Text 2. Building houses

Most houses are built of wood, brick, stone and concrete. In the construction the first step to make is a careful survey of the site. A surveyor measures the plot of land or site and makes a plan of it. After the plot of land has been chosen, and it is then time to decide what kind of house is to be built. An architect draws pictures of what the house will look like when it is built. He draws plans to show the size of the house, the shape of the rooms and where all the fittings must go in the house. Every detail of a house must be carefully planned. The working plan itself is called a blueprint. Without a blueprint the workmen would make all sorts of mistakes and waste a lot of time.

Further on quite a lot of people work together to make the house. The building process takes place under the supervision of foremen and engineers, and the structure is put up by bricklayers, carpenters, plasterers, plumbers, painters, lock­smiths, glass-cutters, etc.

Copies of the plan are made and are given to the builder. The builder then marks out the shape of the house on the site. He does this with wooden pegs and tape. Everything is now ready for the workmen to start. They dig away the top-soil and cut trenches about two or three metres deep along the tapes. The workmen mix cement, sand, pebbles and water in a cement mixer to make concrete. They use the concrete to fill in the bottoms of the trenches. This is called laying the foundations. The walls of the house will be built on the con­crete foundations.

The man who builds walls is called a bricklayer. The bricks are stuck together with mortar. When the walls of the house are too high for the bricklayer to reach, the first scaffold is made. A scaffold is a platform of planks for the work­men to stand on. This is usually held up by a frame of steel tubes. Extra scaffolds are put up as the workmen need them. As the bricklayer works he often looks at the plans. Then he will know where to build in the doors, win­dows and ventilators.

A carpenter now begins to work. He is the man who does the rough woodwork of the house. When the walls are at the level of the first floor he puts in the wooden floor joists. These are strong wooden beams which will carry the upstairs floors and hold up the ceilings in the downstairs rooms. Then the joiner fixes the window-ledges and when the walls are plastered he fixes the doors and other woodwork.

Today most of the woodwork is made at a joinery works. At the joinery works, machines plane the wood smooth and cut it to the right size. Machines also make the joints ready for the men to fit the pieces together. Doors, window frames and even the stairs all come to the building site on lorries. They are ready to be fixed in the houses.

A lot of strong timber which we cannot see is used to make a roof. The highest beam is called the ridge. The sloping beams are called raft­ers. When the roof is on, many different workmen can come and finish off the house.

Plumbers work on all the water pipes of the house. They lay pipes to carry clean water into the house from the water main. Plumbers also lay pipes to carry waste water away to the sewers.

Glaziers put glass in the window frames to keep out the wind and the rain. When all the wires and pipes are in place the house is ready for the plasterers. They are the men who make the ceilings and walls nice and smooth. The joiners finish all the woodwork in the house, and leave it ready for the painters and decorators.