121–130 of 402 posts
Building energy efficient homes from regenerative and recyclable materials makes more sense than a stone and steel bunker.
A good intro to Passive House Design: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxeuRByPpeM
You can reinforce concrete with materials other than rebar. The theory behind reinforcement is a great idea, we shouldn't abandon it. If you don't reinforce it, it needs to be much much thicker and the ground needs to be much more resistant to uneven settling.
The most durable construction is solid stone, period. Go to a quarry, quarry some gigantic boulders, carve them into giant walls and pillars. It will be very difficult to install but it's been done before by ancient peoples. It will be a very cold house, but it will last thousands of years. Some rich dudes in Egypt made some pretty big ones a while back, but I imagine we could make them more efficient today.
Barring that, just pour the entire house out of a slow-cure concrete. The foundation doesn't actually have to last 1,000 years, it just needs to be modifiable with jackscrews into the main load-bearing members of the house.
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I would surmise that by not sourcing new materials (that currently aren't that green from a carbon footprint perspective which is probably the largest part of your footprint) you are saving a lot of carbon cost. There are challenges with old homes such as sealing the building envelope and updating wiring/heating etc. Maybe I am telling myself that - I'm not sure. My argument does resonate though. New builds require t…
I have yet to come across an old house that I did not want to gut. To update wiring, plumbing, gas lines, central air, siding, roof. By the time you are done, you are only saving on replacing the frame, but tearing down a frame of spaced 2x4s and plywood sheets are not that much waste in my experience.
This is interesting. About to do a major reno on an old home (early 1900s) and definitely had questions about making upgrades that would last a long time. One of the greenest things that you can do to a home is not build a new one as I understand it. Another one would be to build it so it lasts ... not like this throwaway society we live in. That said I don't think I can do steel girders to extend the life of the hou…
At this moment in history, building a cheaper 50-100 year house now and letting a future developer rebuild it with hopefully carbon-neutral materials might be more sustainable, assuming that building it to last now would cost more in dollars and carbon and immediate environmental impact. If we haven't figured out how to build in a more sustainable way 100 years from now, then there might not even be any developers ar…
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Seems to me like, given the expense and duration goals, you'd be much better off forgoing steel entirely and creating a stone gravity-bound structure, and making the places where you can't go with stone easy to repair or replace, something for which I'm not sure structural steel is ideal. > Our other option is slate. Slate roofs have extremely long lifespans and are extremely attractive. But, like copper, they’re mor…
Yes, another way to spell Slate roof = work. The reason is simple: Slate, layers of fossilized leaves, has a rough surface and frost and the weather in general will work on it and split the layers apart, seeds will find enough purchase to germinate (the handy supply of water certainly helps) and lichen and moss just love to grow on slate. This whole article to me reads: "I'm planning on an overpriced construction for…
This is a very odd design document and it makes me think this author has thought a lot about materials and buildings but not actually built anything . The steel moment frame, to someone with shallow knowledge, sounds so strong and resilient . But in fact, a rigid steel structure is more vulnerable to seismic (and even wind) loads than wooden framing which can flex and move and dampen those loads naturally. The stainl…
"rigid steel structure" Steel is springy. Tall steel-framed buildings and bridges routinely sway in wind, which is usually harmless to the structure but annoying to occupants. Unless you get harmonic oscillation, where the energy stored in the motion builds up, which can be a problem and has destroyed bridges. Much of seismic design involves connections which raise the resonant frequency of the structure so it can't…
https://www.strongtie.com/boltedcolumncaps_columncaps/cct_ca...
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> Adding interior insulation makes the house much more comfortable, but also changes the thermal dynamics, potentially causing freeze/thaw damage in the brick, and allowing moisture to accumulate between the brick and the insulation. This is one of the many details that would need to be worked out for the complete design of the home. Yeah, this comment struck me as a more major detail to be worked out compared to the…
Yup, that's when I stopped reading. It's clear the author has little practical, real world experience with building. In another comment I pointed out if he started watching Matt Risinger's YouTube channel he would see that things like his concern about bricks and moisture have been solved problems, with even better solutions that handle the issue better while decreasing construction time and cost. Also is 1000 years…
Yes, and if you build one, you’re almost certain to have these problems, while at the same time, tornado is almost certain to not actually hit your house.
We can, however, apply modern technics and materials when they make sense : insulation, windows, waterways... Prefer wood, wool and steel over plastics or composite materials and you're good to go.
On a side note, I'm currently buying a house (old farm) with over 200 years old plain oak carpentry. The thing is absolutely massive and would be unimaginably expensive to build today. With the proper care, it might last another 200 years without issue. Remember, Notre-Dame de Paris used 300 years old trees cut in ~1150 for its roof -before the 2019 fire-. With the proper care it would have still be standing today. I find that to be deeply humbling.
This is a very odd design document and it makes me think this author has thought a lot about materials and buildings but not actually built anything . The steel moment frame, to someone with shallow knowledge, sounds so strong and resilient . But in fact, a rigid steel structure is more vulnerable to seismic (and even wind) loads than wooden framing which can flex and move and dampen those loads naturally. The stainl…
Constructing a building that would last 1000 years is not particularly hard with modern engineering and materials. The hard part is, first and foremost, getting someone to pay for it. I'm not going to live 1000 years. My great grandkids likely won't even live to see the year 3022. Why would I spend orders of magnitude more for a house if a structure meant to last ~100 years serves my needs perfectly? My friend just n…
Isn't that merely a matter of establishing a foundation/trust fund arrangement with the explicit purpose of maintaining the building? Of course you need enough capital so that it can sustain itself indefinitely through low-risk investments, but that is just the nature of the game.