New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1921-09-18
Inherited House Construction
Methods May Be Changed Soon
Depletion of Forest Has Forced Fireproof Material
to Front in Home Building; Steel Lum-
Der Now Being Advocated
By r. ]. Foster


1t may be difficult for our women to
keep up with the ever changing styles
of dress, but there are styles in some
things which go on year after year
and decade after decade without
change, and it happens also that some
of these styles which have been in
vogue for such long time meet con-
ditions which change them rapidly.
For thousands of years the horse
drawn vehicle was not only the pride
of youth, but the great burden-bearer,
and then within the space of a very
few years this age old habit was
changed and throbbing machine took
the place of the painting horse.
The method Of making our homes is
habit, and habit is occasioned by con-
venience. 1t was the convenience of
the forests which gave us our Colonial
and our other types of distinctive archi-
tectural designs. So many wooden
homes gave rise to the great industry
of carpentering, and our houses built
of wood have no doubt excelled in
beauty the wooden houses of any other
country. Thousands of homes are
springing up all over the country al
most identical with the homes that
were built generations ago, and al
thoaSu tiic WOoucI HoiiiS has DteN uSeQ
as shelter about as long as the horse
had been used for burden, there is
possibility that the change in style of
the home may be as revolutionary as
the change from the horse to the au-
tomobile.
LAUNDERING Is Costly
To get our lumber at present re-
Guires that special logging railroads be
built far into the mountains to bring
the logs down, instead of cutting the
logs near the streams and floating them
down on RATS.
The population in so many sections
of our country is growing to such
density that the danger from fires is
an exceedingly serious one. and ever
on the increase. and although we may
ourselves be willing to run the risk
of fire, yet the building laws will
of our neighbors.
1t has been determined from surveys
made on standing timber in this coun-
try that there is not enough to continue
the present rate of consumption, and
as consequence our engineers have
come to the rescue, as they come in
every emergency, and say that they can
furnish you with homes that will be
more permanent, fireproof and not sub
ject to shrinkage cracks or deteriora-
ton and at the same time bring the
cost within the reach of all. They de-
signed the gasoline motor, and the SIM
plicity and adaptabilty of this one part
made possible the tremendous automo-
bile industry.
Steel has been used for thirty years
in the freproofng of large or expensive
buildings, and our minds have not been
prepared to think of using it in place
Of wood and causing such use to be-
come almost universal, but as surely
as the automobile was found to be
superior to the horse, so surely will
the use of steel be found more ad-
vantageous than wood.
Want Buildings That Last
It will take some time before me-
chanics are trained before the aver
age householder becomes acquainted
with the materials and before the
streams of trade will be flowing
natrrally in that way, but the posi-,
bilities are upon US. Every enc who
builds wants the value of his property
to remain. The buildings must, there
fore, be composed of materials whose
value will remain the longest. Every
good building erected alongside a
poorer one decreases the value of the
poorer building.
People are still living who can re-
member when there We're no bath tubs
A house or an apartment without one
or more bath tubs now would be un-
salable. If an apartment can be built
freproof and without the shrinkage
cracks that are the terror of the
pocketbook, and of the decorator, and
with less depreciation value, and for
the same money, then every building
built of wood will have an extra de-
probation value in comparison as soon
as it is finished
These suggested changes are not
fanciful, but have been worked out by
engineers in the production of stee
lumber.