78 
House & Garden 
18 2 8 
'lire 
VOLNEY 
Jfavaiory 
The Volne.v lav¬ 
atory is illustrated 
in the new Mott 
bathroom book. 
This book is full 
of interesting sug¬ 
gestions and is a 
revelation in 
plumbing equip¬ 
ment and tiling 
f or the modern 
bathroom, illus¬ 
trated in color. 
Send for your 
copy now. Ad¬ 
dress Dept. A. 
The Unobstructed Floor 
Step by step from the tin basin to the wood 
encased wash bowl. Onward again in a great 
advance to “open plumbing”—culminating in 
the beautiful modern lavatory with its archi¬ 
tectural lines and well proportioned pedestals 
and legs: 
Thus has progress been made, while new re¬ 
finements in finish and design are constantly 
being developed. 
The “Volney” wall suspended lavatory is 
essentially a Mott creation. 
It may be easily attached to any type of wall. 
The unobstructed floor is a delight to the 
housekeeper. 
It is a giant in strength, an attractive, well 
designed fixture, made in solid porcelain and 
vitreous china. 
The J. L. MOTT IRON WORKS, Trenton,'. N./. 
New York, Fifth Avenue and Seventeenth Street 
•Boston 
•Chicago 
•Lincoln, Neb. 
•Jacksonville. Fla. 
•St. Paul. Minn. 
Fargo, N. D. 
Sioux Falls. S. D. 
•Minneapolis. Minn. 
Duluth, Minn. 
•Cincinnati. Ohio 
•New Orleans 
•Des Moines 
•Detroit 
•Toledo 
•Indianapolis 
•Dayton. Ohio 
•St. Louis 
•Kansas City, Mo. 
MOTT COMPANY, Limited 
'Montreal. •Toronto, 
Winnipeg. Canada 
MOTT CO. of PENNA. 
•Philadelphia, Pa. 
•Salt Lake City 
Newark, N. J. 
Pittsburgh 
•Washington, D. C. 
Columbus, O. 
Houston, Texas 
•Portland, Ore. 
El Paso, Texas 
•Havana, Cuba 
Cleveland, O. 
MOTT SOUTHERN CO. 
•Atlanta, (la. 
Charlotte, N. C. 
MOTT CO. of CALIFORNIA 
•San Francisco 
Los Angeles 
•Showrooms equipped with model bathrooms 
Shall You Build, Buy or Rent? 
(Continued from page 76) 
on the principal, thus decreasing his 
indebtedness rapidly, so that he can 
take out a small second mortgage on 
the house. 
With this money he will buy a sec¬ 
ond lot and repeat the building opera¬ 
tions which were so successful in the 
first instance. He estimates that by 
this method he can, in the next ten 
years, have at least six fine renting 
properties and be drawing anywhere 
from six to ten per cent on large sums 
of money which belong to some other 
fellow. 
Renters who are paying what 
they feel to be a large compen¬ 
sation for their accommodation are 
prone to ask for many improvements, 
but when people own property them¬ 
selves they are willing to put up with 
the doing of the most necessary things, 
and oftentimes they can do a job of 
paper hanging or painting in spare time 
themselves. 
The family that is renting naturally 
expects the landlord to redress the 
floors, fix the porch steps, build the 
coal bin in the cellar, and furnish a 
plumber to clean out the trap under 
the kitchen sink. But in the end these 
bills are all reckoned in and the renter 
pays for them. If you and I own the 
house ourselves we are very likely to 
figure out how we can do the work in 
our own spare time and save any out¬ 
lay. It is a good thrift rule to paste 
upon your mirror that “If you do a 
necessary task yourself you are richer 
by the amount of what you have 
saved.” 
There is an old saying that it always 
costs twice as much to build as people 
estimate in the beginning. To avoid 
this work out your plans carefully and 
make sure that your building estimates 
are complete and correct. 
If you plan to have the house elec¬ 
trically lighted it is cheaper and better 
to put in a protected wiring system 
when the building is being done. If 
you wish a maid’s lavatory in the 
basement, the time to do it is when 
the plumbing is being installed. If 
you decide to have a gas kitchen, plans 
to that end can be made before the 
walls are plastered and the floors laid, 
more economically than if these plans 
are carried out later. 
