COMFORT and convenience combined with substantial economy sizes up The Las Vegas. For families of small income who want real value for their hard earned dollars this compact Ranch-style home should prove ideal. Though the house can be built for only $8,000, plus the cost of the land, no features of sound construction and attractive styling have been sacrificed.
For further economy The Las Vegas has been designed to fit comfortably on a 50 foot lot without appearing cramped in any manner. The lines are simple, which lowers construction costs, yet handsome exterior decoration is achieved with contrasting walls of colored asbestos shingles and stained wood shingles.
The front door opens into the square-shaped living room. A California style pic-ture window fills the entire front wall, except for the door space, to provide full daytime lighting. Three full walls remain for sufficient variety of furniture arrangement.
A door leads off the living room to the kitchen and dinette in the rear. These two areas are combined in a single airy room. A service bar separates the kitchen section from the dinette. All kitchen equipment is located along a single wall to minimize the work of the housewife. A rear door leads from the kitchen to the back yard. The dinette has a spacious double window so that with the glassed door the entire area is fully lighted and ventilated. A third door off the dining and kitchen area leads to a roomy, 92 foot deep storage area. This space has a window of its own and is economically built behind the garage space so that the whole rear line of the house is flush for ease and economy of construction.
The sleeping section of The Las Vegas is located entirely in the right side of the house. A central hall convenient to both the living room and the kitchen gives access to the three bedrooms and bath. It contains a welcome linen closet, plus an extra closet for additional storage.
The two side bedrooms have two win- dows each for both double exposure and cross ventilation. One window in each room, however, is placed high in the wall to allow ample room for bed and dresser arrangement. The third bedroom in front has a double window. All three bed- rooms have a single closet.
A second rear door of the home gives ac- cess to the utility room containing the heat- ing plant, which is necessary since the house is constructed on a concrete slab without a cellar. A hot-water, oil-fired heating unit heats The Las Vegas via coils imbedded in the concrete.
The concrete slab type of construction is becoming increasingly popular in low priced homes and its numerous features are worth careful consideration. Since a base- ment and deep foundation are eliminated, this method of construction obviously lowers building costs. It is ideally suited to the continuous coil type of radiant heat- ing that has been perfected in recent years. It permits construction on land where bed- rock would make basement excavation im- practical. And it speeds building time.
Sound concrete slab construction incorporates a number of important essentials. First of all, adequate drainage is of great importance. To avoid a damp floor, if not an entirely flooded floor, the floor slab must be above the level of the surrounding land. The surrounding ground must always slope away from the building. Furthermore, there should be no pockets into which rain water from the roof or drainage can collect. Another requirement is a 4 inch fill of coarse washed gravel or crushed rock over the area on which the cement is to be poured. This fill is not designed to act as insulation but to prevent the capillary rise of moisture from the ground.
Over the gravel fill it is necessary to lay a moisture barrier. This is vital to achieve a dry floor. The barrier may be a reinforced duplex paper with asphalt center or rigid asphalt board. The sheets of the moisture barrier should overlap generously.
Along the outside edge of the concrete slab and above the moisture barrier should be placed a layer of insulation. In cold cli- mates this insulation should extend across the entire area on top of the barrier before cement is poured. In warmer areas such extensive insulation may not be necessary.
Nearly all concrete slab foundations have a rim-wall foundation sunk around the entire perimeter of the house to a certain depth. This depth may be determined by local conditions, but in cold climates it should always be sunk below the frost line of the surrounding ground.
After the fill, moisture barrier and in- sulation are laid, the coils of pipe for the radiant floor heating are laid. (Naturally, sewage mains, water pipes and other main plumbing lines will have been installed be- fore the slab foundation is begun.) The job of planning and laying out these coils is a technical one and should be done only by an expert in this field.
Finally, concrete is poured over the heat coils to the upper level of the outside rimwall foundation. When dry, this step completes the slab foundation.
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