who does not know what fireproof con struction is. It costs about ten per cent more to build fireproof than to bHjld a burnable structure. For this | ten per cent. the speculative builder | is willing to run any risk. His object | Is to get his fire-trap off his hands as soon as possible. But the campaign of education carried on by the fire under writers, the National Fire Protection Association, and by the more enlight- ened municipal building departments. | is bearing fruit in many directions. People are more and more insistent | upon the fireproof qualities of their public buildings, and the time is not far off when the fireproof private dwelling will be as common as the
 fireproof hotel and office building. Peo-
 ole who lend money for building pur- poses-and without these people build ing would practically stop-are also l awakening to the importance of fire | proof construction.