[GSBN] prefab strawbale

[RT]

On Wed, 29 Jul 2009 "John Straube" <john at buildingscience.com> wrote:

> I looked at the details and am not that impressed.

Much as I hate to agree with anyone about anything, I'd have to agree with  
WatJohn.

The modular panels certainly do not minimise the amount of materials used  
nor do they do much of anything to make the lives of the builders any  
easier.

The wood framing is not much more than excessive and not-very-Green  
packaging to facilitate transport of the straw and creates a thermal  
penalty to boot.

No sensible builder would make a wall in that fashion to accommodate  
conventional insulation materials so it makes even less sense for a  
builder who touts environmentally-responsible methods/materials to be  
doing so.

But the ModCell system especially bothers me because we know that straw  
can be precompressed into panels that are capable of loadbearing without  
the need for the inclusion of "studs" or posts and when precompressed in  
such fashion, the roof bearing assembly can be minimal so the full  
wall-width wooden members of the ModCell system are not only thermal weak  
links, they are structurally redundant as well.


=== * ===
Rob Tom
Kanata, Ontario, Canada
< A r c h i L o g i c  at  ChaffY a h o o  dot  C a >
(manually winnow the chaff from my edress in your reply)
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