398 [Assembly 



BALLOON FRAMES OF FARM BUILPINGS. 



Solon Robinson gave a very full description of the manner of 

 building balloon frames, and denounced the plan of tenons and 

 mortices in ordinary small houses or other necessary farm build- 

 ings, as one of the most absurd remains of old-fogyism in exist- 

 ence. He said that a house which a carpenter would charge $25 

 for the work of framing, could be framed for $2.50, and would be 

 decidedly better than the other. Nearly all the frame buildings 

 in Chicago, and in all the surrounding country, are built in the 

 way he described. 



Mr. Youmans corroborated Mr. R.'s statements, and related 

 many interesting facts relative to the building of San Francisco 

 and other California towns, which never would have been built if 

 the old plan of framing had been pursued. Besides anybody 

 could work at the business of house-building. He had adopted 

 the plan on his farm in Saratoga county, where he found great 

 difficulty in getting carpenters that would do as he wished. 

 They could not give up tenons and mortices, braces and big tim- 

 bers, for the light ribs, two by four inches, of a balloon frame. 



Paul Stillman said that he had seen a whole block of houses 

 built in two weeks at San Francisco, and better frames he never 

 saw. They were put up a story at a time — the first two floors 

 often laid and lower part of the frame sided and in use before the 

 upper part was up. 



Not one-quarter of the weight of timber in an old-style frame 

 is used in a balloon. It is a matter of the utmost importance to 

 farmers to understand what an immense saving may be made by 

 this mode of building. The Chairman said that he certainly 

 should try it upon his farm another year. 



Prof. Mapes said that he had a house thirty feet square, two 

 stories high, put up for his workmen, that gives comfortable ac- 

 commodations to four families, upon contract, upon this plan, for 

 $500. He says that a Mr. Woodruff, of Newark, has built a great 



