The other methods of building have their advocates and exponents, but it is clearly Pisé that has caught the attention of the public as well as of the Press both at home and abroad, and it is to this method of construction that I have chiefly devoted my attention since the writing of the book as it first appeared.
In our English climate Pisé-building is a summer craft, and the small-scale experiments of one person through a single summer cannot in the nature of things add very greatly to the sum of our knowledge of what is possible with Pisé and of what is not.
Most of the new data have come through the building of Mr. Strachey’s demonstration house, an account of which is included in the present volume.
At the time of writing, various tests are being carried out with the help of the National Physical Laboratory; but the results, though exceedingly encouraging, are not yet ready for publication.[1]
The fact that Pisé-building is essentially a “Dry-earth method” makes necessary the creation of artificial summer conditions under which the experiments may be conducted during the past winter. As a result of these researches, a considerable mass of useful data has become available for the opening of the present building season.[2]
Much helpful information is also likely to come to us from the Colonies, particularly from Rhodesia and British East Africa, where there is great activity in Pisé-building, and where there is no “close season” such as our winter imposes upon us here.
It is instructive also to note that great interest in Pisé-building has been aroused in Canada and in Scandinavia, the two countries that we were wont to associate particularly with timber-building.
From both I have received a number of letters complaining of “the lumber shortage,” and discussing the advantages of Pisé as compared with their traditional wood-construction.
If these great timber countries are themselves feeling the pinch, the advocates of wooden houses for England may find that they are not merely barking up the wrong tree, but up a tree that is not even there.
The timber famine is, in any case, a calamity to anyone dependent on building, that is to everyone, for even a Pisé house must still have a roof and floors and joinery.