<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif;font-size:12pt"><div><span>we are actually producing them polyurethane panels with structure embedded including all <utilities . In 3 days yo build a home and it cost 50% of conventional <onesùGiorgio</span></div><div><br></div> <div style="font-family: 'Courier New', courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div dir="ltr"> <font size="2" face="Arial"> <hr size="1"> <b><span style="font-weight:bold;">Da:</span></b> spike <spike66@att.net><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">A:</span></b> 'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org> <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Inviato:</span></b> Mercoledì 19 Dicembre 2012 8:18<br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Oggetto:</span></b> [ExI] plastic
house, was: RE: Trying for a minimum technical comment<br> </font> </div> <br>>... On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty<br><br>>>... I can imagine building homes out of big Styrofoam blocks of some<br>sort...<br><br>>...On one hand, they blow away in the first Nor'easter. On the other,<br>renovations can be done with a serrated knife and a glue gun. Mike<br>_______________________________________________<br><br>Hmmm, Styrofoam was a poor choice of words, because it reminds one of the<br>minimum density versions used in disposable picnic coolers and packing<br>material, but that isn't really what I had in mind. Rather if we had<br>stabilized cellulose which is super cheap and abundant, really not much more<br>than straw, then mixed it with polystyrene as a low cost matrix, then we mix<br>the two and pour it into a custom mold, similar to the way you do a cast<br>concrete structure, with a Freon based expanding agent to expand
the foam to<br>perhaps somewhere around 2.5 to 1. Pour, expand, trim to the proper<br>dimensions and there you have it.<br><br>The mold would be just particle board with a thin sheet of aluminum on<br>either side, so it gets its strength from the aluminum. Every meter or so<br>spacing you have some kind of thru-bolt spacer rivet, about half a cm<br>diameter steel to keep the two sheets of the mold from bowing out when you<br>pour your polystyrene/cel-fiber/foaming agent mixture between the two<br>laminate boards spaced about 10 cm apart.<br><br>There would be drawbacks to that arrangement of course. For instance, the<br>electricity and plumbing would likely need to be added after the fact and be<br>external to the structure. But not necessarily. Perhaps they could be cast<br>into the structure.<br><br>In any case, I can imagine the insulation value of such a structure would be<br>terrific. Polystyrene is a lousy
conductor of heat. Then add the fact that<br>it is a closed cell foam, and you have a good insulator. Termites will not<br>eat the stuff, can't. It will not break down from UV, because the outer<br>layer is a sheet of aluminum. Won't rust, won't oxidize much in our<br>lifetimes. So my estimate is 2 mm sheet of aluminum, cm of particle board,<br>2 mm sheet of aluminum, 10 cm of expanded polystyrene and cellulose fiber, 2<br>mm Al, cm particle board, 2 mm Al. Estimated insulation value about R30,<br>but I need to get down and do the calculations on that.<br><br>If one really likes a traditional-looking house, we can suppose putting<br>stucco on the outside, if we attached some wire lattice.<br><br>spike<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>extropy-chat mailing list<br><a ymailto="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org"
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