XX 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



May, 1908 



Perfect Water Supply Service for 

 Your Country or Suburban Home. 



YOU can have a thoroughly efficient and reliable water supply service in your 

 home — service equal to that afforded by the best city water works system. You 

 j ( an have an abundant supply of hot and cold water delivered under strong pressure 

 to the bathroom, kitchen, bedrooms, laundry, lawn, garden, barn, anywhere. 

 This service and first class fire protection will be yours, if you install 



The Kewanee System of Water Supply 



With the Kewanee System, there is no elevated or 

 attic tank to leak, freeze, overflow or collapse. A 

 Kewanee Pneumatic Tank is placed in the cellar, 

 buried in the ground or located in a pump house. 



The Kewanee Tank rests on solid ground, will 

 last almost indefinitely and furnishes a fresh usable 

 supply of water during all seasons. 



The water iB delivered by air pressure. Pumping 

 water into the tank from your well, cistern, or other 

 source of supply, creates the pressure. 40 pounds is 

 a good average pressure and is equal to the pressure 

 from an elevated tank 93 feet high. 



Kewanee Pneumatic Tanks and complete Kewanee 



Systems are imitated. Accept no tank as a K ewanee 

 Tank unless it bears this trade mark, jjjffljljj Look 

 for our name-plate on all pumping machinery. Then 

 you will be safe from inferior equipment. 



Over 8,000 Kewanee Systems in successful opera- 

 tion, providing water for country and suburban 

 homes, clubs, hotels, schools, apartment buildings, 

 public and private institutions and towns. 



Our engineering service is free. No charge for 

 specifications and estimates. Our guarantee pro- 

 tects you. 



Our 64-page illustrated catalog explains every- 

 thing. Ask for catalog No. 36. 



Kewanee Water Supply Company 



Kewanee, Illinois. 



32 Broadway, New York City. 



820 Marquette Building, Chicago. 



404 Equitable Building, Baltimore. 



710 Diamond Bank Building, Pittsburg. 



CATNIP RAI I (Pat'd) a toy for cats— 

 ^^" ■ UM * * W«l— I— they can't let it alone; ri- 

 diculously amusing; positively beneficial; will last for 

 years. Price 10 Cents, together with package 

 of catnip and other herbs beneficial to cats. 

 For sale by 5 and 10-cent stores, sport- 

 ing goods, drug and bird stores, and 

 news stands, or mailed by us on 

 receipt of price 



National Cat Supplies Co. fl^f 

 Oept. A.H., East Boston, Mass. ^T 



KILLWEED 



Used to kill weeds on Paths, 

 Gravel Walks and Gutters 



Price, $1 

 per Gallon 



Francis Lynch, Agent, 78 Clinton St., Newburgh, N.Y. 



JH.BROOKSfiCO.CL§VEt^'0- 

 iFlo6r«5idewalk Lights. 



bQF every description. 



§lSENDf6*CATA LOGUE . 



Details of Building Construction 



A collection of 33 plates of 

 scale drawings witn introduc- 

 tory text. 



This book is 10 by \1{ in. 

 In size, and substantially bound 

 In cloth. 



By CLARENCE A. MARTIN 



Assistant Professor, College of Architecture, Cornell University 



rice, 



&2.00 



For Sale by 



MUNN & COMPANY, 36 1 Broadway, New York 



may often prove to be twenty-five or thirty 

 per cent. 



Of the very small builder who works upon 

 a job himself and has no office force, it is 

 often maintained that he can turn out work 

 cheaper because of less expense. This state- 

 ment should not need refutation. Such a 

 builder has no system, and can devote no 

 proper time to the executive end of his busi- 

 ness. It is axiomatic that the larger the busi- 

 ness, other conditions being alike, the less is the 

 expense of conducting it per thousand dollars' 

 worth done. 



Besides these things there are sectional dif- 

 ferences. For instance, first-class contractors 

 around Boston who are used to working for 

 Boston architects may waste time going into 

 certain sections where architects' requirements 

 are not so strict and competing builders not 

 so good. This condition does not affect the 

 smaller house especially considered here, how- 

 ever, because competition upon it usually 

 would be by local men. 



These statements about variations in esti- 

 mates assume, it is clear, a free-for-all com- 

 petition. Too often this kind of competition 

 is encountered. Good architects' opinions upon 

 the quality of work done by various men will 

 vary, and some of the best of them invite all 

 kinds of contractors into their competitions — 

 sometimes for reasons given later and some- 

 times through errors in judgment. Architects 

 do not, however, expect to get a good job 

 from a cheap, poor builder, and obviously they 

 are best fitted to do so were it possible. They 

 realize fully that the personality of the 

 builder counts largely, and that no amount of 

 superintendence and specifications will produce 

 a good job, excepting from a good builder. 

 They classify builders whose work they know, 

 and intend to invite competition only among 

 those doing the grade of work they desire. 



It is evident that this procedure cuts down 

 the variations between bids very largely, but 

 there still remains an often neglected feature. 

 The bidder — who is often called the principal 

 contractor — usually does one or two lines of 

 work himself and sublets the rest. Upon a 

 house of the size here considered he is likely 

 to do the carpenter work and to sub-contract 

 the plumbing, painting, heating, electric work, 

 masonry, roofing and plastering. There are 

 associated upon one job six or eight con- 

 tractors, all doing important work. They 

 are often chosen, in part at least, by the prin- 

 cipal contractor, and there is a strong tempta- 

 tion, even among good builders, to reduce bid* 

 and increase chances of winning by using low 

 sub-estimates. Here is the cause of a con- 

 siderable variation in bids. Architects are 

 more and more getting the practice of calling 

 for lists of sub-contractors to be handed to 

 them for approval. Often some of these 

 things are withheld from the principal contract 

 and let separately. Thus may be seen a tend- 

 ency — a growing tendency — to consider the 

 personality of each and every contractor in- 

 volved upon a good job as of prime impor- 

 tance ; and a mere range of prices submitted 

 as only one of the items leading to the award 

 of a contract. 



It may be confidently stated that a list of 

 bids based upon carefully prepared plans and 

 specifications, and made by selected bidders 

 and selected sub-bidders, will not vary ten per 

 cent. — will often not vary five per cent. Re- 

 markable instances of close figuring could be 

 quoted to those who do not believe there is 

 much exactness in estimating — instances prov- 

 ing this closeness the result of accuracy and 

 not an accident. Careful estimators upon all 

 that goes into a modern house, with its com- 

 plications, can tell within one per cent, what 

 profit they will make, although sometimes un- 

 foreseen changes in market or labor conditions 

 may upset the very basis of their computations. 



