Give Them Foundations and Roofs

By IACK DIANNE

The other day I heard an earnest and progressive lumber merchant make a talk on the duties and responsibilities of the modern lumber dealer, and he laid stress on one particular thing that interested me very much.

He said there was one duty that he would like to se€ every lumber dealer assume and shoulder and keep always before him in his selling of homes, and that is the absolute necessity for seeing that every home he furnishes the materials for has the right kind of a FOUNDATION and the right kind of a ROOF

"The average home that we sell today, to people of modest means" he said, "is paid for in from six to nine years time. And yet a sadly large percentage of all those homes are being constructed with inferior foundations and roofs. In late years there has been a strong tendency to cut down the cost of a home by reducing the cost of the foundation. Likewise we are putting roofs on a world of new homes that we know won't be there and in good shape six to nine years from now, when the home is finally paid for. I believe it is a solemn duty of the lumber merchant to look over the foundation and roof specificatios of the modest homes he sells materials for, and tell the owner frankly if he is putting too little into the two great extremities of the building-the foundation and the roof. I believe that it is misplaced effort to save in those two departments. We.are running too strongly to light foundations and poor roofs. If you will put a stout foundation under a home, that home will be plumb and sound when it is finally paid for; and if you put the right kind of a roof on a home, it will give like protection from the top. You can economize better be(ween the roof and the foundation, than you can at either top or bottom."

We believe this gentleman has uttered a profound truth in this statement. We have stood and watched the framework of a world of these modern bungalows Bo up, and marvelled that men have the temerity to put such flimsy foundations under the abode of human beings. To have seen hundreds of such, of late, where every man working on the job knows full well that the walls and ceilings and floors of that house are going to be out of line before the house is well seasoned. It can't be any other way.

And a poor roof is almost as bad. The protection of the roof means the welfare of the entire structure. And a roof that has to be mended to keep it tight, and finally replaced after a few years, should never go onto a home; at least not on a home that some earnest man and woman are saving their money to own.

YOU are a building specialist, Mr. Lumber Dealer. Tell your trade the TRUTH, when you find them putting the wrong kiiid of structure UNDER or OVER their new home.