Building Indestructible Homes in Four Days 
transportation and assembling of these. It is in the 
construction of these molds that the new method 
differs from the Edison system, and although in both 
cases the result is a concrete monolith, the similarity 
ends there. The new system uses a series of inter¬ 
changeable molds in separate pieces, and by means of 
various combinations of these, different designs, 
shapes, and sizes of houses may be obtained. The 
progress of the work under this method would be 
somewhat as follows;—The molds and reinforcing 
rods are assembled and set up on the desired site the 
first day and the concrete for the first floor is then 
poured; on the second day the molds are changed 
and the concrete for the second story is poured, and so 
the work progresses, a completed story a day. For 
the average size of dwelling, the whole house could be 
constructed in four days. 
It is not to be supposed that this will include the 
plumbing, electric light wiring, or paper hanging, but 
it does provide for floors, partitions, ceilings, stair¬ 
cases, porches, outside steps, fireplaces, mantles, and 
in fact, everything which could be considered a part 
and parcel of the house proper. Should any orna¬ 
mental design be desired, either inside or out, pat¬ 
terns may be introduced in the proper molds. 
The system of molds is not the only invention 
which contributes to the rapid completion of a mono¬ 
lith house, as is evidenced by the various devices in 
use in this connection. One of the most interesting 
of these adjuncts is the mixing machine which, 
when fed with the proper proportion of cement, sand, 
water, and crushed stone, will deliver a steady stream 
of concrete of the right consistency at the rate of 
sixty cubic yards every ten hours. With several of 
these machines operated by a small force of men, a 
sufficient quantity of well-mixed concrete can be sup¬ 
plied to fill the molds in the required time. Operated 
in conjunction with the mixers is the conveyor, of a 
special type which transports the concrete in a steady 
and uninterrupted stream to the molds; and by the 
use of these two labor-saving devices, a maximum 
amount of work can be accomplished with minimum 
attendant labor and consequent expense. 
A study of the cost at which an ordinary eight- 
room dwelling can be erected by this method is in¬ 
teresting and instructive as showing the possibilities 
for relief which will soon be offered the dwellers of 
the tenement districts of the large cities. The orig¬ 
inal cost of the molds will be in the neighborhood of 
^10,000, but as these can be used in the construction 
of thousands of separate houses and will probably be 
operated by contractors, the cost will be seen to be 
small when distributed among the individual build¬ 
ings. The labor and material necessary for the con¬ 
struction of the house and the removal of the molds 
will probably aggregate in the neighborhood of $\200, 
and if to this be added another thousand to cover the 
cost of interior decorating, plumbing, wiring, doors. 
windows, and the like, we have a comfortable, sub¬ 
stantial, sanitary dwelling erected at a total expendi¬ 
ture of a little over half of what any other form of 
construction would cost. 
The fields which this cheap method of house 
building open up are practically unlimited, but 
undoubtedly medium-sized dwellings will probably 
offer the largest for the use of this method of con¬ 
crete construction. 
There is one thing a man should remember when 
giving his order for a reinforced concrete house: 
“As a man builds his house, so shall he occupy it,” 
there can be no tearing down of this wing and adding 
of that, no cutting of a doorway through here or 
removal of a partition there, for alterations cannot be 
made after concrete has once “set.” Dynamite is 
about the only agent suitable for such a task as de¬ 
molishing, and the final cost of this process would 
probably be several times that of the erection of an 
entirely new building. Reinforced concrete struc¬ 
tures are even earthquake-proof; it was a noticeable 
fact that the majority of the buildings which survived 
the recent San Francisco disaster were the monoliths 
of this type of construction—pretty good evidence 
that it would require more than the ordinary methods 
to tear down one of these “four-day mushrooms,” 
and that they are built to last. 
When one considers the number of concrete build¬ 
ings in process of construction and already erected, 
and remembers the difficulties, excessive cost and 
disadvantages under which they were built, he real¬ 
izes the field open to this interchangeable mold 
system which reduces the time, labor, and expense 
by half. 
A striking example of the widespread use of con¬ 
crete construction can be found in the newly com¬ 
pleted shops of the New York Central system at 
Indianapolis. Here the large repair shops, store¬ 
rooms, supply houses, and even the workmen’s 
dwellings are all built of concrete, and there is 
scarcely a stick of wood in the whole plant. Concrete 
makes the best foundations for stationary engines and 
heavy machinery such as derricks, cranes, steam 
hammers and the like, but this is probably the first 
instance in which this material has been used ex¬ 
clusively in the construction of the entire plant. 
If this railroad, which like all other successful cor¬ 
porations is looking for the best results with the least 
attendant expenditure of money, has decided that 
concrete is the best building material for its purposes, 
its almost universal use when the interchangeable 
steel mold system is thoroughly installed may well be 
imagined. Then, it is to be hoped, there will be 
more of these “model towns” built with the work¬ 
men’s homes erected near the factories, and with 
clean, well-lighted buildings replacing the dim, dirty, 
and ramshackle shops of many of our largest and 
most important industries. 
