NEW NEEDS & MODERN NOTIONS — IX
By Edwin Gunn, A. R. I. B. A.
Bathrooms. —The bathroom in the house of moderate size has commonly little space to spare. Where the internal dimensions are only about 7 ft. by 5 ft. it is certainly important that every effort should be made to prevent waste of precious inches, and with this end every detail should be scrutinised with care. It should not be overlooked, for instance, that in rooms such as bathrooms and w. c. ’s, where it is unnecessary to provide for ingress of bulky furniture, a 2-ft. door is ample, and its reduced arc in opening is equivalent to a proportionate increase in the floor space.
The square top “enclosed front’’ type of bath
is also, in effect, a spacesaver, since, fitting tight into a corner or recess without need for the preservation of a space for cleaning (four inches is necessary to allow hand and arm to do this difficult and much neglected work), and permitting the now inevitable tile wall lining to finish down on to its rim, only its net overall size need be considered. This type of bath has been an expensive luxury, out of the reach of the small house-owner, until comparatively recent months, but Messrs. Rownson Drew now supply one
which, complete in every way, costs under £7 with fittings. Its overall dimensions are 5 ft. 6½ in. long by 2 ft. 6 in. wide by 23 in. deep, so that a room of the dimensions first-named can accommodate it, with lavatory basin and w. c. fitting as well, and still leave space for a stool. It is not, perhaps, fashionable for the architect to concern himself with such items as soap and sponge holders, toothbrush racks, and sanitary roll-holders, which are usually fixed by the occupier with other furnishing accessories. So dealt with, they are not unusually poorly placed and weakly fixed, and in any case they are then projections, and as such restrict the limited free area and are apt to receive knocks which loosen or break them. In conjunction with wall linings of 6-in. or 8-in. tiles it has been an occasional practice to form recesses 4 in. deep, and either a whole or half tile in size, tile-lined, as niches for the bathroom etceteras. Special recessed fittings are now available to fulfil all the above purposes, and course with the wall tiling. On the score of fixing security alone they deserve wholesale adoption, even without the manifest advantages of neatness, cleanliness, and space-saving.
The bathroom floor is subject to different considerations from any other apartment. Obviously it should be jointless, and, in the presence of water from the splashings of exuberant bathers, linoleum overlaying boards is not ideal. With the ordinary type of bath, moreover, the floor covering should be laid before fixing. A good asbetic composition floor seems on the whole most suitable, and when laid on boards it is well to cover the surface first with galvanised wire netting, stapled down, as when embedded in the plastic composition it will ensure homogeneity and prevent cracks developing along the lines of the floor boards as these shrink. It is not by any means cer
tain that the wire netting will endure when buried in this substance, but before it has decayed the floor boarding should have settled down and ceased to move. The flooring should be turned up as a cove skirting below the wall tiling.
A small attachment to the w. c. flush pipe, designed to weep a regulated quantity of disinfectant after the flush each time the fitting is used, is a neat and systematic substitute for the more usual nasty-looking and erratically used bottle of disinfectant.
The right treatment for bathroom walls and ceilings where tiling does not extend is difficult to find. Any non-absorbent surface condenses steam freely, while absorbent surfaces, such as distemper, absorb to the point of saturation. Either process is apt to result in rapid deterioration from the dust marks and staining which follows the wet condition. On the whole, perhaps a flat (nonglossy) surface such as “Duresco” shows least
effect of such marks, but Blundell’s “Pammel”
also stands steam and condensation very well. Most distempers (patent or otherwise) are apt to change colour or scab off, and ordinary paint or enamel gets a surface bloom.
The Ministry of Health have issued a Code of Statutory Rules relating to Local Land Charges made by the Lord Chancellor under the Land Charges Act, 1925, as amended by the Law of Property (Amendment) Act, 1926. This revised Code comes into force on December 1 next, and copies of it, price 3d. net each, can be obtained from H. M. Stationery Office, Adastral House, Kingsway, London, W. C. 2.
Sir Kingsley Wood, M. P., Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, at the opening of the 1, 000th house on the Lunt Housing Estate, Bilston, recorded that a million houses had now been erected since the War.
The footings of the old “Wery Wall,” close to Lancaster Castle, have been exposed as a result of excavations undertaken for the Chairman and Curator of the Lancaster Museum by Professors Droop and Newstead, to establish the date of the structure, with a view to getting the remains scheduled as an ancient monument. Remains of Roman pottery and a silver coin of Nero were found in the soil below the footing of the wall.
A gift of £100, 000 by Dr. E. S. Harkness, of New York, to St. Andrew’s University, is, by the desire of the donor, to be applied in part for the decoration of the chapel and for the foundation of valuable residential scholarships. About £30, 000 is to be allocated for the erection of a residential college on the model of the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges, and will thus constitute St. Andrew’s as a residential University for Scotland.
