Assembling a Lustron: From Factory Floor to Installing the Trellis by the Front Door
A fact sheet distributed by the Lustron Corporation in 1950 provides a concise description of the house’s components and construction:
The skeleton of the house is made of steel framing, factory-welded into wall sections and roof trusses. Porcelain finish steel panels cover the roof, exterior and interior walls. Interlocking with each other, they are attached to the frame with concealed screws. Compressed between the panels is a permanent plastic sealing strip which forms a gasket and assures an air-tight moisture resistant enclosure. This all steel construction provides great durability and strength.
The straightforward description, however, belies the complexity behind the manufacture and erection of a Lustron house, which contains over 3,300 parts. Major components of the Lustron System include the interior and exterior panels, the roof and gutters, windows, and framing members. These parts were manufactured at the Lustron factory in Columbus, Ohio.
The Lustron Factory
The 1 million-square-foot factory (about the size of 22 football fields) contained about 8 miles of automated conveyors, 163 presses, 11 furnaces and the largest porcelain enameling set-up in the world. Lustron parts were manufactured on an assembly line-a process developed by Henry Ford for the Model T, and used for cars and other products to this day. At the Lustron Factory, huge, specially designed truck trailers, served as the assembly line “package.” As the trailer rolled along the assembly line, parts were loaded on in the inverse order that they would be removed at the site. Once all the parts were loaded, the trailer, could be stored on the factory site until delivery, obviating the need for a storage warehouse. The very same trailer that wound its way through the Lustron assembly line would be used to deliver the house to the building site.
By the end of 1949, the company operated 800 trailers and 200 tractors which were “brightly colored in blue and yellow to permit ready visibility and an appearance of neatness and cleanliness, which is evident in the house.” If it was necessary to ship a house by train rather than by truck, the trailers were loaded on a specially modified flatbed railcar. The homes were distributed through a network of Lustron builder-dealers franchised to erect houses within a given geographical area. At the end of 1949, Lustron had 234 dealers, located in 35 states. The dealers were responsible for selling and construction, including acquiring the land and preparing the site.
Laying the Foundation
The foundation was to be in place by the time that the Lustron truck arrived. The local builder/dealer was responsible for getting a building permit and pouring the foundation, with or without footings, depending on local conditions. To guide their efforts, the Lustron Corporation provided a set of Master Specifications which detailed the specifications for site preparation and the preferred mix for the concrete slab. Lustron architectural plans provided estimates of the amount of excavation, concrete, and fill that would be required, and also detailed the necessary connections for sewage, water, fuel, and electricity. The company offered an optional “foundation package” containing anchor bolts, foundation insulation, waterproof paper and tape, piping, and other supplies; builder/dealers could also obtain these materials locally.
Some Assembly Required
Once the foundation was in place, the team could get to work assembling the house. To erect the house, “socket and end wrenches, other small hand tools and a rubber mallet are substantially all the tools needed,” a writer for Farm Implement News marveled. The Lustron Corporation asserted that it took 300 to 400 man-hours for carpenters to assemble a house, plus 40 hours for a plumber, 25 hours for an electrician, and 12 to 16 hours for a laborer to lay floor tiles. This did not include other site work-installing utility lines, pouring the concrete foundation, placing sidewalks and driveways, and planting grass and other landscaping. The company estimated that the typical erection took two weeks. This pace, however, assumed an experienced team; the first time through, it often took up to 1,500 hours. Lustron operated an “Erection Training School” at the factory to teach supervisors and foremen how to speed up the process. Lustron engineers hoped, with some modification to the design and an experienced crew, to reduce erection time to 130 to 140 man-hours.
Instructions Included!
In addition to the Master Specifications, the Lustron Corporation provided several additional documents to help guide the on-site assembly process. To help contractors keep track of assembly tasks, The Lustron Corporation provided a “Daily House Erection Cost and Progress Form,” while the Erection Manual provided detailed drawings to guide the actual assembly of the house. Interestingly it appears that there was no document which identified all the parts of the Lustron.
Sill Plates and Wall Sections
Components were unloaded from the trailer as needed, beginning with 16-gauge rolled steel sill plates. The interlocking sill plates, resting on 30-pound saturated roofing felt, were anchored to the concrete foundation at 4′ intervals. The 8′ x 8′ wall sections were then bolted to the sill plates.
A typical house had 20 wall sections featuring 11 different configurations. Connections between the wall sections (EM-02-B-20.11) at the top and bottom were made by 14-gauge channel-shaped splices. Four ½” steel bolts secured a splice at the intermediate stud spacers. The interior service wall (EM-02-B-40.1) was also installed at this time.
Roof Trusses
Next, fourteen-gauge steel truss bearing plates were bolted to the top plate of the exterior wall sections. The roof trusses (EM-02-C-10.10), typically 10 per house, were bolted to these plates. Each truss was shipped in two pieces, which were bolted in the center as they were erected. For more information on the roof and gutters.
