Re: SB: Re: Re:360 reasons to build with SB

[Sebastian Gunner <sebg@optushome.com.au>]

on 24/2/01 6:16 PM, Bill Hunt at billhunt@redrock.net wrote:

> 
> 
>>>  If you're in a warm climate adobe could make more sense than SB.
> 
> [Hi Sebastian (who wrote, in part)]-
>> I wouldn't have thought so.  Adobe is has a thermal mass as a result it
>> heats up.  At night in summer in most parts of Aus it gets cool again.
> 
> These are conditions where adobe has worked well for thousands of years. If
> it gets cool at night, hot in the day, the thermal mass averages it out.
> Strawbale can work well too, as the Steens have been showing. Depends on
> the locally available materials, and what you want to do, I suppose.

There are stretches days of hot weather in Aus that blow off the desert.
Nights not getting below 30šC.  Closing doors and window drawing curtains
etc do a lot to keep the house cool but with the mainstream housing a house
will build up heat in the walls and radiate that inside.  Straw Bale is less
prone to such unwanted re-radiation.

> Strawbales generally require fossil fuel powered balers, whereas adobe and
> cob have a very ancient tradition, and really epitomize environmentally
> friendly construction in many ways.

The irony is there are alternatives to these machines being powered by
fossil fuels they are only measured economically in terms of the cost of
getting fossil fuel out of the ground or Opec's current pricing policy.  If
we were restricted to use fossil fuels at a sustainable rate, that is the
rate at which oil is created then it would be a lot more expensive and
vegetable oil, ethanol and other sustainable alternatives would be in the
market place.  We will not see these until oil is more expensive.  When it
is, issues such as energy savings through insulation will be beyond 50R.
Oil would then be reserved for things where only fossil oil can be used (I
can't think what but we certainly wouldn't be squandering the million year
old treasure on creating carbon)
> Many native american earthen dwellings have melted back into the earth,
> leaving no trace of their presence.
We are in a modern world.  If the solution cannot be woven into the fabric
of mainstream society then it will remain an idea.  The potential of Straw
Bale systems is that not only can they be mainstreamed but they also allow
for the involvement of a community should that community be able to be
involved.  Those in the rat race are at a handy cap if participating in
environmentally friendly building practices requires their personal
participation to make it economically viable.  The fact is that oil is being
burnt everyday.  Of that oil that is burnt today how much is going towards
burning less tomorrow?  A purist approach will not build a sustainable
future because energy needs to be spent on shifting our energy dependency
from unsustainable to sustainable.
I love the sentiment and I applaud it but we have to move much quicker than
trying to make 4 billion people appreciate a natural way.  For most people
this is not currently or foreseeable a self expression.  The only way any of
this will make a difference to the mainstream is when it saves people money
at least in the long run.  Then they can justify it to the bank manager and
then it can get built.  Whether we (who think we are justified in making
most of the planet wrong because they don't see it our way:) ) think people
should abandon there lifestyles for a better way or not makes no difference
to the fact that, to do that, they need the blessing of there conventional
world.  Land money to pay bills rates etc.
Beyond all of those considerations there is a lack of generosity and a
stingyness about the valid forms of human self expression in terms of
lifestyle and living that creeps in from time to time.  It is full of a
blind arrogance and lack of imagination that is simply alienating.  It also
is testament to a closed mind and a enclave mentality that doesn't included
the whole world only the world we personally endorse or admire to make a
difference we need to keep finding way to include people.

:-)

-- 
Sebastian Gunner

There is no "the truth" there is perhaps only distance, time and form

PO Box 203
FAIRFIELD VIC 3078
AUSTRALIA
sebg@optushome.com.au