Problems of Housing (1944)

[vitanola]

Yet another ERPI release by Encyclopedia Britannica Films, touching on the surveyed condition of our housing stock at the peak of the Era, and the modifications needed to improve sub-standard houses. Oh, and WALLPAPER. Nice wallpaper.

 

[scotrace]

That swell new fluorescent kitchen light is plenty ugly. And interesting to suggest painting window screen with Flit to keep out disease germs.
I expect all that 4" attic insulation is asbestos? (to match the roof shingles)

 

[Fading Fast]

That swell new fluorescent kitchen light is plenty ugly. And interesting to suggest painting window screen with Flit to keep out disease germs.
I expect all that 4" attic insulation is asbestos? (to match the roof shingles)

The fluorescent light and asbestos shingles caught my attention too - what "smart" things that we are doing today to our houses will look just as silly or dangerous seventy years from now?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Asbestos shingles were very very popular around here -- you'll still see old houses sheathed in them. Maine winters were and are murder on paint, and in the days before vinyl or aluminum siding, asbestos shingles were your best bet for a durable, long-lived exterior finish.

Flit was a petroleum distillate laced with pyrethrins. It had no antiseptic properites whatsoever. Oh those Boys.

 

[vitanola]

That swell new fluorescent kitchen light is plenty ugly. And interesting to suggest painting window screen with Flit to keep out disease germs.
I expect all that 4" attic insulation is asbestos? (to match the roof shingles)

No. Rock Wool. A product much like fiberglass, made from molten iron slag. One should use precautions when handling it, but it is in no way as dangerous as Asbestos fibers in the same application.

Asbestos shingles are probably the most long-lived and paint friendly siding ever developed. They are absolutely safe after installation as long as they are left alone. Asbestos cement board (Transite™) the product of which these shingles are made, is a relatively low grade threat AS LONG AS IT IS NOT BEING SAWN. When removing the stuff, just keep it wet. A homeowner may dispose of these shingles in the ordinary rubbish stream in most states. This material has been found to only be a danger to those who work with it frequently.

 

[vitanola]

The fluorescent light and asbestos shingles caught my attention too - what "smart" things that we are doing today to our houses will look just as silly or dangerous seventy years from now?

My grandmother had one of those fluorescent light adapters in her kitchen fixture. Three twenty watt tubes. It had replaced the schoolhouse shade which was supposed to shade a 150 watt tungsten bulb, but which my thrifty grandmother had replaced with a sixty watt lamp, and so the light offered by the florescent lamo was vastly better than that which she had before.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Another very popular insulation of that period was "Kimsul," a compressed cellulose backed with tar paper product made by Kimberly-Clark (yes, the people who gave the world Kotex, and there wasn't a lot of difference between the fillings of the two products.) It came in thick rolls like modern fiberglass insulation, compressed to about half its working size. You'd cut it into strips with a hatchet and it would expand to a mass about four inches thick, which you'd tack between your wall studs or attic joists for a very neat job. It did not contain asbestos, but because it's basically processed paper fiber it's prone to the same deterioration that affects any old paper product -- it gets brittle and crumbly with age, and if you start messing with it you might as well pull it all out and replace it.

 

[tonyb]

A friend's house, built in Nineteen-Oh-Something (Two, I think), was sided with asbestos-containing shingles some decades later. Those shingles are still on the house, and still in very good condition. My friend and his partner of more than 30 years call the place, originally a single-family residence but now a triplex, "Asbestos Estates."

 

[BlueTrain]

One quality of asbestos siding and anything else made of it, is that it's fireproof. Vinyl siding melts and aluminum doesn't hold up very well, either, in a fire. None will prevent a fire, of course, and anyway, you wouldn't have interior walls of asbestos. Drywall (sheetrock) is fireproof, though the paper covering will burn. When you had a wood or coal-burning stove, you usually had a floor covering (metal covered asbestos) as a fire safety measure. I don't know what would be used these days and I doubt you can buy the same things now.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Maybe some day everyone will have a house with glass brick walls, asbestos siding, interior walls and woodwork freshly painted with white lead paint, screens painted with DDT, all fluorescent lighting that looks like a streamlined gas station completely stripped of all color and decoration.

 

[BlueTrain]

That sounds like 1950s modern straight from the pages of Popular Mechanics. I have even seen many 1950s (mid-century, they say) modern houses and have even been in a few. They still look ever so modern, yet at the same time, look so dated. I've never seen one, however, that I would call large.

 

[sheeplady]

The dream home looked like my college gym.