Building by ramming the moist compost between timber shutterings does not appear to have been practised in the past, though there is nothing against the method except its tendency to delay the drying out.
The drying of each course takes several days, depending on the weather. A course is usually laid right round the building. It must be covered up at night in case of rain, and when it is hard another course is laid on, and so on till completion. The aim is to build during the summer and autumn, and when the moisture has dried out, to render the exterior.
Where brickwork is used with chalk compost it is generally bonded in in the ordinary way, but block-bonding the depth of a chalk course is a better way of doing it.
The exterior corners of chalk buildings are the vulnerable points, and these should therefore be well rounded off.
Timber.—In the old work nothing seems to have been done to prevent woodwork built in to the compost from decaying, though in many cases it has survived surprisingly. In any new work, however, proper ventilated air-spaces should be contrived or the timber ends treated with some preservative.
The door and window frames are fixed to fairly large pieces of wood built in across the thickness of wall, and other woodwork is fixed to wood blocks built in in a similar way.
Picture-rails should be provided in all rooms, as chalk walls are apt to flake and chip if nails are driven into them.
Lintels are usually of wood, and when plastering is carried down over these some form of key must of course be provided to hold it.
Winter Work Barred
Frost.—New work must not be exposed to frost or there will be danger of collapse, and winter work is barred out for this reason.