657553-1889-Bill-Buildings- — Page 5

88

THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 2ND FEBRUARY, 1889.

19. Structures made wholly or partly of glass and iron, and which may therefore be designed otherwise than herein provided, shall be deemed to be exceptional buildings, and shall be subject to the approval of the Surveyor General in each particular case.

20. Notwithstanding anything herein to the contrary provided, where buildings are in rural districts and are situated on ground held under rural building leases from the Crown, such buildings if entirely detached from other buildings and separated by a distance of not less than one hundred and fifty feet from any neighbouring building in different ownership, may have walls and verandahs con- structed wholly or partly of wood, and such buildings shall be deemed to be exceptional structures and shall be subject to the approval of the Surveyor General in each particular

case.

Bressummers or Lintels.

21. Every bressummer used in a building must have a bearing of at least six inches at each end, and must rest upon a sufficient pier of brick or stone, or iron story-post fixed on a solid foundation, or upon an external or party wall and every bressummer bearing upon any external or party wall, must be borne by a template or corbel of stone tailed through at least half the thickness of such wall and of the full breadth of the bressuminer.

Floors.

22. The floors of any one building shall not approach nearer than nine inches towards the floors of any other contiguous building separated by a party wall, and the space intervening between the ends of the two floors shall be properly and substantially built up solid with whole bricks or with stone laid in mortar.

23. The floors of all buildings including verandahs shall in all cases rest upon, and abut against, at least nine inches of solid brick-work or stone-work, and in all cases where the wall supporting such floor is of a less thickness than eighteen inches, such wall shall be corbelled out in brick or stone-work immediately below the joists of the floor.

24. A clear space of at least nine feet measured ver- tically, shall be left between any two floors of any dwelling house.

25. No mezzanine floor or story having less than nine vertical feet of clear space above it, or having less than nine vertical feet of clear space below it, whether extend- ing across the full width of the building, or only a portion of such width, whether supported from the walls of a dwelling house, or by story-posts, or suspended from an upper floor or roof, shall after the passing of this Ordinance be erected in any dwelling house. Where any mezzanine floor shall have been erected, previous to the passing of this Ordinance, under conditions contrary to the provisions of this Section, and it shall appear to the Surveyor General that such conditions affect the safety, or to the Sanitary Board that they affect the health, of the inmates or of the public, it shall be lawful for the Surveyor General to order the removal of such mezzanine floor to such extent as may be approved by the Governor in Council.

26. The height of every uppermost story of any dwelling house shall be measured from the level of its floor up to the under side of the tie of the roof, or up to half the ver- tical height of the rafters or purlins when the roof has no tie.

Corbelling.

27. All corbelling for the support of floor or of roof timbers, shall be done in stone cut to flat beds or in red brick at least nine inches in length and laid flat. No one corbelling course if of brick shall project beyond the course immediately beneath it more than two and a quarter inches.* Roofs.

28. The roof of every building or of any minor super- structure placed above such roof, shall be externally covered with tiles, glass, metal, or other incombustible substance except the doors, and frames of dormers or sky-lights. All hatchways leading out into the roofs of buildings; shall be provided with hatches or covers which if not composed entirely of metal shall be properly sheathed externally in sheet metal.

29. No roof-timbers of any one building shall approach nearer than nine inches towards the roof-timbers of any other contiguous building and the space intervening between the ends of such timbers shall be properly and substantially built up solid with whole bricks or with stone laid in mortar.

: