“To lay out and frame a building so that all its parts will come together requires the skill of a master mechanic, and a host of men and a deal of hard work to lift the great sticks of timber into position. To erect a balloon building requires about as much mechanical skill as it does to build a board fence. Any farmer who is handy with the saw, iron square, and hammer, with one of his boys or a common laborer to assist him, can go to work and put up a frame for an outbuilding, and finish it off with his own labor, just as well as to hire a carpenter to score and hew great oak sticks and fill them full of mortises, all by the science of the ‘square rule.’ It is a waste of labor that we should all lend our aid to put a stop to. Besides, it will enable many a farmer to improve his place with new buildings, who, though he has long needed them, has shuddered at the thought of cutting down half of the best trees in his wood-lot, and then giving half a year’s work to hauling it home and paying for what I do know is the wholly useless labor of framing. If it had not been for the knowledge of balloon frames, Chicago and San Francisco could never have arisen, as they did, from little villages to great cities in a single year. It is not alone city buildings, which are supported by one another, that may be thus erected, but those upon the open prairie, where the wind has a sweep from Mackinaw to the Mississippi, for there they are built, and stand as firm as any of the old frames of New England, with posts and beams 16 inches square.”
The above address, which was delivered before the American Institute Farmers’ Club, has been quoted in detail because of the interesting point of view of the days of 1855 which it reveals. When Mr. Robinson had finished there were other comments, especially one by Mr. Youmans, in which he described early conditions of building in San Francisco. He also said that he had adopted this plan of building on his farm in Saratoga County, where he found great difficulty in getting carpenters that would do as he wished. They could not give up tenons and mortises, and braces and big timbers, for the light ribs, 2 by 4 inches, of a balloon frame. Does this not remind the modern reader of comments he has heard upon all sides these days concerning labor which will not do what is wanted but insists on doing things in the old way?
Some pertinent remarks were also made by a Mr. Stillman, who testified that he had seen whole blocks of houses built in two weeks at San Francisco, and better frames he never saw. He said they were put up a story at a time, the first two floors often being framed and sided in and lived in before the upper part of the house was up. Have we any such housing crisis as this, in these days, or did we do any quicker building of war villages than that described above?
And now we read from the Preliminary Report on the Building Code Committee of the United States Department of Commerce the crystallized tradition of this system of wooden frame construction which was evolved so many years ago that we sometimes forget the conditions of its making:
“Exterior Walls.—1. Wood studding shall be 2 × 4 inches nominal size or larger, and spaced not to exceed 16 inches on centres. All walls shall be securely braced at corners. The minimum sizes specified in these requirements shall in all cases be understood as referring to nominal sizes of such timbers.
2. Exterior walls, except those of dwellings or parts thereof not more than one story high, shall be sheathed with boards not less than ⅞ inch thick. Sheathing-boards shall be laid tight and properly nailed to each stud with not less than 2 tenpenny nails. Where the sheathing is omitted all corners shall be diagonally braced and such other measures taken to secure rigidity as may be necessary.
3. Wood sheathing may be omitted when other types of construction are used that are proven of adequate strength and stability by tests conducted by recognized authorities.
4. When joists are supported on ledger or ribbon boards, such boards shall not be less than 1 × 4 inches, shall be laid into the studs and securely nailed with not less than 2 nails to each stud. The floor-joists shall be well spiked to the sides of the studs.”