By Edwin Gunn, A. R. I. B. A.
Bathrooms. —The bathroom in the house of moderate size has commonly little space to spare. Where the internal dimensions are only about 7 ft. by 5 ft. it is certainly important that every effort should be made to prevent waste of precious inches, and with this end every detail should be scrutinised with care. It should not be overlooked, for instance, that in rooms such as bathrooms and w. c. ’s, where it is unnecessary to provide for ingress of bulky furniture, a 2-ft. door is ample, and its reduced arc in opening is equivalent to a proportionate increase in the floor space.
The square top “enclosed front’’ type of bath
is also, in effect, a spacesaver, since, fitting tight into a corner or recess without need for the preservation of a space for cleaning (four inches is necessary to allow hand and arm to do this difficult and much neglected work), and permitting the now inevitable tile wall lining to finish down on to its rim, only its net overall size need be considered. This type of bath has been an expensive luxury, out of the reach of the small house-owner, until comparatively recent months, but Messrs. Rownson Drew now supply one
which, complete in every way, costs under £7 with fittings. Its overall dimensions are 5 ft. 6½ in. long by 2 ft. 6 in. wide by 23 in. deep, so that a room of the dimensions first-named can accommodate it, with lavatory basin and w. c. fitting as well, and still leave space for a stool. It is not, perhaps, fashionable for the architect to concern himself with such items as soap and sponge holders, toothbrush racks, and sanitary roll-holders, which are usually fixed by the occupier with other furnishing accessories. So dealt with, they are not unusually poorly placed and weakly fixed, and in any case they are then projections, and as such restrict the limited free area and are apt to receive knocks which loosen or break them. In conjunction with wall linings of 6-in. or 8-in. tiles it has been an occasional practice to form recesses 4 in. deep, and either a whole or half tile in size, tile-lined, as niches for the bathroom etceteras. Special recessed fittings are now available to fulfil all the above purposes, and course with the wall tiling. On the score of fixing security alone they deserve wholesale adoption, even without the manifest advantages of neatness, cleanliness, and space-saving.
The bathroom floor is subject to different considerations from any other apartment. Obviously it should be jointless, and, in the presence of water from the splashings of exuberant bathers, linoleum overlaying boards is not ideal. With the ordinary type of bath, moreover, the floor covering should be laid before fixing. A good asbetic composition floor seems on the whole most suitable, and when laid on boards it is well to cover the surface first with galvanised wire netting, stapled down, as when embedded in the plastic composition it will ensure homogeneity and prevent cracks developing along the lines of the floor boards as these shrink. It is not by any means cer
tain that the wire netting will endure when buried in this substance, but before it has decayed the floor boarding should have settled down and ceased to move. The flooring should be turned up as a cove skirting below the wall tiling.
A small attachment to the w. c. flush pipe, designed to weep a regulated quantity of disinfectant after the flush each time the fitting is used, is a neat and systematic substitute for the more usual nasty-looking and erratically used bottle of disinfectant.
The right treatment for bathroom walls and ceilings where tiling does not extend is difficult to find. Any non-absorbent surface condenses steam freely, while absorbent surfaces, such as distemper, absorb to the point of saturation. Either process is apt to result in rapid deterioration from the dust marks and staining which follows the wet condition. On the whole, perhaps a flat (nonglossy) surface such as “Duresco” shows least
effect of such marks, but Blundell’s “Pammel”
also stands steam and condensation very well. Most distempers (patent or otherwise) are apt to change colour or scab off, and ordinary paint or enamel gets a surface bloom.
The Ministry of Health have issued a Code of Statutory Rules relating to Local Land Charges made by the Lord Chancellor under the Land Charges Act, 1925, as amended by the Law of Property (Amendment) Act, 1926. This revised Code comes into force on December 1 next, and copies of it, price 3d. net each, can be obtained from H. M. Stationery Office, Adastral House, Kingsway, London, W. C. 2.
Sir Kingsley Wood, M. P., Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, at the opening of the 1, 000th house on the Lunt Housing Estate, Bilston, recorded that a million houses had now been erected since the War.
The footings of the old “Wery Wall,” close to Lancaster Castle, have been exposed as a result of excavations undertaken for the Chairman and Curator of the Lancaster Museum by Professors Droop and Newstead, to establish the date of the structure, with a view to getting the remains scheduled as an ancient monument. Remains of Roman pottery and a silver coin of Nero were found in the soil below the footing of the wall.
A gift of £100, 000 by Dr. E. S. Harkness, of New York, to St. Andrew’s University, is, by the desire of the donor, to be applied in part for the decoration of the chapel and for the foundation of valuable residential scholarships. About £30, 000 is to be allocated for the erection of a residential college on the model of the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges, and will thus constitute St. Andrew’s as a residential University for Scotland.