If you are going to build be care¬ 
ful to choose a good location which 
will have three characteristics at least 
in its favor. 
First: It should be in a neighbor¬ 
hood or locality which is either grow¬ 
ing and increasing in value, or re¬ 
stricted in its type of buildings, for 
nothing can be more disappointing than 
to put up a comfortable home and to 
have a chemical plant across the street, 
which will continually belch forth noxi¬ 
ous fumes; or to choose a lot in a sec¬ 
tion where undesirable people will con¬ 
gregate. Have an eye to the future. 
Second: The lot should be healthily 
located so as to permit of good drain¬ 
age and a dry basement. Find out 
something about the health statistics of 
that locality, covering a period of sev¬ 
eral years. Is the water supply pure 
and is the location accessible or out of 
the way? What are the fire risks, 
and how much fire protection as a 
property owner can you expect? What 
is the tax rate? Is the property im¬ 
proved or unimproved? 
Third: In the event that at some 
future time you should decide to sell 
the property, would the location of 
the lot and the type of building you 
are putting up appeal to a good many 
people of moderate means? A high- 
priced house which calls for expensive 
service limits the probable list of 
prospective buyers. A very cheap, un¬ 
attractive house is rarely a good sell¬ 
ing proposition, for the extremely poor 
do not have the money to buy, and 
those thrifty enough to be home own¬ 
ers want something with which they 
will be pleased, and which they in turn 
can sell. 
Consider these points, for they all 
have an influence upon final values. 
Now that there are so many different 
means of rapid transportation, it is 
possible for many city and town peo¬ 
ple to go out into some pleasant, airy 
place to build a home. A moderate in¬ 
vestment in a car makes it possible to> 
go back and forth in all weathers,, 
sometimes even home for a noon lunch. 
A home-owning proposition planned 
in a business-like way is an invest¬ 
ment, a means of steady and pleasur¬ 
able saving, and is bound to yield big¬ 
ger dividends in security and satis¬ 
faction. In fact, it is no small de¬ 
gree of satisfaction to know that “We 
are monarchs of all we survey, our 
rights there are none to dispute,” and. 
that we cannot be notified some day- 
that the house has been sold and we- 
must move on. Then, too, a property 
desirable for us will be desirable for 
other people, so if it becomes expedient 
to sell we have something worthwhile. 
All in all, it pays to own a home. 
Figure it out for yourself! 
The Home Fire Hazard 
(Continued from page 58) 
and if safety first doesn’t apply here 
where does it? It will at least keep 
the secretive fire below stairs from 
breaking bounds. 
Where pipes, flues, etc., pass through 
woodwork there should be asbestos or 
metal protection to the wood or else 
here again we will be victims of a lapse 
of precaution. 
Sometimes fires have occurred by the 
closing of all registers in a house heated 
by hot air and the unnatural heat left 
in the furnace overheats pipes, etc., to a 
dangerous degree. In some homes so 
heated there are two registers which 
cannot possibly be closed, and that obvi¬ 
ates overheating. 
Inspection of flues to see that deterio¬ 
rated mortar will not permit the exit of 
fire to surrounding woodwork will pre¬ 
vent many a fire. Very often where 
joists and beams rest on chimneys and 
are not sufficiently insulated against the 
ravages of faulty construction or wear, 
they will catch fire slowly but sure'y. 
Faulty joints in pipes are many times, 
the cause of fire when the rest of the 
home is perfectly guaranteed against it. 
For example, when a stovepipe is fitted 
into another there should be at least a 
3" lap to make a sure join. Imperfect 
junctures of pipe and flue, pipe and 
pipe, make for the escape of sparks and 
consequent fire. Stovepipes should not 
pass through a floor or plaster partition 
or any concealed place, lest a parted 
joint or rust holes may cause mischief. 
Nor should any pipe that is likely to 
be heated pass through an attic where 
fluff is bound to accumulate, unless this 
pipe be insulated with asbestos to pre¬ 
vent ignition. Neither should a stove¬ 
pipe pass through a roof, window, or 
siding even of a summer kitchen; and 
the running of a very long stovepipe 
perpendicularly into a chimney is also 
hazardous. 
A stovepipe or a chimney, no mat¬ 
ter how well isolated by zinc or- 
(Continued on page 82) 
