A correspondent of the Times, Mr. Roger Smith, writing in
last Saturday's paper, asks whether the problem of the better housing of people in the country could not be solved by using a cheaper material for cottages. Why not, he asks, try wood? The only answer is that the foolish and pedantic by-laws adopted in many Rural Unions forbid the erection of wooden houses. Yet wooden houses are not only cheap, and easy and quick of erection, but are warm in winter and cool in summer,. wood being a great non-conductor of heat and cold. In Surrey there are hundreds of old wooden cottages, weather. boarded outside, and lath and plaster inside, which have stood seventy or eighty years. Such cottages could now be built a good deal more cheaply than in brick. One advantage of a wooden cottage is that it can be removed if not wanted. No doubt if the Unions were not allowed to dictate as to the use of materials, all sorts of improvements would be made in building in light materials. All that the public authority should be allowed to do is to inspect any new house when completed, and say then whether or not it is fit for human habitation. The first thing is to get the by-laws forbidding any material but brick and stone done away with. Next we should like to see an Exhibition held in London of cheap and light buildings and building materials. Paper an inch thick and waterproofed, set in a wooden frame, should make a good outside wall.
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