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Excerpt from a book I'm currently reading, having to do with the big challenge of providing housing during the late 40's/50's due to the extreme housing shortage, some of the housing pre-fabricated:
"The most famous of these prefabricated dwellings was the squat, metallic Lustron House. Weighing 12.5 tons, the Lustron House consisted of over 3,000 separate parts, which were manufactured in a former aircraft factory near Columbus, OH, assembled on site, and mounted on a concrete slab. Because its walls, along with its roof and ceiling, were made of enameled steel, interior pictures were hung with magnets. Despite a lot of hype and over $37 million in federal government loans, it was a flop. Consumers though it was ugly, and the high material and labor costs inflated the price beyond what many working families could afford."
I like the idea of it myself, of having, essentially, a fire-proof home, but have no idea what it would be like heating it in winter, cooling it in summer. I would imagine, here in Las Vegas, it would become a microwave oven in summer? And I'm sure the termites wouldn't find much to eat here!
Almost sounds like a site-built mobile home/trailer. The roof seems to be the best part. I wonder if you could put this type of enamel coated roof on a home today.
I like the idea of it myself, of having, essentially, a fire-proof home, but have no idea what it would be like heating it in winter, cooling it in summer. I would imagine, here in Las Vegas, it would become a microwave oven in summer? And I'm sure the termites wouldn't find much to eat here!
I would love a Lustron house. There are some drawbacks:
-finding replacement parts is difficult (discussed in the links)
-since we live in the midwest, we would want a basement and I think the original
homes did not have one. There are preservationists who have disassembled and
moved the home (adding a basement).
-air conditioning can be added but would it be difficult to install an ac system?
We have some of them around here and I have always been fascinated by them. A few of them are still in great shape, even have the original garage - A couple others look to be less maintained but they seem to still hold up.
It was a very neat idea, too bad it didn't take off a bit more and that many of them have been removed.
I saw a few of them when they still had them for military housing on Quantico Marine Base. I thought they were super cool, even though they were pretty small. The base had a pretty large number of them at one time, but they've all been demolished now I believe.
Almost sounds like a site-built mobile home/trailer. The roof seems to be the best part. I wonder if you could put this type of enamel coated roof on a home today.
They are porcelain enameled steel. I've read that they've held up very well (50+ years) on most of those homes. Not sure how the enamel might hold up in areas that get large hail. Usually the repairs needed I read about are when a tree or part of a tree fell on the house.
I don't think anyone makes those types of roofing tiles anymore.
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