[GSBN] prefab strawbale

[cmagwood at kos.net]

I think the transportation side of things would depend on the particular
case. For this project, the sand, plaster ingredients and bales all came
from the south end of the city, and our site is a few miles north of town.
So it could be argued that we actually saved on transportation by having
the three separate trucks all making the short trip to the warehouse, then
combining all the materials onto one truck for the remainder of the
journey.

The beauty of this prefab system is that it doesn't take a "factory" to
make the panels. It takes some basic construction tools and a big empty
room. If EE for transportation is a huge concern, then setting up in a
good location could actually reduce rather than increase the total, as I
think it did for us this year.

And how about the reduced EE for not needing scaffolding and all the
plaster pumping/mixing equipment that gets driven to the site? And the
workers who travel to the site over a number of days (typically 5-6 people
for 5-6 days for our crew)? We reduce all of that, too.

So the number game can, as always, go in many directions. I don't think it
goes far enough in the wrong direction to make it a deciding factor for
doing or not doing prefab.

Cheers,

Chris

> --On Thursday, July 30, 2009 7:09 AM -0400 cmagwood at kos.net wrote:
>
>> In terms of transportation... all the bales, lumber, sand and masonry
>> ingredients get shipped from a source to a job site. Whether those
>> materials come to the "factory" first, get assembled and then
>> continue on to the job site seems pretty minor.
>
> I think what you are doing is great, Chris, but I contest your
> statement above on transportation.  When materials are shipped first to
> a factory that is independent of the job site, the metaphor of the
> materials "continuing on to the job site" is misleading.  Each case
> would be different, depending on the locations of the sources, the
> factory, and the job site.  But doubling the amount of embodied energy
> due to transportation, loading and unloading, is a good average guess.
> And Bruce King recently reported that the proportional embodied energy
> of moving dense materials like earth, concrete, and sand, is very
> significant.
>
> Having the factory at the job site, as you mention, avoids this extra
> embodied energy.  I am eager to learn more about your methods.
>
> Derelict
>
> Derek Roff
> Language Learning Center
> Ortega Hall 129, MSC03-2100
> University of New Mexico
> Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
> 505/277-7368, fax 505/277-3885
> Internet: derek at unm.edu
>
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