RAPID AND ECONOMICAL METHODS OF HOUSE BUILDING. 
ramming, but provided it be conscientiously carried out the work is 
extremely easy and almost all of it—even the adjustment of the shutter- 
ing—can be carried out by unskilled labour. The pisé walling for the 
house at Newlands Corner was put up, under my supervision, in 
twenty-six days by two unskilled men, men who had had no previous 
experience of pisé work or, indeed, of any other building. The cost 
of the pisé house-walls came to under £20, and this sum was, of course, 
merely the wages bill for the two men, the material used for the walling 
being dug on the spot. The estimate for the same run of walling in 
brickwork was over £200. At Newlands Corner I used a brick footing 
and a slate damp-course, but this was an unnecessary extravagance. In 
later buildings the pisé is imposed direct on the concrete, save for the 
intervention of a bitumen-sheet damp-course. we 
The use of a pliable damp-course in place of slates does away with 
the brick-course that was necessary above the latter to protect it from 
fracture by ramming. When the walls had been up for less than two 
months they were dry enough for the house to be occupied with perfect 
impunity. It is noteworthy that the walls of the first rough shed put 
up by Mr. Strachey in 1915 are now so hard that it is difficult to make 
any impression on them with a knife or hammer. ~ 
It is stated in the old books that it is well to protect pisé by good 
eaves, and I therefore obediently took this precaution in designing the 
small-holder’s house. “Mr. Strachey, however, in building his shed left 
the gable end entirely unprotected, where it was further,exposed to the 
drip of a tree. The wall has not suffered in the least, and no damp 
whatever has penetrated. ; 
When they are up the walls can be plain colour-washed, cement- 
rendered, plastered rough-cast, or sprayed with hot tar, and subse- 
quently colour-washed on the top. I think that with the improved 
shuttering and the smooth surface that results, it will be possible to 
paper the interior walls directly without the interposition of plaster. 
It is, perhaps, unnecessary to insist upon the non-conducting pro- 
parties of earth to a nation which banks up its potatoes in winter. 
isé, as is to be expected, compares extremely favorably in this respect 
with all the materials used for walling, quite apart from the extra 
thickness usually implied by its use. 
Every one, except a certain section of the press and its docile 
public, is alive to the imperfection of wood houses in regard to heat 
and cold, even if suitable wood for the construction were readily 
available, which it is, most emphatically not. Aware of our own 
timber shortage, I was still considerably surprised by receiving a 
number of letters from Canada and Scandinavia stating that, owing to 
the lumber shortage, the freight difficulties, and the various drawbacks 
attaching to log or frame houses, the possibilities of pisé building were 
receiving wide attention; my Spectator articles on the subject having, 
for instance, been quoted at length in Swedish newspapers. 
The “wooden house” press has told us to turn our eyes to these 
‘very countries, for from thence should come our salvation. 
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