The Construction of the Small House: A Simple and Useful Source of Information of the Methods of Building Small American Homes, for Anyone Planning to BuildWalsh, H. Vandervoort (Harold Vandervoort)
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The Construction of the Small House: A Simple and Useful Source of Information of the Methods of Building Small American Homes, for Anyone Planning to Build
Walsh, H. Vandervoort (Harold Vandervoort)
Building; Dwellings
Sometimes porch floors give trouble from “dusting” and wearing away of
the surface to a gritty and rough condition. This may have been caused
by allowing the floor to dry too quickly or by having trowelled it
too much and drawn cement to the surface. It may be remedied by using
some one of the commercial floor hardeners or by painting the floor
with water-glass solution or boiled linseed-oil. Water-glass solution
should be diluted with 4 to 6 parts of water and applied with a brush
in as many coats as the concrete will absorb. When boiled linseed-oil
is used, it should be allowed to dry between coats, and as many coats
should be added as the concrete will absorb. Both of these treatments
will darken the floor, but the latter will darken it the most, and
appears to be more effective.
_Tennis-Court_
In laying out any other platform construction of concrete, such as a
tennis-court, the same principles of construction should be observed
which were given above for sidewalks. However, more care should be
taken with the drainage and foundation of the tennis-court. Not only
should the 6-inch cinder or gravel bed be laid, but all around the
outer edge of the court should be dug a trench about 18 inches wide and
3 feet deep. There should be laid at the bottom of this a drain-pipe,
with open joints, sloping from the centre of one end of the court
around both sides and joining together again at the middle of the other
end and connected with another pipe to carry off the water of that
drain-pipe to some lower level. The diameter of the drain-pipe should
be about 5 inches and the slope 6 inches from its highest level to its
lowest level. The upper surface of the court itself should slope across
from one long side to the other with a pitch of 2 inches. The division
lines of the slabs should follow as closely as possible the division
lines of the tennis-court. The length of the concrete platform should
be 21 feet greater at each end than the length of the court and the
width 12 feet wider each side. This makes the entire concrete court 60
feet by 120 feet.
[Illustration: Concrete Tennis-Court]
_Concrete Driveway_
[Illustration: Concrete Runways to Garage]
Such driveways may lead to the garage or up to the porch of the house.
One of the cheapest types to the garage is a double runway for the
wheels of the automobile. These runways should be about 4 feet 8 inches
on centres and made 18 inches wide. They should be constructed in the
same way that walks are built.
Where a full-width concrete driveway is built, it should be made about
6 inches thick at the centre and 5 inches at the edges, sloping from
the centre out. At intervals of every 25 feet expansion joints should
be built as was specified for walks.
_Concrete Steps_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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