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THE DAILY TIMES-GAZETTE, Tuesday, March 30, 1952 Builder, Spare That Tree By CYNTHIA LOWRY ONE OF THE IMPORTANT r ple buy h is so they 1 4 can also have grounds. While many builders construct good houses, few of them provide the kind of two or three years after he moves This, of course,-is no reflection struct houses and to make them, as quickly as possible, look less naked with the help a few trees and some sort of planting. Build- ers are rarely landscaping special- or his wife when they buy first house. ¥ I had it to do all over again, I'd have a landscaping man--per- haps my local nurseryman -- an important part of a threesome working towards making my dream ge 0 think, in I re get my worl me before I hired the architect and builder. He could sven save me plenty of money to be dribbled out in later years sticking a speci- men yew here or an arborvitae there, or in . deciduous trees elsewhere. Most of all a good, knowledgeable landscape ar- chitect could even prevent me from making sXpensive mistakes ice in my choi a site for my house. ists. man their TODAY, having been through the wringer several times, I would eonsult with my landscaping fel- low as soon as I found a plot I Mked. 1 would want from him an opinion on the water sitnation--are there underground springs which fury inky Dogs for a peliod 1 gis spring? What kind drainage is there off my property? If there is too much or too little, what can be done -- at the time the houseesis being constructed -- to remedy defects by regrading or building retaining walls? My landscape architect ean tell me what kind of soil I have. He can look over the trees and shrubs on the property and suggest which are worth Saving, and which should go. Sometimes, alas, a builder the best intentions in the world will save a young soft-wood tree which will immediately give a pleasing impression snuggled against 'a house -- and later grow into a big tree which is a problem be- sause of its close proximi ' , and because its fere with the proper functioning " the underground drainage sys- m. SITUATIONS vary Widely. The house which is connected with sew- ers and storm sewers has fewer drainag Sage Jrovlems cvally than jhe eoun! ouse whic equippe: with septic tanks and septic fields and where the drainage can be handled only with fields of agri- cultural tile carrying water to low- er points. But a man who knows bow to cope with these problems will never compound m by Planting les and shribs where ey can pl up a drainage sys- tem, and her avoid stic in Plantings which will be out a localized drought area of quick drainage or which will be drowned out in a swampy s| matters are hand of construction, costs (/o- ) Neither is the average young . If these at the time \ are much Jess than piec:-meal repairs and grounds the homeowner will want in. on the builder. His job is to con changes undertaken' later -- as the 'householder becomes wiser, older --and broker. The wise, forewarned home-own- er can do much during the build- ing process tossave himself money, trouble and hard labor later, If there are trees to be saved, for instance, he can ride herd on his builder to mark off an area to be avoided by the bulldozer and other Boavy, machinery. The trunks sho be wrapped heavily with burlap to protect them from being injured. And then, that precious topsoil which in my neighborhood sells for almost as mu a truckload as humus and manure. Bulldozers are no respecters of jopsoll, und, alas, neither are most . Insist, as strongly as you do for adequate numbers of electric outlets, that the good rich Sopsel] be scraped into a Aeparale pi away from the construct before excavating processes begin. wi ERE ) NYTH the mak- -- a un, I suspect, mostly by hae Bi builders -- that a fine stand of grass can be grown on an inch of top soil. Some- thing can grow, but it isn't the kind of lawn you'd be satisfied with beyond the first year of resi- dence. Insist that where your lawn will be that there is a minimum of four inches and preferably six inches of top soil, and you'll be better for years to come if you have the whole area gone over with a rotary plow, the major rocks and stones removed from unwant- ed places, and slow-acting fertiliz- er, organic matter mixed into the soil. don't try to get by with a cheap gre of grass seed. Do a good job once, and it won't be an annual, expensive and unsatis- factory project. There are as m ways to land- scape grounds og The are fam- ilies who live in houses and cer- tainly no two, particularly if they are close together, want the same arrangement of trees, shrubs, flow- ers and outside living quarters At the moment -- and I hope forever after -- the emphasis on com- something pleasant for the home- owner to look upon. et- 1 handyman sand given a Do-It-Yourself Fans Turn OutSmartJobs UNPAINTED FURNITURE can be handsomely finished by the wp : d plastic. (Formica Photo) pF MAKE YOUR OWN 'antiques' from a kit ~ of Cohasset, Mass., demonstrates here how a Windsor chair, shown finished at the left, is put together from prefabricated pieces. kk is a reproduction from an original in the Harrison Gray Otis house in Boston, You finish it, Pre-Fab Furniture Is > A Boon to Hobbyists .