HOW A SMALL BRICK HOUSE IS BUILT
Houses are more than just bricks and mortar. Before any bricks are laid a lot of thinking and planning has to be done. The plot of land has to be chosen, and it is then decided what kind of house is to be built. Quite a lot of people all work together to make the house.
A surveyor measures the plot of land or site and makes a plan of it. 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.
The plan of the house is drawn on to the plan of the site, ready for the builder. Copies of the plan are made and are given to the builder. He gives a copy to the men in charge of the different work that will have to be done. 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 spaces between the foundations walls are filled with concrete. This is sometimes used as a base for the floor of the building.
The man who builds walls is called a bricklayer. The bricks are stuck together with mortar. To make the walls stronger the bricks must overlap each other. This is called bonding.
When the walls are just above the ground a layer of waterproof felt or slate is laid. This is called a damp-proof course and stops damp in the ground passing to the rest of the house. 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 doors and other woodwork.
Nearly all the woodwork in a house used to be done by carpenters and joiners on the building site. This took quite a lot of time. 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.
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 soon as the men get on to the scaffold all the things they need have to be lifted up to them. Men used to carry bricks and mortar up ladders. Now there are many different ways of getting these things up to the scaffolds. Some builders use elevators. These are like moving staircases. A man at the bottom puts the materials on, and a man on the scaffold platform takes them off. On tall buildings the builder may use a lift which can be moved to different places. All these things help the workmen to build houses more quickly.
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 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 the decorators.