4 ms·

That's only a problem if you're building with expensive materials. Build those walls with earth and aggregate and the biggest expense is gas for the heavy equi

That's only a problem if you're building with expensive materials. Build those walls with earth and aggregate and the biggest expense is gas for the heavy equipment.

brudgers 5y ago
Land is an expensive material.
- handrous 5y ago
  So's labor, and building anything slightly odd adds even more to costs, for a bunch of reasons. Just building a standard house with somewhat upgraded R-value insulation, solar panels, and a "geothermal" heat-pump, would be a hell of a lot cheaper. Plus you'd actually be able to sell it in a normal time-frame and for a normal price, if you decide to move.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    R-value doesn't really address thermal mass issues. I live near Santa Fe, NM and given our daily temperature swings (up to 40F!) and annual variation (100F to 5F), comfortable housing here benefits from both insulation and thermal mass. Geothermal heat pumps seem less practical than air-source right now, and a 6.6kW array turns out not to be enough even with Mitsubishi units to keep out (adobe) home warm in the winter. Stud-based construction is quick and relatively quick, and might even be appropriate in the right climate. But in places like this (and many others), it's a mistake that you can ameliorate (e.g. with insulation) but cannot actually fix.
OJFord 5y ago
It also takes considerably more space, which is the most expensive common/necessary building material anyway.
- jweir 5y ago
  If you take automobiles out of the equation you will have a lot more space.
  - OJFord 5y ago
    Do you imagine that makes this suggestion more practical/likely?
    - jweir 5y ago
      It points out that we build terribly and build for the wrong things. I expect we will continue to do so and continue to make bad decisions.
- pwinnski 5y ago
  Only the outer walls would be 2 meters thick, right? So we're talking about adding less than 4 meters to the diameter of every building, which... I don't know, that doesn't seem like a ton of extra space being consumed.
  - brudgers 5y ago
    Wall area is O(n^2) not O(n). A 50x50 building with 8” CMU walls (0.2 meter) enclosed 2460m^2 floor area. With 2m walls only 2100m^2. A more dwelling sized building of say 25x10m is 246.5 versus 110m. Until I designed tract housing to with floor area targets, it was not obvious how much difference a few inches here and there made. But that’s literally how an initial design that works out around 1900sf is made to fit into the 1700sf gap in the product line…it’s not like you can lop off the kitchen.
    - pwinnski 5y ago
      I was very confused by this at first! Clearly you know what you're talking about, so I struggled a minute to walk through the math. My super-naive approach is to say: infinitely thin walls would mean 50x50=2500m^2, but having 0.2m walls would make it really 49.6x49.6=2460.16m^2, so basically what you said. 2m walls would make it 46x46=2116m^2, so again, pretty much what you said. So I don't disagree on the math, but I guess I'm not sure about how much of an issue that is, especially when other factors are considered, such as: Generally either a building has a little space to expand outward in a given direction or it's smack against another building in which case that seems like more of an interior wall, not needing to be 2m thick. Right? Maybe that's where I'm lost. Like, you're talking about a 10m wide building, but I'm thinking that a 10m wide building probably already abuts a building on each side, so no airflow there, so no need for 2m walls. Whichever sides do not abut another building, and therefore might get airflow, would need a 2m wall, but it seems likely that could happen by expanding the footprint more easily than by shrinking the interior. I'm sure there are exceptions, but am I way off-base? I might be.

That's only a problem if you're building with expensive materials. Build those walls with earth and aggregate and the biggest expense is gas for the heavy equipment.

brudgers 5y ago

Land is an expensive material.

handrous 5y ago
So's labor, and building anything slightly odd adds even more to costs, for a bunch of reasons. Just building a standard house with somewhat upgraded R-value insulation, solar panels, and a "geothermal" heat-pump, would be a hell of a lot cheaper. Plus you'd actually be able to sell it in a normal time-frame and for a normal price, if you decide to move.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  R-value doesn't really address thermal mass issues. I live near Santa Fe, NM and given our daily temperature swings (up to 40F!) and annual variation (100F to 5F), comfortable housing here benefits from both insulation and thermal mass. Geothermal heat pumps seem less practical than air-source right now, and a 6.6kW array turns out not to be enough even with Mitsubishi units to keep out (adobe) home warm in the winter. Stud-based construction is quick and relatively quick, and might even be appropriate in the right climate. But in places like this (and many others), it's a mistake that you can ameliorate (e.g. with insulation) but cannot actually fix.

OJFord 5y ago

It also takes considerably more space, which is the most expensive common/necessary building material anyway.

jweir 5y ago
If you take automobiles out of the equation you will have a lot more space.
- OJFord 5y ago
  Do you imagine that makes this suggestion more practical/likely?
  - jweir 5y ago
    It points out that we build terribly and build for the wrong things. I expect we will continue to do so and continue to make bad decisions.
pwinnski 5y ago
Only the outer walls would be 2 meters thick, right? So we're talking about adding less than 4 meters to the diameter of every building, which... I don't know, that doesn't seem like a ton of extra space being consumed.
- brudgers 5y ago
  Wall area is O(n^2) not O(n). A 50x50 building with 8” CMU walls (0.2 meter) enclosed 2460m^2 floor area. With 2m walls only 2100m^2. A more dwelling sized building of say 25x10m is 246.5 versus 110m. Until I designed tract housing to with floor area targets, it was not obvious how much difference a few inches here and there made. But that’s literally how an initial design that works out around 1900sf is made to fit into the 1700sf gap in the product line…it’s not like you can lop off the kitchen.
  - pwinnski 5y ago
    I was very confused by this at first! Clearly you know what you're talking about, so I struggled a minute to walk through the math. My super-naive approach is to say: infinitely thin walls would mean 50x50=2500m^2, but having 0.2m walls would make it really 49.6x49.6=2460.16m^2, so basically what you said. 2m walls would make it 46x46=2116m^2, so again, pretty much what you said. So I don't disagree on the math, but I guess I'm not sure about how much of an issue that is, especially when other factors are considered, such as: Generally either a building has a little space to expand outward in a given direction or it's smack against another building in which case that seems like more of an interior wall, not needing to be 2m thick. Right? Maybe that's where I'm lost. Like, you're talking about a 10m wide building, but I'm thinking that a 10m wide building probably already abuts a building on each side, so no airflow there, so no need for 2m walls. Whichever sides do not abut another building, and therefore might get airflow, would need a 2m wall, but it seems likely that could happen by expanding the footprint more easily than by shrinking the interior. I'm sure there are exceptions, but am I way off-base? I might be.