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<font face="Arial">Hello David and all involved in this Big News!<br>
<br>
also our greatest congratulations and our deepest respect for your
work and vision<br>
<br>
on behalf of <br>
<br>
- Casa Calida and strawbalers in Belgium<br>
<br>
- the strawbale networkers all over Europe, who certainly will be
inspired by your news<br>
<br>
- the partners France, Spain, England, Germany, Slovakia and
Belgium, united in a EU funded project Leonardo, in which we are
working for a best building practice for SBBuilding and evaluation
method on the different SB techniques, just to make a good base to
go for a European strawbale code in the future! We will be extra
motivated to go on with this work, knowing that you are doing
these important steps in the US, that will have his effect on SB
elsewhere!<br>
<br>
Big hug<br>
Gigi<br>
Belgium<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</font><br>
Op 17/08/2010 7:13, <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:strawnet@aol.com">strawnet@aol.com</a> schreef:
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cite="mid:8CD0BE20105A752-58C-8647@webmail-d001.sysops.aol.com"
type="cite">
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<div> <span> Hello al l,</span> <br>
<br>
<div><span>I want share some great news.
Earlier today, here in Chicago, Martin Hammer's
"comment"/proposal to
include the strawbale code he’s been working on over the
past few years in
California into the new International Green Construction
Code (IgCC) was
approved by a committee vote of 8 to 6! The IgCC is the new
US code for
commercial (and high-rise residential) buildings that will
become part of the
family of 2012 International Codes (I-codes). It will go
through a full code
development cycIe with the rest of the 2012 I-codes next
year and there is work
that will need to be done still to make sure it doesn’t get
rejected in that
process, but getting it into the second public draft of the
code now is a very
big step forward. </span></div>
<div><span> </span></div>
<div><span>I served on the drafting
committee for this code from last summer through the spring
of this year. For
more information about the IgCC and to download the whole
IgCC first public
draft and the comments – including Martin’s proposals for
strawbale and earthen
building and the EcoNest comment in support of straw clay go
here: </span></div>
<div><span><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.iccsafe.org/cs/IGCC/Pages/default.aspx">http://www.iccsafe.org/cs/IGCC/Pages/default.aspx</a>
</span></div>
<div><span><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.iccsafe.org/CS/IGCC/Pages/Comments0810.aspx">http://www.iccsafe.org/CS/IGCC/Pages/Comments0810.aspx</a>
</span></div>
<div><span>You’ll find these listed as
comments 5-134, 5-135 and 5-136.<br>
<br>
</span></div>
<div><span>I was the only proponent
speaking in favor of it here, and there were others who
spoke in opposition. The
initial motion was to disapprove but it failed 5 votes to 9
after considerable
and very mixed discussion – which surprised me because of
the nature of some of
the comments – that it was still not ready and needed some
technical fixes. </span></div>
<div><span> </span></div>
<div><span>The failure of the motion to
disapprove required a new motion and Chris Mathis, an old
building science
friend from North Carolina, offered a motion for approval.
That was followed by
more discussion, with more concerns expressed that it wasn't
ready. Then, just
before the second vote, Chris pressed the committee to push
the envelope. He
said they should approve it and get it in, and rather than
just having the few
people who are very knowledgeable about it work on improving
the things that
still need to be done, “Let thousands of people look at it
and help improve it through
the next round of the code development process!” He said it
was time to start
pushing these things through. Then they voted - and it
passed 8 to 6! I was amazed
and delighted! So it is going into the second public draft!
</span></div>
<div><span> </span></div>
<div><span>There were two other similar proposals
(they’re called “comments”) that were heard right before the
strawbale comment.
The first, from Paula Baker Laport and Robert Laport
proposed including the
straw clay guidelines from New Mexico. Next was the other
submitted by Martin,
that one in support of earthen construction based on the new
ASTM standard for
earthen wall systems that I had initiated almost 10 years
ago and Bruce King
has spearheaded over the past few years. I spoke in support
of both, but they
were disapproved, though both received encouraging
suggestions to bring them
forward again after addressing non-mandatory/permissive
language and other
issues. </span></div>
<div><span> </span></div>
<div><span>Because they were heard one
after the other, and I was the only proponent for them, I
got to speak first
for each one and so I had a total of 6 minutes (2 minutes
each) to frame them
all in terms of the big issues I’ve been speaking to for all
these years,
including the coming challenges of ever-more limited and
expensive energy, the
low-impact, low-tech, climate beneficial, local/regional
benefits, the
industrial/proprietary bias and difficulty in funding
research, testing and
development for public domain, non-proprietary materials and
systems. I started
off by talking about the fact that I had been in buildings
in Europe built with
materials like straw clay and earth that are twice as old as
this country! And
to say that these are durable and safe ways of building when
done properly. And
when talking about the ASTM earthen standard, I said that if
they looked at it
they might think that it was too low tech to be reasonable
compared to the
standards that they’re used to for concrete and other
industrial materials.
But, I said, It was intentionally low tech. That I was
involved in initiating
that standard almost ten years ago and it was both to enable
the use of those
materials here and to reverse the outlawing of earthen
building in developing
countries through the adoption of modern industrial codes.
That it was designed
to enable people to build safe, durable, healthy, and
affordable buildings anywhere
in the world—including the in United States. I mentioned
that the committee
that developed that standard included the leading experts on
earthen building
and engineering from around the world and was based on
reviewing and
incorporating the best from international codes and
standards for earthen building. </span></div>
<div><span> </span></div>
<div><span>After the first two went
down, I was quite convinced because of the comments that the
sb proposal would
share the same fate and, thankfully, I was wrong! </span></div>
<div><span> </span></div>
<div><span>So hats off to Martin, Bruce,
Matts, and many others who have worked so long and hard to
develop these codes
and to Chris Mathis for his leadership and visionary action
on the committee. </span></div>
<div><span> </span></div>
<div><span>Onward! </span></div>
<div><span> </span></div>
<div><span>David Eisenberg </span></div>
</div>
<span> </span>
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