What the heck are Wahoo Walls?!

[Xist]

My brother's speech therapist bought a property, not just outside of town limits, but outside of a much smaller and lamer town. They put in a commercial shed and turned it into a tiny house.

(You probably know that I had a similar idea a while ago).

One time I was supervising my brother's session and I asked what kind of wall paneling they had. I forget what she answered and wondered how it compared with the drywall that I bought for our shed, so I searched for "Indoor paneling." I haven't found it yet, but someone mentioned Wahoo Walls. I did a search and found some videos by the manufacturer, but they didn't seem to say much. Then I found this article: The Spruce: Three Basement Finishing Systems: An Introduction

The first part sounds like what this guy said somewhere:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxMLd3LNwcQ

You are better off adding onto your house than finishing your basement.

Oh good! I lost everything! I proofread, clicked "Submit," and it said "Notta chance!"

So, if your basement was designed to be finished, and you insist on finishing your basement (instead of adding on, or just moving), then The Spruce says that it isn't cost-effective to hire a company, which will be expensive, salesmen will be aggressive, and you may have poor customer service.

However, Wahoo Walls will ship you a DIY kit, and I think that 4x48x96 sheet was around $165 in 2016.

The one thing that I picked up from the manufacturer's video is they have 3.5" of closed-cell expanded styrofoam with magnesium oxide on the front.

There are slits on each side and you glue splines into to them to connect the slabs.

As far as I can tell, these are only used in basements.

By the way, it looks like the speech therapist used beadboards. Lowe's sells them for $19 and Home Depot has them for $19. They look nice, but are flammable wood products, so I wouldn't want them for future products.

[Stubby79]

https://www.houzz.com/professionals/...us-pf~92416765

I'm surprised there aren't more well-engineered products, and that they aren't considerably cheaper (due to mass selling and production).

The only thing that comes to mind are the dry-core sub flooring panels that either have a plastic or foam layer on them...

Maybe we should start by making foundations and basements out of something other than cement? Something just as strong and easy to work with, but water and thermally resistant.

I hear there's millions of tonnes of plastic ending up in the oceans every year...let's filter it out and make lego building blocks out of it, in place of cinder blocks.

[Xist]

The top review states that Wahoo Walls went out of business two years ago.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by Stubby79

Maybe we should start by making foundations and basements out of something other than cement? Something just as strong and easy to work with, but water and thermally resistant.

I hear there's millions of tonnes of plastic ending up in the oceans every year...let's filter it out and make lego building blocks out of it, in place of cinder blocks.

How deeper would a foundation made out of plastic need to extend compared to one made out of concrete? But it doesn't seem so bad at all, even though the plastic would be better suited to other parts of a house.

[Piotrsko]

Foundations here just need to go below the freeze line to prevent a condition called heave whereby the ground expands via water contained when frozen. The material used has to support the structure above and have enough footprint to spread that load to the ground it sits on. If you can get the compressive strength high enough plastic would substitute for cement.

Oddly: in places of permafrost, you have to go deep enough so the ground doesn't thaw.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

The material used has to support the structure above and have enough footprint to spread that load to the ground it sits on. If you can get the compressive strength high enough plastic would substitute for cement.

I guess moulding the plastic in a more stable shape, or reinforcing it with some fiber, might also influence its suitability to such use. But even if it won't be the best material for a foundation, might be a reasonable option for other structural components replacing some pieces nowadays usually made out of wood.

[Piotrsko]

Well "TREX" is a structural wood decking substitute made from polystyrene.

[Ecky]

Where I live it's approximately 36" underground.

Paying someone else to do anything is almost never going to pan out in resale.

Additions here tend to be pretty expensive. Because foundations need to be so deep, they're quite expensive. It's typically better to build up or down. Those additions put on piers tend to have a lot of heat loss in winter.

[Xist]

Curious. Eventually I will post about making use of wasted attic space, but that will be wasted time, so...

[Stubby79]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

Well "TREX" is a structural wood decking substitute made from polystyrene.

Those look weird inside, like they're made up of different types of plastic all melted together, but far from homogeneous. Or perhaps they've mixed them with some kind of fiber (wood?).

I assumed the former. I've seen pallets and other such things made from obviously dissimilar plastics that stick together but don't meld together. They have a fibrous look to them. They even break more like wood than plastic, presumably because of it. And that's what I'd expect such building blocks to look like.

Of course, there's flammability to be considered. Burn, baby, BURN!