Construction site

“ By means of the tramway, an abundant supply of all kinds of the necessary materials could be placed on the building site very quickly. The best of stone for the foundations, [Pg 99] quantities of brick, lime, sand and cement were at hand, waiting for the builder. All this made possible the swift construction of superior buildings, equipped with all of the modern improvements, including artistic ornamentation. ”

“ Under the present circumstances of agriculture, however, no land will support that outlay on buildings. At the same time, improved buildings and increased building accommodation is on numerous farms urgently needed. The solution of the difficulty therefore seems to lie in a more economical arrangement of the buildings, and in the discovery of cheaper material and methods of construction. ”

“ The form of construction suitable to the low ground has perhaps been tried here and abandoned, for some of the foundation-stones, pierced with the holes to support the superstructure of stick and grass, are built into the existing dwellings. ”

“ Intimately connected with this subject, in rural buildings, is the shape of the structure. Many of the designs recently introduced for the imitation of builders, are full of angles and all sorts of zig-zag lines, which, although they may add to the variety of style, or relieve the monotony of straight and continuous lines, are carried to a needless excess, expensive in their construction, and entail infinite trouble upon the owner or occupant, in the repairs they subject him to, in the leakages continually occurring, against which last, either of wind or rain, it is almost impossible to guard. ”

“ Where the traffic is uncertain, or the foundations bad, or out in undeveloped districts abroad, a building of timber will serve the purpose for a number of years, or until the period of probation has passed, and the actual requirements are accurately ascertained. In a timber-built shed, the decay usually commences about the ground line, but if the nature of the soil will permit of the construction of a small dwarf foundation wall of masonry or concrete up to about nine inches above the ground line, the life of the building will be prolonged for several years. ”

“ The construction of each building has been studied with very great care, so as to secure the minimum amount of material, the least possible amount of work in construction or erection, and the means of arranging all the parts in separate packages capable each of being carried by two men; and the result is that each building is the cheapest and lightest that has yet been constructed in proportion to the area covered. ”

“ If, however, solid ground cannot be found, but the place proves to be nothing but a heap of loose earth to the very bottom, or a marsh, then it must be dug up and cleared out and set with piles made of charred alder or olive wood or oak, and these must be driven down by machinery, very closely together like bridge-piles, and the intervals between them filled in with charcoal, and finally the foundations are to be laid on them in the most solid form of construction. ”

“ Bridge-work in towns is more costly than in the country, as a higher class of work is demanded, more finish or dressed work in the masonry or brickwork, and more ornamentation in the screens and parapets in connection with the iron girder-work. The work itself has to be carried on in a confined locality, with limited space for materials and appliances, and where the thoroughfare must be kept open. ”

“ Economy in first cost was the guiding consideration in the construction of the cell houses, although a monolithic concrete structure with brick veneered exterior walls is by no means a cheap construction. ”

“ Worth attention, however, and admiration too, is the solidity of construction by which the huge mass of building, doubly heavy from the ponderous machinery it contains, besides its clustering group of out-houses, megass-sheds, tall chimneys, store-places, and the rest, is enabled to support itself upright and unyielding on a soil so marshy and unstable. ”

“ Within the short period, therefore, of seven months, owing to the energy of the contractors and the active industry of the workmen employed by them, a building has been erected, entirely novel in its construction, covering a space of more than eighteen acres, measuring 1,851 feet in length, and 456 feet in extreme breadth, capable of containing 40,000 visitors, and affording a frontage for the exhibition of goods to the extent of more than ten miles. For the original suggestion of the principle of this structure the Commissioners are indebted to Mr. ”

“ The main factory buildings are 900 feet long and 800 feet wide, four stories in height and of fire-proof construction. They are so designed that every part of the interior receives a full share of daylight. ”

“ The necessity of having a plan prepared by some one who understands the principles and requirements of simple building construction, before undertaking the erection of any building, cannot be too strongly emphasised. This great need, which is often overlooked by the settler, cannot be economically dispensed with. ”

“ Average repairs vary from one-half of 1% of the value of the building per annum in the case of the highest type of fireproof buildings, 1% for ordinary mercantile buildings, 2% for older property or that of cheaper construction, 3% to 4% for old tenements, and so on up in proportion to the age, character of construction, and lack of care of the buildings. ”

“ The first of these, ECONOMY, is attained by doing away with any internal walls (all divisions being made by the necessary stalls) , by reducing the whole construction, with the exception of the dome, to cast iron columns, supporting the lightest form of iron roof in long unbroken lines, and by the whole of the work being done in the simplest manner, and adapted in all respects to serve hereafter for other purposes. ”

“ Another method of procedure is to draw a plan of the house that contains the rooms considered necessary, submit such plans to a lumber merchant and get quotations on costs of various types of material necessary to construct it. Such construction will usually require the services of a skilled carpenter and mason but permits of more latitude in most cases than is available under a set building arrangement. ”

“ When two or more works are close together they should be made to conform, and the whole site should be considered with reference to a neat and suitable arrangement of works, ramps and roadways. If an outlet is near to a minor or distributary head the parapets of the two should be in line. If two masonry works of any kind are near together it is often suitable to pitch the intervening space. If there are outlets or distributaries on opposite banks they should be exactly opposite each other. ”