| ace. These compact units gen rally a Mrs. Francis Hagerty from the time the house is in blueprint stage -- it may be that ou'll want the flower gardens out front, or perhaps you'll just want the area shrubbed for suc- cession of bloom or Jerhars you'd like it to grow wild and make your window a vantage point to watch the birds at the feeder sta- tions and bath you'll put up. Above all, don't wait until the amily has moved in, until the builder has stuck a few stragglin, lants around and the front ya a mudhole before you start thinking about what you'll do with your grounds. That way lies mad- ness, and expense. That way you'll be buying a tree now and sticking it in what looks like the easiest, best place, and ultimately there will be no scheme, no des d .|you'll have a rough time mowing whatever lawn you produce be- cause of all the things you have to cut . And then later, comes the cost of transplanting or putting into effect a new plan. builder put water outlets them. in several «~ you will need (Rei And don't forget to have the light. outside Soft Rubber Tile Is Easiest to Lay An easy do-it-yourself. home dec- orating project that fits into a weekend schedule is to rejuvenate dilapidated floors with bright color- ed rubber tile patterns. Unlike hard tiles, rubber tile calls for no blow torch, is easy to cut and lay. . You can get a folder of instruc- tions and step-by-step directions from your floor covering dealer, or by writing to the Rubber Manu- facturers Association, 444 Madison Ave., New York, and asking for "How You Can Lay a Rubber Tile Floor." TWO LUMINOUS PAINTS There are two kinds of luminous 'the fluorescent type, glows only when it is activated artificial light -- such as he; lights, or under ultraviolet, "black" The other is phosphorescent paint, which continues to glow for several hours after sunlight or oth- er stimulation is gone. ' Bk a ait . ear ay "The physicists Comfort Sets New Trade-in House Values CONVENIENCE, comfort and re- sale value are looming as bigger factors in home ownership tham such historic sentimental attache ments as the family place for gene erations. 8 in summer, any more tham it is to shiver in winter, home buy ers and home builders are begine aig to regard houses somewhat with the attitude they have toward automobiles. New model houses, like new mo» dei automobiles, are expected te have more refinements and more efficiency for those persons whe can afford them. So trade-in value is becoming more important in houses. As far as air conditioning affects this, the change is most noticeable in areas where summer heat is the biggest problem. CONSIDER TEXAS. Robert D. Straus, whose firm has served Houston for half a century with heating and ventilating supplies, says: "It is not far in the future whem the house without complete year round air conditioning will be ob- solete the day the buyer moves in. house without complete air conditioning will hawe practical ly no resale value." What can you do to meet such competition by modernizing an ew isting house? We asked the engin- eers of the largest manufacturers of home air conditioning (Carrie) for advice. J. M. Bickel, vice presi= dent of the corporation, puts it this way: "If your home is reasonably welt built, insulated properly for heat and alrea has warm aig ducts, the prob is relatively simple. *"Let's say you have a new warm air heating system, one that's less than five years old. The usual pro» cedure is to install a packaged cooling sytem along-side the furme use¢ the same ductwork as the heating system and provide thom ough summer cooling, dehumidifie cation, circulation and filtering off the air. In cases like this, installa» tion costs are cut to a minimum "Howevens, if the furnace is more than five years old, the best Vice in most cases might be #9 replace it with a year-round a conditioning system which woul add silent winter heating with oi or gas to the summer features. The cost would be only a little more and the new weather-making sys» tem would ensure more efficien$ operation. These single-package systems occupy as little as one square yard of floor space." BUT WHAT ABOUT homes t do not have warm air systems "The problem here is not quite so simple," Bickel admits. 'Bu there are three solutions: "1. The year-round room unily about as Somppact as a radiatomy Remote coils, basement or gam age, provide chilled or heated wat er according to the season. In some cases the chilled water system cam be used in summer while the regw lar radiator serves*in 'winter. "2. A central system with duch work added to circulate cooled, de» humidified and filtered air during the summer. "3. Room air conditioners fof summer use. New s of window units can be installed almost flush with draperies." As for overall costs, Bickel sa; they will vary for recommend systems from $800 to $2,000 for the average house. He has found one of the most popular financing ams rangements to a modernization loan through the FHA. Another am rangemnt is through the spread use of open-end mortgages, und which mon home carryi charges are increased by only @ few dollars per month. Atomic By-Product Traces Pipe Leak If your radiant heati systel Joaks, don't tear up the wi T. Just send for a couple of physh cist: friends like Robert Marde® did in Weston, Mass. brought along thely Geiger counters, injected x tive Iodine 131 into the pipes traced it. They located the leak within de® inches.