Excerpt from Concrete Garages: The Fireproof Home for the Automobile With the advent of the automobile and its growing popularity, especially among the people living in suburban towns, there has come a demand for a new class of building - the private garage. The necessary storage of oils, gasoline and other combustible materials, makes the garage a veritable firetrap, unless a fireproof building is erected. Concrete, by reason of its adaptability to varying conditions, is the cheapest satisfactory fireproof building material, and the absurdity of storing a valuable automobile in a building liable to burn at any moment, when, for a small difference in price, a fraction of the cost of the automobile, a fireproof building can be built, is readily apparent. Many automobile owners have realized this situation, and the illustrations in this book show a few simple designs in concrete garages which have been built for the proper housing of automobiles and the protection of the property. It is hardly necessary to say that wood is not a proper material for the construction of garages. Moreover, wood floors become soaked with oil and quickly rot tires. Aside from being inflammable, the high cost of lumber and of the skilled labor necessary renders the difference in price between wood and concrete a negligible quantity. Brick work and masonry are as a rule very much more expensive than concrete, while offering no additional advantages. There are several ways of using concrete in garage construction, each of which will give good results, the best methods being determined largely by local conditions, such as the supply of skilled or unskilled labor and the quality of material to be had. Simple one-story garages can be constructed without difficulty under the direction of a good foreman, but for the more elaborate buildings and those of more than one story, an architect or engineer thoroughly familiar with concrete construction should be employed. This is essential when reinforced concrete floors are to be built. The following methods of building concrete garages are the most popular, and used either singly or in combination will give satisfactory results. 1. - Mass or reinforced concrete. 2. - Concrete hollow tile. 3. - Concrete block. 4. - Pipe frame with wire lath and stucco. 5. - Wood stud frame and stucco. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.