The ARCHITECT
& BUILDING NEWS
Vol. CXVIII — 3077
December 9, 1927
Proprietors: Gilbert Wood & Co., Ltd.
Managing Director: William L. Wood
Editorial, Publishing and Advertisement Offices:
Rolls House, 2 Breams Buildings, London, E. C. 4. Tel.: Holborn 5708 Registered Office: Imperial Buildings, Ludgate Circus, London, E. C. 4
Principal Contents
Notes and Comments............................................. Pages 879, 880 The British Designs at Geneva (Illustrations)................. 881-885, 887 The Future of Sculpture............................................................. 886 Professional Societies.................................................... 886
Decorations at the Tate Gallery (Illustrations)............................ 888-891 Notes in Brief..........................................................................892 New Needs and Modern Notions (Illustration)............................ 893
A Municipal Bathing Enterprise (Illustrations).................. 894-899, 903
Points from Papers.................................................................. 900-903 Building News in Parliament....................................................... 903 London Building Notes......................................................... 904, 905 The Week’s Building News................................................... 906, 907 Building Contracts Open............................................................. 908
Building Tenders......................................................................... 908 Current Market Prices........................................................... 909, 910 Current Measured Rates....................................................... 911, 912
NOTES AND COMMENTS
In announcing, recently, that the roof of Boston Church, Lincolnshire, was one of the latest victims of the death-watch beetle, we questioned whether the numerous attacks on fine old timber roofs, recorded of late years, might not be attributable to some factor in modern conditions that is favourable to the development of this destructive creature. If such a predisposing cause could be established, it might then be possible to devise effective preventive measures.
The point has also occurred to various correspondents
of The Times. Generally speaking, their opinions may be summarised as lack of light and ventilation, or increased temperature due to modern methods of lighting and heating. The suggestion that close roofs are more liable to attack than open ones is hardly borne out by experience; in fact, open roofs seem to for: a the bulk of the sufferers. And as to ventilatiojn, Mr. A. R. Powys points out that the beetle is also active on gate-posts in fields and on dead knots in trees, where there is no lack of ventilation. Mr. A. L. Howard, who believes that the trouble is due
to want of ventilation, takes the matter a step further. He thinks that the attack on the roof of Wesminster Hall was mainly brought about by the imposition of a new outer roof, with close boarding and felting, constructed subsequent to Mr. Carӧc’s examination of the roof many years ago, when it was found to be generally sound. When the roof a few years since was shown to be seriously damaged, Mr. Howard had an opportunity of closely examining it. The results of that examination, taken into conjunction with other cases he had studied, proved to him that before the death-watch beetle can take a proper hold, the timber is attacked by some fungus. He saw signs of this fungal attack in every portion of the roof affected; and every piece of timber which had not been attacked by the beetle was also entirely free from the appearance of the fungus. Professor Munro, of the Entomology Department, Imperial College of Science and Technology, has since written to say that a careful investigation into the relationships between fungal decay and insect attacks in timber is being carried out, in consultation with his Department, by the Forest Products Research Laboratory at Prince’s Risborough. Sufficient preliminary work has been done to show the great importance of the points raised by Mr. Howard. The research work will take time, however. Stocks of beetles are being reared and tested in carefully controlled experiments on timbers attacked by various fungi and in varying degree. Other stocks of beetles are being raised to test the effect on them of various insecticides and timber pre
servatives. The results of these interesting experiments will be awaited with interest; and it is to be hoped that they will lead to the suppression of what appears to be a growing evil. Probably, lack of adequate ventilation may be a root cause, but whether a close-boarded and felted roof is necessarily a predisposing factor is open to question. Mr. Carӧe also thinks, with us, that “there must be some essential difference between mediæval and modern conditions’’
to account for the latter-day activity of the deathwatch beetle, which term, he says, “should include its grub, which is the chief offender. ” Obviously, “if the insect had been as active in and since mediæval days as to-day, hardly a mediæval timber roof would have been left to us. ” A point he discussed with the late Professor Lefroy was the insect’s food — damp wood. Damp wood in roofs may be sapwood — a fruitful source of trouble in building — which absorbs moisture from the atmosphere. Even mediæval builders were not guiltless of using sapwood, as beams have been found where the beetle has eaten off the sap-wood and left the sound heart. Other sources of dampness may be due to leakages in roof or gutter; to ends of timbers resting in walls, damp from some cause; to timbers unventilated or subject to constant change of temperature and to condensation. Modern heating — causing warmed air, charged with moisture in suspension to rise to the roof, where, being rapidly chilled, leaving its moisture condensed on the cold timbers — is a fertile cause of damp timbers. Light, or the lack of it, as an element in the case, Mr. Carӧc regards as not yet proven; but his conclusion is: “Eliminate sap-wood, ventilate your timbers, and
keep your roofs weatherproof. ” The beetle’s attacks are then insured against.
Mr. Bernard Shaw has been criticising Leeds for its slum areas, and the Lord Mayor (Alderman Radcliffe) has made a spirited reply. Half the city has been pulled down and rebuilt in the past twenty years, said the City’s Chief Magistrate, and he hoped that a good deal more would come down in the next ten years, for Leeds had still a number of unhealthy houses. This implied, however, no condemnation of citizens of the past. He recalled buildings, erected with public money, and regarded as fine buildings when he first joined the Council, that would not be tolerated at the present day. That was because they had not the knowledge they now possessed. They did not know the value of sunlight. The architects, health authorities, and so on of those days were as well
& BUILDING NEWS
Vol. CXVIII — 3077
December 9, 1927
Proprietors: Gilbert Wood & Co., Ltd.
Managing Director: William L. Wood
Editorial, Publishing and Advertisement Offices:
Rolls House, 2 Breams Buildings, London, E. C. 4. Tel.: Holborn 5708 Registered Office: Imperial Buildings, Ludgate Circus, London, E. C. 4
Principal Contents
Notes and Comments............................................. Pages 879, 880 The British Designs at Geneva (Illustrations)................. 881-885, 887 The Future of Sculpture............................................................. 886 Professional Societies.................................................... 886
Decorations at the Tate Gallery (Illustrations)............................ 888-891 Notes in Brief..........................................................................892 New Needs and Modern Notions (Illustration)............................ 893
A Municipal Bathing Enterprise (Illustrations).................. 894-899, 903
Points from Papers.................................................................. 900-903 Building News in Parliament....................................................... 903 London Building Notes......................................................... 904, 905 The Week’s Building News................................................... 906, 907 Building Contracts Open............................................................. 908
Building Tenders......................................................................... 908 Current Market Prices........................................................... 909, 910 Current Measured Rates....................................................... 911, 912
NOTES AND COMMENTS
In announcing, recently, that the roof of Boston Church, Lincolnshire, was one of the latest victims of the death-watch beetle, we questioned whether the numerous attacks on fine old timber roofs, recorded of late years, might not be attributable to some factor in modern conditions that is favourable to the development of this destructive creature. If such a predisposing cause could be established, it might then be possible to devise effective preventive measures.
The point has also occurred to various correspondents
of The Times. Generally speaking, their opinions may be summarised as lack of light and ventilation, or increased temperature due to modern methods of lighting and heating. The suggestion that close roofs are more liable to attack than open ones is hardly borne out by experience; in fact, open roofs seem to for: a the bulk of the sufferers. And as to ventilatiojn, Mr. A. R. Powys points out that the beetle is also active on gate-posts in fields and on dead knots in trees, where there is no lack of ventilation. Mr. A. L. Howard, who believes that the trouble is due
to want of ventilation, takes the matter a step further. He thinks that the attack on the roof of Wesminster Hall was mainly brought about by the imposition of a new outer roof, with close boarding and felting, constructed subsequent to Mr. Carӧc’s examination of the roof many years ago, when it was found to be generally sound. When the roof a few years since was shown to be seriously damaged, Mr. Howard had an opportunity of closely examining it. The results of that examination, taken into conjunction with other cases he had studied, proved to him that before the death-watch beetle can take a proper hold, the timber is attacked by some fungus. He saw signs of this fungal attack in every portion of the roof affected; and every piece of timber which had not been attacked by the beetle was also entirely free from the appearance of the fungus. Professor Munro, of the Entomology Department, Imperial College of Science and Technology, has since written to say that a careful investigation into the relationships between fungal decay and insect attacks in timber is being carried out, in consultation with his Department, by the Forest Products Research Laboratory at Prince’s Risborough. Sufficient preliminary work has been done to show the great importance of the points raised by Mr. Howard. The research work will take time, however. Stocks of beetles are being reared and tested in carefully controlled experiments on timbers attacked by various fungi and in varying degree. Other stocks of beetles are being raised to test the effect on them of various insecticides and timber pre
servatives. The results of these interesting experiments will be awaited with interest; and it is to be hoped that they will lead to the suppression of what appears to be a growing evil. Probably, lack of adequate ventilation may be a root cause, but whether a close-boarded and felted roof is necessarily a predisposing factor is open to question. Mr. Carӧe also thinks, with us, that “there must be some essential difference between mediæval and modern conditions’’
to account for the latter-day activity of the deathwatch beetle, which term, he says, “should include its grub, which is the chief offender. ” Obviously, “if the insect had been as active in and since mediæval days as to-day, hardly a mediæval timber roof would have been left to us. ” A point he discussed with the late Professor Lefroy was the insect’s food — damp wood. Damp wood in roofs may be sapwood — a fruitful source of trouble in building — which absorbs moisture from the atmosphere. Even mediæval builders were not guiltless of using sapwood, as beams have been found where the beetle has eaten off the sap-wood and left the sound heart. Other sources of dampness may be due to leakages in roof or gutter; to ends of timbers resting in walls, damp from some cause; to timbers unventilated or subject to constant change of temperature and to condensation. Modern heating — causing warmed air, charged with moisture in suspension to rise to the roof, where, being rapidly chilled, leaving its moisture condensed on the cold timbers — is a fertile cause of damp timbers. Light, or the lack of it, as an element in the case, Mr. Carӧc regards as not yet proven; but his conclusion is: “Eliminate sap-wood, ventilate your timbers, and
keep your roofs weatherproof. ” The beetle’s attacks are then insured against.
Mr. Bernard Shaw has been criticising Leeds for its slum areas, and the Lord Mayor (Alderman Radcliffe) has made a spirited reply. Half the city has been pulled down and rebuilt in the past twenty years, said the City’s Chief Magistrate, and he hoped that a good deal more would come down in the next ten years, for Leeds had still a number of unhealthy houses. This implied, however, no condemnation of citizens of the past. He recalled buildings, erected with public money, and regarded as fine buildings when he first joined the Council, that would not be tolerated at the present day. That was because they had not the knowledge they now possessed. They did not know the value of sunlight. The architects, health authorities, and so on of those days were as well