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The
top soil is valuable, and should be carefully removed to one
side (where it will not be in the way, necessitating subsequent
removal), to be readjusted upon the terraces or other surfaces
for support of grass, flowers, and other vegetation. It is often
foolishly mixed up with the clay and sand, necessitating the
purchase afterward of good soil when top dressing is necessary.
Where
the building to be erected is within the jurisdiction of a
municipal or State Building Department, it is best to have the
plans approved by the department before awarding the contract.
This precaution will cost nothing, and may save charges for
extra work. If such a clause as the following, ‘All work must
be done in accordance with the requirements of the Department of
Buildings, and any changes in the work made by the order of said
department will form a part of this contract, and will be done
by the contractor without cost to the owner,’ is relied upon
to protect the owner, he may rest assured that the contractor
will make due allowance in his estimate price for all
possibilities, and take the benefit of any doubt, when in fact
there need be no doubt.
Let
no one persuade you to make separate contracts with various
contractors - builder, plumber, mason, etc. Unless there is one
responsible contractor for the whole work, each of the
contractors will plead negligence on the part of one or more of
the rest as an excuse for delays. The builder will insist that
the mason did not get his foundations finished in time; the
plasterer will insist that the roofer did not finish in time for
him to commence his work with necessary protection against the
weather, etc. Moreover, - and this is a serious matter, - any
injury to the building by reason of neglect to protect against
the elements will be a matter for which an owner who has various
contractors will alone be responsible, whereas if he has one
contractor, under obligation to finish and deliver the building
in good condition, he will be relieved of protecting the
building from storms, washouts, etc., and will also be relieved
of the expense of paying watchmen for nights and holidays.
Plenty
of time should be given to the various estimating contractors to
make their figures, and money will be lost if they are required
to estimate without sufficient time for investigation.
Frances C. Moore,
How to Build a Home, 1897
In
building, cheapness is not always true economy. To build without
a reasonable regard for strength and durability, merely for the
sake of saving, evinces but a short-sighted frugality.
The
question of economy is not a simple geometrical problem, as some
would have us consider it. It is not difficult to decide what
form of structure will give, with the least amount of material,
and at the lowest cost of erection, the greatest quantity of
cubic space. Leaving out of the question looks and convenience,
the rule might do for a temporary barn, which is to hold nothing
but hay; and this is about the extent of its application.
Spare
no pains to obtain the services of honest, intelligent
master-mechanics, as deficiencies of construction and execution,
and heavy bills of extras, are more frequently the result of
dull incapacity and stupid neglect than of a grasping
disposition, or of a willful intention to deceive.
Calvert Vaux, Villas
& Cottages, 1867
It is not enough
that he who proposes to build should have fully planned the
structure, and that all its particulars are distinctly fixed in
his own mind. This plan must be made equally clear to the
mechanics who are to execute it. It should be so plain as to
leave no chance for misunderstanding or perversion. And this
requires that all the parts which can be so represented should
be shown by drawings made to a scale sufficiently large to admit
of measurement by the workmen. Every thing of importance for
them to know, which cannot be drawn, should be fully described
in writing. Floor-plans, showing the position and dimensions of
walls and partitions; elevations, giving the form of each side,
with the windows, doors, and other details; framing plans,
determining the size and place of each stick of timber to be
used; sections of mouldings, cornices, stairs, and all those
parts which are of irregular outline; the whole accompanied by
careful specifications of the quality of all materials, and the
manner of their use,—are not only necessary in order to
estimate, before building, what it will cost, hut form the
surest safeguard against misunderstandings, and against the
taking of wrongful advantage when work is done by contract.
Henry W.
Cleaveland, Village & Farm Cottages, 1856
A
good deal of observation and experience has convinced us that
building by contract is, in nearly all cases, the better mode in
this country. If your master-workman is a man of integrity, he
will serve you as faithfully under a fair contract as by the day’s-work
system, and, if he is not, there is even more likelihood of your
being cheated in the latter case than in the former. Letting the
work under contract, makes the contractor the only accountable
person, and your own supervision is confined to observing that
he fulfills the conditions of his contract; and rids you,
besides, of the trouble of watching a dozen or twenty
subordinates.
There is an
opinion strongly maintained by some (and for the indulgence of
which they are willing to pay dearly), that good workmanship can
only come by the day-work system. We have not found, on
comparison of houses built in the different modes, that there is
any practical truth in it. Everything, as we have said, depends
on the master-workman, and, in this country, if he is allowed a
fair compensation for the ‘job,’ we believe as much justice
is always done in one case as the other.
A.J.Downing, Hints
to Persons About Building in the Country, 1847
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