Exterior Panels
Clips for the exterior corner panels were placed before any exterior panels were installed. Once the corner panels were installed, on each facade, the first panel was placed in the upper left corner. From there, panels were installed “from top to bottom and from left to right,” according to the Erection Manual. When adjacent walls were paneled, the corner was trimmed with an L-shaped panel that extended from the foundation to the eaves. The panel was slid into position on the corner clips. Its base was supported by a locking tab extending perpendicularly from the foundation. Porch and eave panels and gable end panels were added before the gutters, all in the order specified in the Erection Manual. Then came the roof panels, the order likewise carefully choreographed (starting by the gutter and moving up the slope), the ridge cap panels, and the chimney. In the meantime, window and door units were being inserted into designated locations.
The Interior
Moving to the interior, the first priority was the plenum, which was supported by the bottom chord of the roof trusses. The trusses were insulated with rigid laminated board comprising alternating layers of corrugated and flat sheets of asbestos paper, bonded with an inorganic adhesive. The sides and top of the plenum were continuous walls of 3/16″-thick rigid cement-asbestos board-about 85% Portland cement and 15% asbestos fiber. Six inches of fiberglass, mineral wool, or “insulwool” insulation was later positioned above the plenum. Steel enameled ceiling panels served as the base of the plenum.
Plumbing and wiring were inserted in pre-assigned locations. A vapor barrier was applied in vertical strips on the interior face of the inside studs of walls on the house’s perimeter. The vapor barrier, which came in 54″-wide sheets, was laminated, asphalt-coated, waterproof duplex paper (two layers of paper, one layer of asphalt adhesive). These walls were part of the house’s structural system. The remaining interior walls were non-bearing partitions. The erection manual gave detailed instructions for anchoring these walls: “1. Position wall to proper location. 2. Mark hole locations on concrete floor and ceiling. 3. Move wall (for working space). 4. Install anchor shields in floor. 5. Drill holes in ceiling. 6. Replace walls and secure.”
As on the exterior, the clips for the interior corner panels were screwed to the studs before wall panels were installed, and the base of each corner panel rested on perpendicular spacer tabs. Unlike the square exterior panels, interior panels extended from floor to ceiling, making the installation somewhat easier. More challenging was the assembly of the built-ins incorporated into many of the non-bearing walls. The erection manual has sheets of instructions for the assembly and installation of closets, dinette and kitchen cabinets, and the bookcase and vanity. During this phase, the Thor combination dishwasher/clothes washer, kitchen sink, bathroom fixtures, and furnace and flue were also installed.
Last But Not Least
Final erection details included accessories (e.g., towel bar, robe hook) in the bathroom, door hardware, thresholds and weather strip, 1/8″-thick asphalt floor tiles and cove baseboard, the downspout and trellis by the front door, blinds and window screens.
Understanding the Lustron System
Every building is a system of interrelated parts. With Lustron houses, as with other buildings, some of the components are structural-without them, the building would collapse. Lustron differs, though, in the degree to which both structural and nonstructural components are interdependent. The Lustron is, in essence, a very sophisticated, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. To maintain and repair a Lustron house, you have to understand the various subsystems that make up the structure, as well as how these subsystems are incorporated into the overall Lustron system. Knowing the erection process, from start to finish, is critical if you want to remove pieces from your Lustron, since it is probably easiest (or even essential) to go in the reverse order of the assembly (detailed above).
For example, in many historic and contemporary houses, the gutters are attached to the roof with a strap. To remove the gutters you simply cut the strap or detach the straps from the roof. Repairing the gutters on your Lustron is not so easy; the gutters were installed before the roofing tiles. The roofing tiles were installed after the eave panels but before the ridge cap and the ridge cap was installed before the chimney. Removing the gutters therefore is no simple matter. If you want to remove the gutters, you would need to remove the chimney, then the ridge cap, then the roof tiles, possibly the eave panels and then the gutters.
When reassembling the parts, of course, it is best to follow the original order of erection, so using our example of the gutters; you would reinstall the repaired gutters, or install appropriate replacements. Then replace the eave panels, roofing tiles, then the ridge cap and then the chimney. For more information on how to repair your roof and gutters click here.
The Lustron designers created the house to be maintenance free, therefore they didn’t design the home so that components could be removed and replaced if they needed to be. Thus in order to understand, how to repair your Lustron, it is import to understand that once assembled, the Lustron functioned as a system.
When the System Breaks Down
When there is a problem with your Lustron house, the first thing to remember is that the Lustron is a system. One way to understand this is to think about another system, the interstate highway system. Imagine a truck turns over and spills gravel all over the road. Only one lane of traffic can pass around the truck and traffic is at a virtual standstill. You are about five miles behind the spill. You don’t know what is causing it, only that you are stuck in traffic. The same can be said for Lustron. When the system breaks down, the cause might not be readily apparent. You just can see the problem right in front of you. For example, one of your exterior wall panels is slightly bent and cracked. It is possible that this was caused by something hitting the panel but it is also possible that the panel became distorted because of a crack in the foundation, which caused the panels to shift and the one panel to bend.
That is why it important to look beyond the immediate problem to identify any underlying causes. This is equally important when undertaking repairs, a solution to a problem might involve more than popping out a part and replacing it. For more information on repairing your Lustron, click here.
Ready to learn more about the individual components of the Lustron System? Click on the links on the sidebar.
