302 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE 



vigilance is the price of comfortable living. A systematic inspection 

 by mason, carpenter and plumber every six months is essential. Pre- 

 vention will keep you well abreast, and even ahead, of all destroying 

 forces. 



To be critical about one's home castle, whether an adobe dwell- 

 ing, a sod-roofed dugout, or a palace, is worth while. 



Barbaric architecture and slathers of ornamentation are dan- 

 gerous lodestones with which to trifle, but enthusiasm often leads 

 architect, builder, or owner to play the role of copyist of past crea- 

 tions. Such lapses are not open to criticism, as all the world is with 

 us. Architecture was born centuries ago, and is still sisterless. 



Ferro-Cement Construction. 



Fireproof is a misnomer under certain conditions. Fill your fire- 

 proof building with combustibles and let water enter to fight the 

 flames, and your seemingly adamant cement, impregnable stone, and 

 unyielding steel will peel, split, and crumble, while the last turns 

 on itself like a squirming serpent. Is it a life marriage, this union 

 of cement and iron, or will acid, attrition, vibration, and electrolysis 

 disintegrate bolt head, iron binder, and rivet? This is the crux over 

 which every architect is puzzling, and that architect who fails to 

 reckon with the prodigious contracting power exerted by a forty 

 degree below zero temperature on an iron column and girder and 

 the enormous lengthening force of a one-hundred degree temperature 

 will shatter both building and reputation. Cement walled and floored 

 buildings are extremely difficult and very expensive to enlarge, 

 change, or rebuild, especially when partially destroyed by fire. Arti- 

 ficial reinforced stone in quoin, sill, and lintel, with tooled surface, 

 if of the best, is permissible in brick and stone structures. The diffi- 

 culty of making door and window frames set in cement walls tight 

 is partially solved by insetting especially constructed non-rusting metal 

 weather strips in the cement. Alternate brick headers between 

 layers of hollow tile make for strength. 



Smouldering wood means less pecuniary loss than crumbling 

 cement walls and twisted steel. Brick that has been through the 

 fire to make it more staunch under conditions mocks at powers before 

 which cement and steel grovel. Eliminate draughts in partitions 

 and as far as may be on stairs, and avoid using inflammable gum 

 varnish and oil saturated pigments, choosing fireproof paint instead. 

 Make floors of semi-solid timbers, and with brick or hollow brick 

 covered with cement exterior, hollow brick partitions, tile roofs and 

 metal gutters, you are fairly near fire control that is in many ways 

 preferable to the much vaunted fireproof, moisture-laden, inartistic 

 structure of cement and iron. Fireproof conditions are perfectly 

 possible in a detached dwelling, unless filled with combustible 

 material. Drenching a conflagration with water will often seriously 

 injure, if not destroy, such a building. 