“ A further illustration of the economy of open planning, leads into an extremely complicated discussion of the technique of architectural planning, dealing with the relationship of land value to the percentage of site area covered by building. It may be stated, however, that when the building covers too high a percentage of area, it inevitably becomes more complicated and more wasteful of space ”

“ The site should be large enough for the eventual group of buildings, the building should be easily capable of extension with the least cost, and the same forethought should govern the lay-out of the machinery. ”

“ The center must, in a word, remain as nearly as possible invariable in level and form from the time it is made ready for the concrete until the time it is removed from underneath the arch, and, when the time for removal comes, the construction must be such that that operation can be performed with ease and without shock or jar to the masonry. The problem of center construction is thus the two-fold one of building a structure which is immovable until movement is desired and then moves at will. ”

“ At the threshold—not of the house, but of this treatise—it may be well to remark that it is not here assumed that there has been neither skill, ingenuity, nor occasional good taste exhibited, for many generations back, in the United States, in the construction of farm and country houses. On the contrary, there are found in the older states many farm and country houses 20 that are almost models, in their way, for convenience in the main purposes required of structures of their kind, and such as can hardly be altered for the better. ”

“ They have no windows or lights of any kind, merely a double door opening outwardly. These are the cabins and stores of the bricklayers, and they contain cement, fireclay, and firebricks for the furnaces and forges. A permanent staff of bricklayers is kept in each department at the works to carry out whatever repairs are necessary from time to time and to see to the construction and renovation of the furnaces. If there is any building on a large scale required, such as a new shed, stores, or offices, extra hands are put on from the town and afterwards discharged when the work is done. ”

“ The building of retaining walls entirely of dry stone is very questionable economy, and entails a constant expenditure in maintenance and renewal. The working out of one stone loosens the surrounding portion of the wall, and if not at once repaired, a length of the wall will fall down, bringing with it a large quantity of the earthwork. ”

“ One may safely assert that, had the new housing architecture, which includes the new system of site-and-town planning based upon it, been perfected ten years ago, so that it could have been introduced at the same price level on which the older types were produced, it would already have begun to transform the entire physical aspect of American industrial districts. Housing blocks, neighborhoods, towns, whole districts, would be covered with better homes and gardens, interspersed with playgrounds, parks and open spaces. ”

“ Classified according to their construction, factory buildings may be divided into three types, which, for convenience, may be designated as first-, second-, and third-class buildings. A similar division to this is also frequently made by the state or municipal laws for the regulation of the construction of factory buildings.
3. First-Class Buildings.—Buildings of the first class are those in which the walls, floors, columns, girders, beams, partitions, and roofs are of stone, brick, terra cotta, concrete, steel, iron, and such other fireproof materials as have been proven to be efficient. ”

“ Ten years from now, and this hillside for forty miles will be a succession of orange groves. Near the depot we shall have a limited number of business lots, while the balance of the land will be surveyed into large orange grove and villa tracts. It will be specified in each deed that no cheap buildings shall be erected. It is not a mere speculation, as there are already a dozen or more men who will begin elegant residences as soon as the land is surveyed.”
“Do you know, professor, who owns that point jutting into the lake? It is a fine building site.” ”

“ First, however, before building the mould for a residence, school, theatre, office building, or factory, 296 the engineer decides what strength his foundations must have. The foundation for a small residence is an easy matter, but when it comes to a big factory, or an office building of a dozen stories or so, the most careful work must be done beforehand. In the old days, when it was desired to sink the foundations of a building down to bedrock, they used steel or wooden piles, but these will rust or rot, and the modern way is to use concrete piles. ”

“ Third and fourth class masonry at prices for laying dry, to which will be added fifty cents per yard if laid in lime mortar, and one dollar if laid in cement.
SCAFFOLDING. 80. Nothing shall be allowed for workmanship or timber of any scaffolding used in the construction of timber bridges, or in carrying up abutments, piers, coffer-dams, or otherwise. Should the timber used in any coffer-dam be carried away by floods, the renewal of it shall fall upon the first party. ”

“ By using concrete to connect up buildings, this farmer has a solid, substantial roadway that will last for all time—instead of the usual muddy, untidy space that ordinarily separates such buildings.
To construct a driveway between the various buildings of a farm, first excavate a trench 12 inches deep, this trench being the exact width that you wish the finished driveway to be. ”

“ In construction, the exterior of the buildings is masonry walls, built of hollow tile with outside facing of brick. This construction is more economical than solid brick walls, on account of the air spaces in the tile which do away with the necessity of forming air spaces by furring the walls. ”

“ The most economical building material we have here now is cement blocks, which are easily made with a little instruction, and we are sending around instructors to show the farmers how to utilize their spare time in the winter in making a sufficient number of blocks of this artificial stone to build the walls of a house in the spring. The neighbors can then get together and help each other put them in place under the direction of the instructor of the society, just as your pioneers in America used to help each other put up their log cabins. ”

“ General Construction.—On the question of general construction there is little to be said, except that buildings are now being properly designed in more permanent form than were some of the earlier buildings. On the whole there is little fault to be found with factories in general, except in so far as the output has outgrown the accommodation. ”