CORNERING ELUSIVE TIME 297 



Cornering Elusive Time. 



Don't lose an entire year. None of us have a surplus of that 

 for which the whole world is gasping time, so plant and protect. 

 Over this work your inspector has had general oversight; he has also 

 kept nails and other hardware under lock and key, protected door 

 and window sills, scribbled across the plate glass to prevent breakage 

 and attended to locking the house at night. He has carefully looked 

 after the burning of all inflammable debris, especially shavings (this 

 should be done every day when there is not too much wind), and 

 had an oversight over all other fires, primarily those of the plumber 

 and mason, and if salamanders are used, seen that they are in good 

 repair and with ample sand bed protection ; also carried the burden 

 of the hundred and one other things that if promptly attended to 

 help prodigiously in the building of a house. 



Saturday Night Accounting. 



I grant you this method of building has its intricacies, and means 

 responsibility, but one great redeeming feature that may be 

 vital to your peace of mind is to know just where you stand every 

 Saturday night. By special arrangement with the contractors, 

 and insertion of such a clause in the contract, you can insist on hav- 

 ing fifty men at work Monday morning, and cut the number to two 

 the next week. A friend building a fine home found it financially 

 inconvenient to finish it as planned. Rather than cheapen the house, 

 he boarded it in and completed it the following year, his contract 

 allowing him this latitude. If details prove too onerous or you 

 have not time for frequent inspection, plenty of contractors will stand 

 in line at any stage of the construction to take the job off your hands 

 and push it to completion. The contract can contain a clause to buy 

 off your small contractors on payment of a stated sum on account 

 of change in plans. A year in the business world is a long period 

 and often brings reverses and financial sheet anchors may prove con- 

 venient to the most affluent. 



The usual contract method of building a $50,000 to $100,000 

 house is open to the grave objection that few contractors will figure 

 on a job of this size except with a liberal margin, counting the 

 "know how," the risk, and the fact that in seven cases out of ten 

 changes may run the total cost from $75,000 to $150,000, and perhaps 

 entail legal complications. Then again, the careful contractor must 

 add to his figures a percentage to cover the money risk in selling you 

 labor and materials, a risk on which you of course do not figure. 



All contracts should carry an employers' accident policy, and 

 the owner should see that the premium is paid, even if he has to 

 stand the expense. 



The question of employing a night watchman must be decided 

 by each owner for himself, but it is a wise precaution in a job of 

 any magnitude. 



