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Old 12-06-2017, 05:55 PM   #616 (permalink)
Xist
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Chorizo - '00 Honda Civic HX, baby! :D
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Quote:
Originally Posted by redpoint5 View Post
Perhaps that is why no aliens have visited Earth; they end up destroying themselves long before they develop the technology required to travel light years away.
Did they also have equivalents to Justin Beiber and Jersey Shore?

Are they texting and piloting?

"Asteroid field ahead. Let me just finish this lev--"

I read again that over half of pollution came from construction. Is that the same as cars? Buy a good reliable used car instead of a brand-new one? What about building an energy-efficient home versus the same methods that have been used for decades?

Fifteen years ago I heard about straw bale construction and started researching it the other day. Someone commented in a YouTube video that none of the claims were true, while compressed earth blocks, especially stabilized CEBs, were everything great and wonderful.

Supposedly, a ridiculous amount of straw goes to waste every year.

They do not compost it?

Also, something like 99% of dirt is not being used [[directly] by humans]. Don't let that dirt get away with just laying around anymore! Smash it into bricks and walls! I found various other methods that are supposed to be cheap and easy. I watched a couple on YouTube build with Styrofoam forms. Apparently, they were going to eventually fill the void with concrete. There are gas-powered machines that compress dirt and a bit of magical concrete to make bricks, sometimes even ones that resemble Legos.

Let's go back to the "gas-powered" part. Nothing like spewing fumes as you save the world!

Wikipedia mentions Oryzatech, which makes this:


and Rainbow Ecosystem, which makes this:


I write "makes" and not "sells" because I am not sure that either of them actually sell anything.

While people claim that straw bale construction is fire-proof, properly-used straw bales still burn at 1200°F. This is an article about a million-dollar straw bale house that burned down ten years ago. I am not sure what should have been done differently. http://www.fireengineering.com/artic...struction.html

Even if someone figured out how to do this properly, I have read several times that the outer walls only account for 10% of the cost of house construction; saving money there is lost elsewhere, but then it is more energy efficient?

I tried to find figures for how much it would cost to build with 2x6s or 2x8s (for extra insulation). I did not find that information, just all kinds of opinions, but studs are thermal bridges, so some people recommend staggered 2x4s, Structural Insulated Panels, and then:

Quote:
Earthcore, a Colorado SIP manufacturer, has essentially sliced up a SIP into studs; Like a SIP it is two layers of OSB sandwiched around a urethane core, but you work with it like a conventional stud. The 2x6 stud has an R-value of 21; [...] a conventional 2x6 has an R value of 7.75.
They point out that insulated exterior sheathing would also eliminate the thermal bridging.
https://www.treehugger.com/green-arc...-of-a-sip.html

This guy wrote about adobe, rammed earth, compressed earth blocks, straw bale construction, and other "green" forms of construction. In the end he only recommended pumice-crete, but it needed to be built quickly: Gallery - The Myth and Promise of Dirt Cheap Housing

What do you guys think is the best way to build nowadays? Where is our fan of geodesic domes?

In the end, the only thing that I feel was potentially useful to me was learning of straw bale gardens. You plant in the bales! Genius!
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