V"yerhaeuser Erects Demonstration House at Seattle

Constructed Entirely o[ Units Prefabricated at the Company's Mills

Seattle, Wash.-A demonstration home, the first of a series which fundamentally changes small house construction, has just been built at 545 36th Avenue North, Seattle, Washington, by the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, Tacoma, Wash. The home is of a novel modern design, constructed entirely of units prefabricated at the mills of the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company. It is one story, has a flat roof and contains an automatic heating and air conditioning unit. The layout is similar to that of the most modern apartment house, although the home is located on a large landscaped lot in a setting of trees and shrubs.

After the foundations were laid the house was completed in twenty-one working days, although weather conditions during the entire operation were the worst experienced in western Washington in a great many years. The speed in construction was thq result of the units being fully manufactured and finished at the mill. The entire framework, all partitions, closets, doors and windows were first brought together at the mill and made into units. These units were transported to the site in the forrn of panels, which needed only to be joined and tightened.

A unit consists of :

(1) Sections of wall complete with window frames, sash and screens, doors, transoms and screen doors, and glass and hardware;

(2) Interior partitions which duplicate the wall units except that the sheathing and interior finish is omitted, and closets, wardrobes, drawers, or mirrors included;

(3) Portions of the ceiling and the roof.

All these were delivered at the job in sections for joining. The assembling carpenters worked practically without tools, lumber or nails.

The wall units made for this house consist of a series of vertical boards for the exterior, building Paper, Balsam lr'ool blanket with a dead air space in between, and Douglas fir plywood on the inside. These units are the basic elements in the manufacture of prefabricated housing, being complete in themselves and capable of forming any size or arrang'ement of rooms in multiples of the unit width. A wedged U-bolt is used to fasten the wall units to adjacent units and to the floor and ceiling structure.

The sub-structure above the foundations consists of a sill plate in lengths multiple of the rvall unit and with drilled holes in spaced intervals to bolt to the foundation.

The headers and floor joints are also in length multiples of the wall units, the joints fitted into notches cut into the headers at one-half and one unit intervals and spiked to the headers after being dropped into place.

Headers are spiked to the sill plates and the floor plates spiked to the headers.

Floor plates are router drilled for the U-bolts which are used to securely fasten the wall units to the floor plates. Solid bridging of exact sizes is provided, making for exceptional stiffness of the sub-structure.

It is not necessary in this type of construction to lay the sub-floor until after the wall units are in place and it is a very simple matter to install the plumbing, heating and wiring equipment in the four walls, under the floor, and over the ceiling as soon as the roof is on.

Announcements concerning this first and experimental unit-F. R. Titcomb, general manager, Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, made the following statement:

"It became apparent to our company during the depression that if the manufacturing and sale of home building materials were to keep abreast of the improvements constantly being made in other fields, there would have to be a substantial reduction in the time consumed in building, as well as the more definite determination of the cost of homes contracted for.

"It is desirable from the purchaser's viewpoint, as well as from the dealer's and manufacturer's, that a house should be a more nearly finished product, and recent progress made in the housing field has been in that direction. We, therefore, concentrated on the problem of factory manufacture of the frame and finish of the house in predetermined unit sizes which could be produced in quantity and completely finished ready for shipment.

"In order to find out ourselves just what we had accomplished in our study, we decided to manufacture and erect a demonstration house.

"This first house is only one of many designs in types ranging from the simplest of cottages to substantial urban residences possible to manufacture in the mill and assemble on a site and in a minimum time for a clefinite selling price.

"Perhaps the time is not yet arrived, but we believe it is coming, when a prospective owner can go to a dealer and choose his own home and move in it two weeks later."

The unit and the method of manufacturing were developed in the Housing Research Department of the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company under the direction of C. W. Drew, an architect, rvho rvas assisted by Henry Fey and R. L. Reamer, both as consulting architects, of Seattle.

Change Of Address

The Los Angeles office of the Philippine Mahogany Manufacturers' Import Association, the Administrative Agency of the Philippine Mahogany Subdivision of the Lumber and Timber Products Industries Code of Fair Competition, has been moved from the Central Building to the Board of Trade Building, 111 West Seventh Street. The -telephone number, TUcker 3585, remains unchanged.